In this General Mills ad for Caribou Coffee Bars (we assume they’ve licensed the name from Caribou Coffee), a woman dressed in office attire complete with pearls enjoys a coffee candy bar while relaxing among a herd of caribou. Eyes closed, she pets one as if it were a Shetland pony.
Yes, Caribou is the name of the product. But of all the relaxing animal images that come to mind — a fluffy yellow lab, a lazy Persian cat, even a sleeping furry Sheep — a herd of roaming wild caribou does not.
Maybe she somehow found a herd of tamed and slightly drugged caribou, or maybe she’s a caribou-obsessed crazy who snuck her way into a diorama of stuffed animals at the natural history museum.
There are lots of ways to execute a brand’s name in print, and certainly caribou offer an interesting opportunity, but this one makes no sense to us.
How bout you?