I like to describe myself as ‘concentrated’: a (fairly) normal human being packaged in a slightly smaller box. Perhaps that’s why this week’s ad of the week particularly caught my eye.
The idea of distilling products into little and more potent packs is one that’s been used by a number of brands, particularly with fruit squashes where you can now get as much as 5x concentrate in a bottle barely bigger than a coffee cup.
Robinsons has gone one better with Squash’d, using wordplay for a brand name that represents both the fruit concentrate and the concentration of the liquid. The squeezy pod of super-concentrated squash can apparently make up to 20 drinks, and is pocket sized for juice on the move.
Parent company Britvic has been working on the ‘pocket squash’ category for some time now, and is also trying to move away from the typical image of concentrated squashes as ‘drinks for kids’.
It’s a really nice idea, especially for today’s hurried, busy workers and families – and the name seems to have been liberally squished to match. The use of a typeface with a small apostrophe, and the incredibly tight kerning, give the impression that the ‘e’ popped out of the word when pressed, never to be seen again.
Stylised as SQUASH’D in brash all caps, technically the use of the apostrophe here is a contraction (replacing the ‘e’) and should therefore be correct. That combination of full capital lettering and the unusual placement of the apostrophe will either feel like a breath of fresh air or an annoyance, depending on what type of person you are.
We do think that Robinsons has maybe missed a trick in not extending the apostrophe style to the flavour names. ‘Apple & Blackcurrant’ and ‘Orange & Peach’ are just crying out for ‘n’ to replace that ampersand, and we’re sure that ‘Summer Fruits’ has a few vowels too many.
As always, if you’ve seen some cracking copywriting in an ad this week then let us know about it. Leave a comment or tweet @strattoncraig with some ideas (even if they do contain apostrophes).
