1. Comment on the bake-off assignment and implementation plan followed by Gillette.

The bake-off assignment:

Introduction:
BBDO to compete with AMES to cook up a breakthrough advertising campaign for Dry Idea
Stress was given on the need for a better brand personality
It essentially highlighted the importance and commitment Gillette showed to the product
The confusion surrounding the brands creative crisis was considered urgent matter
The form extension results for Dry Idea were provided in detail

Advertisement campaigns:
BBDO: Never Never
AMES: Body at Work and Get Together

Expected results from the Bake-off assignment:
Remodelling of the strategic business plan
Development of a new break-through advertising campaign
Form concept testing with the help of a strong candidate

Benefits of Bake-off assignment over a sole BBDO assignment:

Competition was expected to get the best out of both the agencies
The existing lack of effective advertising was to be tackled through instructing the agencies
to develop a new creative and assisting it with an effective campaign
Gillette have instructed both the agencies to develop a new strategic business plan following
a fixed direction
Form extension through of a new solid advertising plan was planned, since roll-ons market
share was declining

Implementation plan by Gillette

The implementation plan consisted of four major phases and was expected to run for six months i.e.
till April, 1984


Brand orientation
for agencies
participating inthe
bake-off
Agencies were
asked to work
independently on
the assignment
A joint plan to be
made after both
the agencies made
presentations to
Gillette seperately
Consumer testing
of thenew dry idea
advertising
Comments of the Implementation plan:

Since Gillette was looking into form extension the concept of evaluating the two agencies on
test vehicles for which the scores or old dry idea campaigns were available is debatable.
Rather evaluating both the campaigns against each other would have resulted in better
results
The difference in the approach followed by both BBDO and Ames can be explained by the
fact that both the agencies were given similar brand orientation by Gillette. The right
approach would have involved providing AMES with a much detailed orientation plan since
they were new to this project. This explains the reserved and unauthoritative approach of
AMES versus the more personal approach shown by BBDO