#crusha

The Artistocrusha

Crusha is a brand of milkshake mix, which recently started selling desserts as part of its range. It may be a surprise that Crusha dates back to 1955, when it was managed by British Sugar. The branding that you may associate with Crusha didn’t come about, however, until late 2001 when it came under the control of a British Sugar subsidiary: Silver Spoon. British Sugar, which has been owned by Associated British Foods since 1991, effectively owns all the sugar produced in the United Kingdom.

Over the next two years, Silver Spoon worked to redevelop the Crusha brand in order to appeal to a new audience. This included a new logo and the adoption of cats as the brand mascot, despite most adult cats being lactose intolerant.

Crusha in Boots

In 2003, the first advert for the revitalised Crusha was released. The mastermind behind this eye-catching advert was Joel Veitch of RealGood, a web animator and singer-song writer, who has been responsible for several high-profile pieces of work including the 2012 animated television special Uncle Wormsley’s Christmas.

The advert is a story of mixed success. Later in 2003, the same year the advert was released, Crusha became involved in a scandal when it’s owners discovered that a batch of faulty Crusha milkshakes had gone out to retailers. Instead of notifying the retailer, Tesco, British Sugar decided to send workers into the store and buy as many of the 580 affected bottles as they could. Tesco realised what was happening and removed the stock, creating a negative press story that undid some of the advert’s impact.

To add insult to injury, the advert was eventually banned from British television by Ofcom in 2004 after several people attempted to recreate the advert with real cats. One man was ultimately arrested for the mistreatment of animals. That didn’t stop Crusha putting out an additional advert by Veitch in 2008, this time with the cats in a gym. Eventually the brand moved away from the visual style of Veitch’s work, but the cat has remained a feature in all their adverts; fully animated since 2014.

Veitch’s animations were so popular in the 2000s, that after Coca Cola recreated aspects of his work – for a 2007 advert that ran in Argentina – he launched a lawsuit against the company. They eventually reached a settlement. Coca Cola had used his band’s song Ninja in a video full of kittens. Not exactly a subtle rip-off.

The Crusha King

Compared to the technical complexities that went into creating Cadbury’s Gorilla advert, which we explored earlier in this series, the process for making the Crusha Kittens advert was relatively straightforward. After all, no one had to travel across the world to find the right gorilla costume. Crusha Kittens wasn’t a major production, so why does it have such a lasting legacy? The advert regularly makes the lists of iconic British adverts and the song lives in the memories of many early noughties children.

Mental Music

The last two adverts broken down in the Advert Alchemy series, Gorilla and The Little Duckling, used existing music in their videos. Crusha Kittens, however, features an original song. It’s a short song, only four lines total, yet it has the overwhelming power of an earworm – guaranteed to make you sing “I want some Crusha” for days on end.

Since the video opens with several cats holding instruments, including an accordion, music was essential to the plot. Since the advert is aimed at children – who will convince their parents to buy the product – the song also had to be simple enough for them to memorise and Veitch definitely delivered when he composed this doozy.

Cute Cat

Even if you’re too young to remember the early days of the internet, scrolling through any social media platform in this day and age will prove this to be true: kittens are always cute. The Crusha Kittens advert predates the cat memes that society has grown to love in the 2020s, but even in 2003 it was well known that children like animals, and cats are a type of animal.

While none of the animals in the video are emphasised for cuteness (in fact some people state the cows gave them nightmares), by adding anthropomorphic features like holding instruments and wearing hats, and singing in an unexpectedly deep voice, the creators of this advert definitely understood the audience they were targeting: kids.

Ancient Animation

In a world of apps that deliver top-quality and relatively inexpensive video production tools, the Crusha Kittens advert may seem terribly outdated. Like something that was mocked up on Photoshop and Microsoft Paint. But to audiences in 2003, that was the beauty of the advert.

Crusha Kittens ran during the 4pm to 6pm timeslot, most popular with advertisers targeting a child audience. In 2003, Crusha Kittens was typically airing between Capri Sun and Nickelodeon adverts. Their competitors were producing live-action or 2D animated videos. Crusha Kittens stood out because it didn’t use this format, and it made something that could be recreated by people at home.

Content Worth Gold

What do you think? What made Crusha Kittens so successful? Watch the full advert below and let us know in the comments.