Poseidon Twirls Tiny Trident To Prove Thickness Of Kaló Authentic Greek Yoghurt

Meadow Fresh and McCann New Zealand have brought Poseidon and his “mediocre fork-spinning tricks” out of the ocean and into Kiwi homes, in the latest chapter of the ‘Craving Real?’ platform for Kaló Authentic Greek Yoghurt.

Choosing the Greek God of the Sea came about “sort of by accident,” Matt Williams, creative director at McCann New Zealand, told LBB.

“The creative team stumbled onto the realisation that Kaló was so thick it could be eaten with a fork. Once again, a bit of at home research proved to be the big unlock moment. We wrote a whole bunch of different scripts to bring that to life, but quickly, the one with Poseidon in it floated to the top.

“We had an authentic Greek yoghurt you could eat on a fork, and suddenly, an authentic Greek god who had a fork to eat it with. As silly it seems, casting Poseidon felt like the most sensible thing to do.”

With humour front and centre, the film turns away from traditional depictions of Poseidon, instead setting him in a supermarket alongside Leo, a worker who is more interested in the yoghurt than the awkward deity in front of him.

Torstein Bjørklund, director at Good Oil, told LBB the casting was essential for this spot, and a “highlight” for him.

“We really wanted Poseidon to feel like a God out of water, like he was from another place, not just a New Zealander in a cape. Often in comedy, the recipe is one strange character and one normal one, but here we were allowed to have two strange ones. And we got to watch them trading punches, which was a lot of fun.”

Proving the product can actually be eaten with a fork, the spot features a close up shot of Poseidon twirling a tiny trident laden with yogurt around his fingers. Torstein laughed that “finding a ‘fork spinner’ stand-in was a challenge!”

“We had a drummer, but he was simply too good – we felt the trick needed to look a little dorky, like a bored 12-year-old showing off in maths class. It got to the point where I thought I might have to step up, so I spent my jet-lagged nights trying to learn it myself.

“Luckily, our actor had a colleague from his day job who could actually do it, he'd learnt it in maths class! We managed to get one single take of him making the yoghurt fork do the full journey through all fingers, and that take is the one in the edit.”

Product demo campaigns often result in a brand being tightly-aligned to the category, and while Matt said, “as a team, we love to keep the product at the heart of what we do,” he added, “done the right way, a product demo doesn’t need to feel like the category at all, but quite the opposite.”

“It just needs to be done in a new and surprising way. An insecure Greek god with a tiny fork, doing mediocre fork-spinning tricks, felt like an interesting way to do that.”

Following Omnicom’s acquisition ofIPG late last year, DDB and FCB NZ merged to become McCann NZ, creating a 320-person agency led by co-CEOs Priya Patel and Paul Wilson.

With the team now working under the one roof in the formerly DDB offices, Matt added of McCann’s creative momentum, “We’re loving all the new opportunities that are happening with way more brains in the room. It’s early days but it’s an exciting time for all of us.”

Recently, in their first interview as co-CEOs, Priya and Paul told LBB the new agency promises to be greater than the sum of its parts. Paul said, “If it doesn’t feel like a step forward, we haven’t done our job. McCann isn’t a nostalgia project. The lens is broader and the standard is higher. If there’s a difference now, that’s it.”