skills/campaign-canon/references/legendary-campaigns/cards/mailchimp-did-you-mean-mailchimp-2017.md

---
id: mailchimp-did-you-mean-mailchimp-2017
title: "Did You Mean Mailchimp?"
brand: Mailchimp
agency: Droga5 New York
year: 2017
country: US
region: north_america
industry: tech_telco
pattern: [P11, P17]
category: integrated
idea_type: campaign
involvement: passive_view
channel: digital
duration: campaign
goal: [awareness, engagement]
budget: high
emotion: [ironic_sincerity, wry_affection]
emotion_tier: 3
insight_domain: joy
media_epoch: hybrid
awards: [cannes_grand_prix, one_show]
quality_score: 9
scalability: unique
risk: edgy
confidence: high
quality: canonical
source_url: https://droga5.com/work/mailchimp/
---

# Did You Mean Mailchimp? (Mailchimp · 2017)

## Insight
Mailchimp is a brand with an odd name that people often mishear or mispronounce. Rather than suppress this awkwardness or correct it, the campaign celebrates and amplifies it by creating 9 fictional brands with similar-sounding names.

## Mechanic
An integrated campaign built around 9 different creative executions — each for a fake brand with a phonetically similar name: MailShrimp, KaleLimp, JailBlimp, MaleCrimp, WailChimp, etc. Each fake brand was developed with full creative execution — film, site, merchandise — before revealing the actual brand. Design-as-idea (P17): the visual identity of each fake brand was fully realised.

## Why it worked
Absurd as carrier (P11): the premise is structurally funny — fully producing nine fake companies to advertise one real company. Design as idea (P17): each fake brand had a distinct and committed visual world. The campaign was more interesting to talk about than most campaigns, and talking about it was advertising. Earned press was enormous.

## Steal
Turn your brand's awkwardness into a campaign. The name people get wrong, the product people mispronounce, the image people misunderstand — these frictions are assets if you lean into them. The internet will talk about a brand that has the courage to laugh at itself.

## Related
- Pattern: [[../MOC-pattern.md#p11]]
- Sibling: [[metro-trains-dumb-ways-to-die-2012.md|Dumb Ways to Die]]
- Sibling: [[old-spice-man-your-man-could-smell-like-2010.md|The Man Your Man Could Smell Like]]
- Emotion match: [[absolut-absolut-campaign-1981.md|Absolut _____]]

---

*Author: Serge Shima ([t.me/aimastersme](https://t.me/aimastersme) · [sergeshima.com](https://sergeshima.com) · [aimasters.me](https://aimasters.me)) · License: CC BY 4.0 — attribution required · Source: [smixs/creative-director-skill](https://github.com/smixs/creative-director-skill)*