Fido Dido

Fido Dido is probably the most famous 7Up campaign there is out there.

Fido is against no one. Fido is Youth. Fido has no age. Fido sees everything. Fido judges nothing. Fido is Innocent. Fido is Powerful. Fido comes from the past. Fido is the future.

Well, is he?

I’ve been interested in Fido since he inspired a nickname for a teacher I have at school (her name is Didona => Dido => Fido Dido) and mostly because of the whole TV and outdoor campaign from last year. That is, if you remember him, Mr. Spaghetti-like dude on your TV and cinema screen.
Combined with 7Up’s tagline, „Think Clear”, Fido promotes the „You are what you are and what you are is OK” line

According to its creators,

„To summarise: „Fido” drinks 7-Up. In addition to that, he freezes the ocean, breaks cars, amuses girls and so on.”

We’ve seen him move the whole screen, in bus stations, underground stations and so and so on. The teasing campaign was quite uneffective as far as I’ve seen, since most of the people already knew about him and there was nothing new about him.

Part of this post is to tell you why I think Fido Dido was uneffective and part of it is to tell you why it was good. I didn’t like it anyway, but here goes nothing

So, first of all – the lines were kinda stupid for Romania. Maybe they worked for others, and I know some of them were adapted, just that they’re not as funny as they should be. If anyone can remember a Fido Dido poster from a bus stop, I’ll give him a cookie.
Nobody? „Daca vezi rosu in fata ochilor, asteapta sa se faca verde si treci”.
I mean….what is that? What was it supposed to be?
The think clear site (done by these guys) has some Fido images with
„Welcome to the World’s finely developed form of procrastination”
„Quick computer question : How do you set your laser printer to stun?”
„Work : 1% Inspiration, 99% Procrastination”
„ISDN : It Still Does Nothing”
„For every action, there is an equal and opposit football commentary”
„Silence is quite” (yeah no shit)
„There’s no substitute for hard work. Unles you’re on a footy team and there’s 3”

Out of these lines, I can only think of 3 that are particularly interesting and the others are quite..boring. Nothing does suggest the idea of „cool” and „innocent” or „Fido Dido has no age” (but he does know ISDN)
So their copywriters were uninspired. Too bad for them.

For Romania, Fido Dido wasn’t something that 7up needed, and they’re not going to get anywhere, because there’s always Sprite, with a much better campaign („Fiare pentru fiara din tine” and the icstrim tv stuff). Fido Dido has made a few people from the Philippines happy, because figurines were made over there. But Fido couldn’t keep up with old and uninteresting lines here. We’re sorry Fido. I don’t know what its target customers were, but judging by the effect it created, surely nobody aged 12-18.

Fido Dido is WEAK!

*stabs Fido*

Btw, check out this dedicated fansite for Fido, which is part of a Pepsi fan site.