Arla Marketer Wants Consumers to Get 'Absolutely Buttered'

Arla has never been shy about pushing dairy into unexpected creative territory. That has spanned decades; from Cravendale’s cult‑classic ‘Cats with Thumbs’ to Lurpak’s heavy‑metal‑fuelled plant‑based launch. Now the dairy giant is turning up the volume again.

This time, it is Anchor butter getting the spotlight. ‘Let’s Get Absolutely Buttered’ marks the first outing from new agency partner Havas Creative UK, bringing a cheeky, self‑aware humour to a fiercely competitive category. Leading the charge is long‑time Arla marketer Catriona Mantle, marketing director for BSM, who’s intent on proving there’s still plenty of fun to be had in butter.

Mantle, who joined the company in 2010 from Hallmark Cards, now has oversight of marketing its butters; Anchor and Lurpak as well as cheeses and cooking brands Bailey’s and Anchor cream.  

“It's not a good category to look after for the waistline,” she jokes.

Extending a creative legacy

Lurpak is this year celebrating its 125th anniversary, and it continues to run a campaign that has been ongoing for 18 years and has been a factor in its growth under Arla, demonstrating the value of marketing internally.

“We very much recognise that there's opportunity to elevate what could be a very commoditised category by building brands and building products that can help add value back to what could be a commoditised product,” explains Mantle.

And that mindset is what brought Havas Creative into the fold as Arla looked to refresh Anchor’s creative platform for the first time in eight years. Mantle reveals that she chose Havas due to its strong chemistry, shared ambition, and strategic rigour. She feels that the open, collaborative relationship allowed both sides to challenge each other and “build a strategically grounded platform that enabled standout creative work”.

A creative journey

‘Let’s get absolutely buttered’ was part of the winning Havas Creative pitch, described by Mantle as “a brilliant line that makes you smile”, however during the development process it was dropped before being revived again.

“Creative is always a journey. That line we all loved from the beginning, but we knew we couldn’t build a creative idea just around a line,” she continues.

A deliberate search for humour was another factor in the development – something that would ensure the campaign stood out from other “unemotional” butter ads featuring cows and fields or kitchen tables. It had to elevate Anchor’s point of different and talk to the emotional side of the consumer through both joy and humour.

That lead to the hero film featuring a couple who are enjoying a barge holiday while chaos happens all around them. The Airplane-style humour will move beyond the TVC into influencer content and other channels too, stretching across media touchpoints and everyday scenarios.

Mantle does admit however that a "careful" approach was taken with the humour which is always in danger of being polarising to audiences.

"There are some things some people will find funny and some things other people won't find funny. We did have a lot of chat about cats being stuck up a tree. Some people might be offended by that! So, it's about ensuring that lots of parties are involved, not just one person who's ultimately the fun sign off person. Because everyone's got different types of humour obviously, we need to think about our audience and how we appeal to them and engaging with lots of people to make sure people find it funny or not funny. It's tricky."

Internally, the company sees its audience divided into ‘the eaters’ demographic who are Anchor consumers that are unfussy about their food, and ‘foodies’ who are more into Lurpak and food that looks good. In researching across both audiences, the creative was found to strike a balance between older and younger consumers due to its British sense of humour traversing generational boundaries.

The World of Marketing According to Catriona Mantle

Creative Salon: What excites you as a marketer?

Catriona Mantle: Marketing is super exciting at the moment. It's always been exciting, but what's great now is how much it's evolving and changing. It never stands still, and the media landscape is testament to that. No longer is it enough to pull out a super‑expensive, super‑shiny TV ad and your marketing is done. Cash doesn't buy you results now. It's not just about massive budgets, and some smaller brands with smaller budgets are doing brilliant, effective marketing without even using TV. All the different media channels are exciting, and they challenge creativity. Smart, agile, clever marketing can really win versus big budgets doing a massive TV ad and a bit of outdoor.

How much of a challenge is that?

It stops you being a lazy marketer. We can't rely on a TV ad; there's so much now to think about in terms of different channels and how they work together and interact. There's a lot of data and insight available to enable you to be really smart in your targeting and where you're putting your spend. I think that's pretty exciting. Marketing is a pretty exciting place to be at the moment.

How do you kind of keep abreast of what's new for your role?

Yeah, it is a challenge. I'm learning all the time. Having a brilliant team as a marketing leader enables us to push the boundaries — an ambitious team committed to delivering and doing the best job. You need a team being proactive and really pushing their brands. We've got a brilliant team here at Arla, with lots of support bringing the outside in. There's no space for being arrogant and assuming we know what we're doing; it's changing all the time. The more we can learn from external partners, industry experts and consumers — and we're consumers ourselves, so how are we consuming media, how are we being influenced — the better. There's also testing and learning; we won't always get it right, but we've got to try different things to see what they do and what they return for us.

Different things will work for different brands and categories. There's never going to be a “brilliant, we've nailed it, we found the answer.” It will keep evolving, and the answer will be different for all our different areas of the business.

What work are you most proud of in your career, so far?

I feel really proud of what we've just done on Anchor. We started with a really strong consumer insight, and that's where it's all driven from. Staying true to that enables you to be more confident in what you're executing. We had that insight, and as we went through, we did so much consumer research — understanding what was motivating our consumers and what appealed to them to enable us to deliver that creative work.

I feel proud of the way I've led it. It's not me that's delivered this work; there's a whole team of people. In marketing we need to empower teams, trust them and encourage them to be bold and brave. It's easy to do good, safe marketing that everyone will be happy with, but will that really shift the dial in changing consumer behaviour or decisions at the point of purchase? I feel proud that I've got a team that feel trusted and are able to deliver brilliant work for us and then learn.

I feel really proud to work on that brand. I can't take credit for the brilliant work that has happened on it — the campaign’s 18 years old now — but I feel proud and excited to be part of the next chapter and to look at how it continues to evolve. It feels exciting and a great brand to be part of.

What makes the ideal creative agency partner, or media agency partner?

For me, an agency partner isn’t “we’re the client and you’re the agency” — we’re one team, and I want us to operate like that. It enables challenge both ways, which is really important, along with openness and shared alignment on what you want to deliver. We got on very well with the Havas team and found a really strong way of working — trust and shared ambition.

Not being hierarchical, everyone having a seat at the table and a voice and an opinion, that’s important. And not being formal. We didn’t have a monthly check‑in; we’ve got a WhatsApp group where we’re sharing ideas — “I’ve just seen this, what do you think?” That real one‑team dynamic and way of working won’t work for everybody, but for us it kept the energy, momentum and enthusiasm. You’ve got to enjoy what you’re doing. I believe if you enjoy what you do, you’ll give a lot more to it. So it’s important that as two teams that are one team, we all enjoy working together. We have a lot of fun together, and that’s where the magic happens.

What frustrates you most as a marketer?

I guess sometimes what frustrates me is the short‑term approach and the short‑term pressure. Numbers aren’t looking good, and there’s a knee‑jerk “What should we do?” But in an industry focused on building brands, we’ve got to know it’s not an instant fix. "The campaign went live last week — how are the numbers looking?" - we’re not going to suddenly shift the world in a week. Short‑term pressure and short‑term reactions can be detrimental to having a long‑term view on building brands.