Defining the OXO factor

On many counts, OXO’s X Factor tie-in advertising drive gets brand engagement spot on – themed around the zeitgeist cultural phenomenon, check, using ‘real people’ to speak for the brand, check, low-fi credentials, check again. But the sum of the TV ad-campaign's parts only seem to equal a whole lot of mild bewilderment. I doubt very much that ‘have you got the OXO factor’ will become the new ‘whassup’ and as for sprinkling OXO over your friends and family to try and make them more exciting – if anything was going to see a stock-cube- infused meal called off…

Perhaps it’s the families chosen for the final, who leave me feeling slightly unnerved, or the fact that the shorts are so on-brief – could we not at least have had a Whatamess-type-dog turning into smug pedigree cat - but for me, the sub text of the whole campaign reads “we spent our entire budget buying up X Factor ad slots”.

This is not to say that the new product (yes, there is one) is bad, however – it’s actually bloody amazing. The new X-shaped cubes – genius! They no longer explode when crushed, meaning that I can say goodbye to the days of combing vegetable-flavoured salt grains from my hair. It’s simple physics. There, if this was the 1950s, an RP voice would simply state “The new OXO cube – it crumbles better” - I’m sold.