Proof is in the Prince for Ogilvy & Mather Paris

When you think of a biscuit brand, you don’t naturally think of its history and heritage, but that’s the route Ogilvy & Mather Paris had to take when tackling a brief set by French snack brand Mondelez. Tasked with a challenge to modernise its Prince cookie product – the leading biscuit in France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands – the creative team had to think back almost 90 years when considering its origins. The result is a wonderfully animated campaign for TV and online introducing a whole cast of entertaining characters in a medieval world called Princeland.

The new marketing push needed to generate a stronger engagement with the consumer and audience, as well as seek to strengthen mothers’ trust in the product and with this in mind, a new version of the campaign’s main protagonist, Prince, first introduced in 1926, was created.

Launching an action-packed and entertaining TVC to lead the new campaign, an interactive website is also part of the branded entertainment and Ogilvy wanted to gain and hold the attention of not just mothers and children, but entire families, with the new assets, and the spectrum of different character personalities was key to tapping in to different interests and tones.

There’s Rick, the dashing, strong guy who is scared of spiders; Lily, the pretty girl, dressed and ready for all situations; Zig & Zag, the twin boys often too full of imagination; Joe, who’s not afraid of anything, except opening her heart; and Barry, the loveable Kung Fu master with a soft side. Plus there's Moustachio, the constant threat… the conceited and self-loving villain in the story.

Another reason the host of characters is being introduced in the campaign is that the Prince had to break a former image of being untouchable and perfect. Rather, the Prince has a mission to train the next generation to become future prince and princesses, according to Ogilvy.

Of course, modernising a brand in a medieval world would naturally have its challenges, so how did the agency address this? Apparently by creating something known as a 'medieval-contemporary world’… “A medieval-contemporary universe is at the crossroads of the Middle Ages and our modern world, combining elements of both worlds: wood, stone walls, scrap metal and swords along with smartphones, bike stations and penthouses...” explain the creative team, led by creative director Chris Garbutt, CCO at Ogilvy & Mather Paris. “In the Princeland Universe, Lily has a smartphone but hers is made of wood of course. And when she wants to send a message from her phone, little birds appear to deliver her text: ‘OMG’.”

Ogilvy worked on the campaign with production partner Cube Creative Paris with hopes of delivering the best product it possibly could in terms of animation. “If our ultimate goal was to play in the field of major animation studios, we had to go through a creative process that is similar to the way they work, so we went looking for partners who come from this universe,” Levron states.

The campaign will now see two commercials roll out in France, Belgium and Holland, as well as more content planned for the coming weeks and months, but the platform has been set for consumers to begin to understand the starting point for the new Prince’s future adventures.

“A project like this one is a constant enjoyment. It is also a very demanding task to bring together the hundreds of people that work on it on a daily basis – it took us over a year to develop the first elements of the campaign,” they conclude.

But it’ll be worth it, as the agency is set on creating even deeper engagement with mothers and their children in the coming months and to further narrate the adventures of the Prince and his team with longer format video content as well as a new gaming platform.

Above you can watch an insightful making-of video that shows how the Princeland universe was created around the new Prince, and how the team at Ogilvy developed the concept.