Update: Since this was published Ronseal has since apologised for their apology. You can see their original apology and apology for the apology video below.
As Londoners (The ones who own gardens) head to DIY shops to spruce up their gardens for the start of the BBQ season. DIY giant Ronseal has gone and dropped its iconic ‘Does Exactly What it Says on the Tin’ strapline after a barrage of comments from eagle-eyed tweeters, suggesting the Ronseal strapline might not be doing exactly what it says. It felt only right that LDN Life did some investigating in what’s going on, so you (The lucky people who owns fences and decking) don’t walk around aimlessly looking for that famous slogan. Plus we thought the video was pretty funny.
So while it appears that the performance of the brand’s products was never in doubt, bosses decided to revamp the 21-year-old ‘Does Exactly What It Says On The Tin’ slogan as recently, customers have been taking to Twitter and other social media sites to point out consumers pointed out the award-winning ranges now come in buckets, tubs, pots or tubes rather than just metal tins and lobbying bosses to get the strapline changed. Though as a result they are also messing with my childhood memories of all those adverts.
While they do make it clear that the development of more modern packaging means the strapline isn’t as accurate as it could be. It does make you wonder if these are the same people who use to complain that Top Gear wasn’t a real car show.
To put things right, and preserve the brand’s reputation for honesty and straight-talking, Ronseal have devised a series of new slogans that better reflect the kind of containers their products are supplied in.
It turns out that this wasn’t an easy task, as will 200 different products in the DIY product range, making each and every Ronseal product do exactly what it says on the tub/container/tube/pot sounds like a nightmare in a tub/container/tube/pot/tin? As you can see in the video the brand’s Marketing and Distribution teams have worked round-the-clock to make it happen and you can see exactly what they’ve come up
How long was that truck??????
They’ve also taken out full-page press advertisements and managed to get the new slogan(s) on a page, Ronseal’s Marketing teams have also drafted in Ronseal Managing Director Martin Jones, to create his own apology video to say sorry for any misunderstanding and explain why the much-loved strapline- the third most famous in the world – had to go.
Speaking about the changes, a spokesman for Ronseal, said: “The new strapline might not be as memorable as the old one but it is certainly more honest. We hope now the general public will continue to admire our approach – and trust our marketing as much as our products”.
So there you have it, the new Slogan. I wonder if it will last as long as their products? Personally I preferred the old one, I wonder if there’s any chance Russell Brand would get behind a #RonsealBringBackTheTin campaign? Anyway you can show Ronseal happy happy or annoyed you are with their new slogans via their Twitter or Facebook pages or just use the #RonsealApology hashtag, I’m sure they will be listening.