Burt’s Bees focuses on flavors in first TV ad
Lip balms, as the names of some products make clear, were marketed to treat ailments.
ChapStick, introduced around 1912, was for chapped lips; and Blistex, introduced in 1947, was for sores and blisters.
Olympic skier Suzy Chaffee, who in the 1970s referred to herself as Suzy Chapstick in hard-to-forget commercials for the brand, pitched the product from ski slopes to heal cracked lips and protect against wind and cold.
Now, Burt’s Bees is introducing TV commercials — the first for the 30-year-old personal-care brand — that highlight its flavors more than its moisturizers.
The new commercial opens with two bees flying while holding each end of the brand’s signature yellow container. Inside is the original peppermint-flavored lip balm, which was introduced in 1984.
The bees drop the product, the cap pops off, and a parachute of mint opens.
The scene continues with a cornucopia of other foods tied to flavors. A tube of wild cherry lip balm tips over, for example, and cherries spill out.
The commercial closes with the tag line: “Uncap Flavor.”
Print ads follow the theme, with a honey-flavored tube of lip balm, for example, holding a butterfly net made of honeycomb and in pursuit of butterflies formed from two wedges of mango that fly out of a tube of the mango flavor.
The campaign is by Baldwin& of Raleigh, N.C, the agency of record for Burt’s Bees.
Founded in Maine in 1984, Burt’s Bees is now based in Durham, N.C., and owned by the Clorox Co.
“Lip balm is becoming something more like a gum product that brightens up consumers’ day,” said Tad Kittredge, associate director of marketing at Burt’s Bees.
Meanwhile, Burt Shavitz, 79, who co-founded the company, lives much as he always has, in a house in rural Maine that has no running hot water.
As for the milestone of the brand’s first TV commercial, it will not be playing in his living room. Shavitz does not own a television.