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Ronseal's 'It does exactly what it says on the tin' advertising campaign

The advertising
Ronseal's 'It does exactly what it says on the tin' advertising is a long-running, successful campaign whose slogan has even been incorporated into everyday English usage - a rare example of real consumer involvement. This particular execution concentrated on the long-lasting nature of the product's end-result ('it lasts for five years').

The TNS view
Whilst this campaign appears, at first sight, to be successful mainly as a result of clear communication of a highly rational product benefit, we felt this was being underpinned by motivating communication at a much more subtle, emotional level.
The TNS copy testing solution, AdEvalTM, is ideal for eliciting and explaining both rational and emotional communication in advertising, as well as its impact on the brand.

What we did
We carried out an AdEvalTM test amongst male and female DIY'ers in January 2007 i.e. long after the ad was first aired - which matters less when the focus is on the impact on the brand.

Involvement & motivation
In spite of the age of both this execution and the campaign in general, this advertising was amongst the most involving and motivational of all the advertising we have tested. As expected, the key claim of 'lasts for years' was strongly communicated.

Impact on brand positioning
As well as communicating the rational benefits of the brand, the advertising portrayed Ronseal as having a popular, affiliative personality, with undertones of caring and competence. Our study showed further that this perfectly meets the needs consumers have when considering brands in this market - it's just what they're looking for, albeit sub-consciously.

TNS added insight
Even the most obviously product benefit oriented advertising can be reinforced by relevant emotive message communication.

The existing high level of motivation of this campaign could be driven further, or at the very least maintained, by future executions including messages relating to ease of application of the product and/or its capacity for saving consumers money (e.g. from its longer-lasting nature).