Engine takes the sweet pee out of The Brand Shop

When The Brand Shop were last on The Gruen Transfer the agency was tasked with making plastic bags popular again, as part of the show's ‘The Pitch’ segment.

“That was scary enough,” said The Brand Shop’s creative director Monty Noble, “this time they took things to a whole new level and asked us to create a spot to sell bottled urine”.

According to Noble being on The Gruen Transfer is more than just a creative exercise. “Believe it or not it really makes the whole team perform and galvanises the agency. It also brings advertising into the limelight, helping people understand exactly what we do,” he says.

Unbeknownst to the viewing audience the agencies are given two weeks to come up with the TVC from scratch after taking the brief.

Noble explained: “We did lots of brainstorming and research on selling the unsellable looking for a positive spin. Everyone in the agency was encouraged to put in ideas and suggest anything that might be relevant. It’s amazing what comes out of this process -- for example did you know that Ghandi drank his own urine or that a plan is in place to sell sacred cows’ urine in India?"

"With all the ideas and research on the table Taz Bearham, our Head of Planning, then moderated a session to identify attitudes, possible targets and a product name,” he added.

The Brand Shop went through its usual process, uncovering some key issues.

“The main ones were how we could get around the stigmas of colour, taste and smell. We decided that the best route was a nature’s medicine approach – like a Royal Jelly tonic or wheatgrass shot," said Noble.

"Before these were discovered the prospect wasn’t really that palatable but when people found out how good they were for them they began to be perceived very differently.

"Then we looked at where the urine would come from, Tibetan monks and other pure vegetarians from the Himalayas were considered before we settled on nature’s pharmacy – the Amazonian Rainforest, renowned home of natural disease killers and health enhancers.

"We could see an angle that would appeal to young women and health conscious males, just like V or Vitamin Water does. All we needed was the perfect animal and what’s more perfect than a butterfly?”

After immersing themselves into the urinary habits of butterflies The Brand Shop found what Noble calls ‘the money shot’.

“It was of a butterfly in a Brazilian wildlife sanctuary squirting a clear urine. Brilliant. We then finalised the scripts, had an interesting angle and the most divine species -- which only feeds on nectar and delicate plants -- producing the most natural excretion to be sold.

"All we needed now was a name and a tagline and we came up with ‘Sweet Pee. Nature’s Number 1’. After avoiding all the other obvious puns we thought we’d take the piss with this one.”

At that point Noble and his team contacted Engine’s executive producer Adam Wells to discuss how the facility could help with the spot.

Noble continued: “We needed a facility with a great team who could help us put all of this together and make it interesting enough for family television. Engine were ideal and we immediately got to work with Adam, producers Amelia Peacocke and Hayley Houlton and compositor and editor Brendon Killen."

"We collated some live footage and stock shots with Engine helping us get all our clearances. Then we went to the Australian Wildlife World butterfly enclosure to shoot some additional footage and although the lenses got a bit foggy due to the humidity, the butterflies’ wranglers helped us get some great images which included a butterfly actually resting on the pack shot.”

The Brand Shop’s Sweet Pee – Nature’s Number 1 TVC aired on ABC1’s The Gruen Transfer on July 14, 2010 and won ‘The Pitch’.