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Daikin and Sugar & Partners sell air purity by playing on the protective streak of new parents

When people look back on the great heatpump wars of the noughties and 2010s/teenies/tenties/tenners, they will presumably think of rugby players on walls, cricket players cracking dad jokes on couches or slightly sinister bald men. Daikin farewelled Dan Carter as an ambassador earlier this year but attempted to maintain the humour in its follow up effort. But now it has switched its approach and, in a new Australasian brand campaign via Sugar & Partners and Robber’s Dog, is focusing on emotions rather than technology.  

Shot by Chris Dudman, the 30 second brand ad focuses on new parents and features Roberta Flack’s ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, the first time the song has been licensed for use in Australasia. And creative director Dave Nash says the line ‘the best air anywhere’ is all about “putting clear air between us and the competition with [Daikin’s] leadership status as the world’s number one heat pump manufacturer [it has 40 percent of the market in Japan and has a presence in eight regional markets around the world]”.

“It really taps into a moment in life when people start to truly think about the purity of their surroundings – the birth of a child,” he says. And while joint creative director Damon O’Leary says the choice of families and babies may seem a little obvious, it’s actually “wildly different for the category which focuses on technology, rather than making an emotional connection”. 

The 30 second brand ad is supported by a series of 15 second product focused spots that also focus on babies, with wider digital and dealer comms rolling out throughout the year. The campaign went to air in Australia last week and will be on TV and online in New Zealand during summer and throughout 2016. Nash says it was a conscious decision to create something that could be licensed to work in different markets around the world and as the protective parental instinct is universal, it certainly has the potential to do that.  

Credits:

Sugar&Partners:

CREATIVE DIRECTORS: Dave Nash and Damon O’Leary

MANAGING PARTNER: Jeremy Johnson

ART DIRECTOR: Dave Nash

COPYWRITER: Damon O’Leary

PRODUCER: Esther Watkins

PLANNER: Thinza Mon

GROUP ACCT DIRECTOR: Julianne Hastings

ACCOUNT MANAGER: Dan Hughes

Robbers Dog:

DIRECTOR: Chris Dudman

PRODUCER: Anna Stuart

DOP: Ginny Loane

ART DIRECTOR:  Rick Kofoed

Blockhead:

OFFLINE/EDITOR: Sam Brunette

ONLINE/EDITOR: Leon Wood

GRADE/EDITOR: Claire Burlinson

Frd/Coopers:

SOUND: Jon Cooper

MUSIC RIGHTS: Jonathan Hughes

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