Nude ironing isn’t generally recommended, unless you’re trying to win an Xtreme Ironing competition. But Meridian, its new agency Barnes Catmur and spokesman Jeremy Wells have decided to embrace it.
Running with the line ‘Jeremy Irons thanks to Meridian’ and featuring a strategically placed appliance a la Austin Powers, the promotion is based on a big dirty pun (fittingly, British actor Jeremy Irons’ back catalogue also features a fair amount of birthday suiting). This follows on from Barnes Catmur’s first campaign to promote Meridian’s moving house offer of a welcome pack worth $50 (no iron included) and $150 off their bill, which saw Wells become a literal embodiment of the brand and get rolled in plastic (thankfully, it was slightly less violating than the plastic wrapping from the famous Target parody on Eating Media Lunch).
The ad has run in print and online and Meridian is also running some old material that’s been re-voiced with an extra shot of Wells being mesmerised by his dryer and preparing to unsheath his iron.
But why use renewable energy for manual ironing when you could use electricity for automatic ironing?
According to Siemens, the average person spends eight minutes ironing a shirt. So it invented the ‘dressmann’, which “irons completely on its own … can ‘freshen up’ jackets that have not been worn for a while, and can actually dry a freshly washed blouse”. Not surprisingly, it’s quite pricey.
There’s also the Tubie, which is based on a similar idea and, according to the Mail, costs around 30 times the price of a regular iron.
But our favourite option for ironing haters (Siemens also says it’s a man’s most-hated chore) is Swash, the dry cleaning machine that fits in your closet.
A joint venture between Proctor and Gamble and Whirlpool, Swash taps into the idea of rewearing, which is gathering steam as people start to realise you generally don’t need to wash your clothes after one wear.
According to Wikipedia, Meridian, which is the country’s biggest renewable generator and generates around 30 percent of the country’s electricity, has increased its retail market share from 12 percent in 2003 to 14 percent last year, placing it fourth on the list behind Contact, Genesis and Mighty River.
Over the past few years, Nielsen AIS figures, which are based on ratecard value, show Meridian has been the biggest spender among the energy companies, almost $3 million ahead of its nearest competitor Mercury. It increased its spend by around $2 million between 2012 and 2013.
