The regional, television-led campaign for Double A paper parodies formulaic shampoo commercials. It continues the humorous advertising tone the company has employed since it stepped up above-the-line activities for the brand in the last two years.
Agro Asia executive vice-president for marketing, Charnvit Jarusombathi, said the advertising's wacky tone was intentional because paper was a low-interest category.
Charvit claimed the company's main competitors - Hewlett-Packard, Fuji and Xerox - had low awareness levels because they rarely advertised. Against this backdrop, he said Double A's branding investment of the last two years was paying off, allowing it to dominate the market.
Charnvit claimed brand awareness ranging from 70 to 97 per cent in the four markets where it is sold. The brand is available in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
The commercial opens with a woman standing at a photocopying machine, stroking her hair while she waits for a print-out.
She notices dandruff, and a male TV presenter-type character appears with a bottle of shampoo in hand. The presenter tells the woman that "scalp is like a piece of jammed paper with no natural nutrients".
The presenter is stopped in mid-sentence as the woman has a fit because the machine has jammed yet again.
J. Walter Thompson, which has Double A's account in Asia, said the creative was based on "paper jams driving people crazy".
"Everybody is used to seeing shampoo commercials that look the same.
We have made use of that, had some fun and also made our point about no jam, said Norman Tan, JWT's Southeast Asia executive creative director.
Tan said the campaign focused on Double A's functional "no paper jam" benefit to differentiate itself from rivals.
Advance Agro's research found that paper jams were one of three concerns users had with copying paper.
The six-month campaign launched in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, with Taiwan scheduled to start in January 2003.
The supporting print campaign features images of screaming office workers superimposed onto giant balls of crumpled paper.
Double A has also kicked off a direct mail trade campaign to encourage distributors and vendors to stock the brand.
In contrast, its rival Fuji Xerox said the company relied on direct mail campaigns to market its copying paper.
A spokesman for Fuji Xerox in Singapore said the company did not allocate funds for advertising, although its supplier - April Fine Paper - ran print ads in local dailies on its behalf.
