Сherkashin. Choice - Ad Analysis
AI Editor notes
Straight from the gut!!
“Finally, a sausage ad with a personality. Instead of the usual happy family at a picnic, we get a full-blown acid trip into a man's subconscious. Is a desert oasis made of salami actually going to sell sausage? Who knows, but I'll remember it. This is bold, bizarre, and feels like it was made for the internet, not a 7 PM TV slot. For a sausage brand, it's got guts.”
Quick Summary
This ad transforms the mundane, everyday choice between two types of sausage into a surreal, psychedelic journey through the senses. By visualizing the abstract feelings each product evokes—one a hot desert, the other a calm cosmos—it makes a simple commodity product feel epic and memorable. The core message is that with Cherkashin, any choice is the right one, positioning the brand as the default, no-lose option in a crowded category.
Executive Summary
This Cherkashin commercial is a masterclass in how to make a low-interest product category feel exciting and culturally relevant. It rejects the tired industry tropes of happy families and picnic tables, instead diving deep into the surreal, sensory experience of food. The core insight is simple yet powerful: the choice of what to eat isn't just a logical decision, but a journey into our own minds, filled with rich associations of taste, texture, and temperature.
The execution follows a classic Setup-Turn-Payoff structure. The Setup (0:00-0:06) grounds us in a mundane reality: a man in a kitchen is asked by his partner to choose between two types of sausage. It’s a relatable, low-stakes problem. The Turn (0:07-0:40) is where the creative idea explodes. The ad pivots from the external world to the man's internal subconscious, dramatizing the choice as a psychedelic trip. This isn't just a visual gag; it’s a strategic personification of the product attributes. The smoked 'Servelat' sausage becomes a hot, intense, Mad Max-style desert world, complete with a vulture and a man being fanned by salami—a clever way to communicate 'smoky,' 'rich,' and 'hot.' In contrast, the boiled 'Doktorskaya' ham becomes a calm, ethereal, cosmic journey, where the man floats peacefully among sausage-flamingos, visualizing concepts like 'tenderness,' 'softness,' and 'calmness.' This duality brilliantly translates product characteristics into memorable fantasy worlds.
The Payoff (0:41-0:51) brings the ad back to reality with a humorous twist. The man makes a decision based on a surprisingly practical reason ('ham is wider!'), only to be immediately confronted with a new choice: 'maybe hot-dogs?'. The final voiceover resolves this loop of indecision with the campaign's core message: 'Every choice is right choice.' The debrief for the creative team is clear: you don't need to be literal to sell a product. By externalizing an internal feeling and exaggerating it to an absurd, memorable extreme, you can create a brand asset that is both distinctive and highly shareable, effectively lifting the brand out of the commodity trap.
Theme Keywords
Brand Position
Cherkashin is the brand that turns the simple act of choosing a meal into an epic sensory experience.
Brand Archetype
The Jester
Creative Game Plan
Dramatize the internal, sensory world of making a simple food choice to make a mundane product feel extraordinary.
Diagnosis: Issues & Solutions
Primary Issue: Emotional Connection
The Problem:
While the ad is visually spectacular and humorous, its emotional connection is purely sensory and intellectual. It makes the viewer laugh and marvel at the creativity, but it doesn't tap into a deeper, more human emotion like togetherness or comfort, which are often associated with food.
The Solution:
A follow-up ad in the campaign could ground the surrealism in a shared human moment. After the internal fantasy, show the man actually making the 'perfect sandwich' and sharing a genuinely warm, funny moment with his partner, linking the epic inner world to a relatable outer one.
Secondary Issue: Strategic Sense
The Problem:
The campaign is brilliant for building brand fame but does little to communicate any rational reasons to believe (RTBs) such as ingredient quality, heritage, or value. It relies entirely on style to build preference, which may not be enough to convert consumers loyal to other brands.
The Solution:
Subtly weave a quality cue into the fantasy sequences. For instance, in the desert scene, the 'smoke' could be visualized as coming from natural wood chips. In the cosmic scene, the 'tenderness' could be linked to a visual of prime, quality ingredients, adding a layer of substance to the style.