There’s something fishy going on in the highly competitive world of bass angling. Just ask pro bass anglers Mike Iaconelli and Jay Yelas who, starting this month, appear in a new TV advertising campaign for the Berkley® line of Gulp!® and PowerBait® soft baits that gives a fun – and literal – twist to the idea of the hunter becoming the hunted.

Created by Minneapolis based Kerker, the new campaign for Berkley soft baits, consists of four :30 spots “Finesse”, “Angry Ike”, “Crazy Bass” and “Crazy Fish.” In the spots Iaconelli, Yelas and two of their pro circuit competitors Larry Nixon and Skeet Reese physically become the fish using CGI to morph their faces with handcrafted puppets of bass fish. The puppets were crafted and manipulated by puppeteers of Monte Python’s Flying Circus fame. In “Angry Ike” fresh from surviving a run in with a power fisherman using a new Berkley PowerBait Beast, Iaconelli bemoans the unfairness of using soft baits like this. Turning to camera with a band-aid patching his wound, Ike says “once I bit it I just didn’t want to let go.” Jay Yelas agrees and sympathizes, showing a double band aid patch from a similar incident with a different bait, before air bubbles from Ike’s watery expletive fill the screen and fade to the tagline “Fish Bite It and Won’t Let Go” and the Berkley logo.

“These guys are great sportsmen but also terrific sports,” says Chris Preston, Executive Creative Director, Kerker. “We wanted to turn the tides a little and quite literally put them in the heads of the fish to show what’s happening down below while they’re at work. It’s also an entertaining way to talk about feature and benefit when so much of this intense category focuses heavily on product.”

Each of the other three spots follows a similar theme, with two pro anglers paired and discussing the problems of staying safe against new, high technology baits and the guys that use them. Each ends with air bubbles fading to tagline and logo.

In “Finesse” Skeet Reese’s bass tells Larry Nixon that finesse fishermen are “cheaters” for using bait that’s like a “blood trail in the water”. Nixon’s fish, with a brain the size of a pea, fails to remember the warning. In “Crazy Fish” and “Crazy Bass” Ike is a recent escapee from the fishing boat, having been drawn in by a scented Berkley Gulp! soft bait before escaping just in time. “Trust no one” he warns before the tagline “Drive Fish Crazy” rises.

“We’re showing the hunter becoming the hunted while playing to the macho nature of the hunters watching at home,” adds Preston.

The campaign runs through December around cable and national sports, enthusiast and outdoor programming. TV is supported by a print campaign “Be The Fish” focusing on Berkley brand baits, which runs through the summer months in regional media plus bass, walleye and salmon fishing and enthusiast books.

About Pure Fishing

Pure Fishing, headquartered in Spirit Lake, Iowa, U.S.A., is the world’s largest fishing tackle company. Our global manufacturing, sales and marketing organization includes over 1,400 dedicated coworkers and six regional operating centers worldwide. Through our portfolio of leading tackle brands including Abu Garcia®, Berkley®, Fenwick®, Johnson®, Mitchell®, Red Wolf® and Spider® products, Pure Fishing is dedicated to helping anglers everywhere have more fun catching more fish; to increasing the efficiency, diversity and profitability of fishing tackle distribution; to enhancing the productivity of the world’s fishable waters; and most importantly, to helping provide secure, rewarding and fulfilling lives for our extended family of coworkers and stakeholders that are sustainable through world class financial performance.

About Kerker

Kerker is a full-service agency providing advertising, public relations, direct marketing and promotion, interactive, design and research for a broad range of local, national and global clients. Kerker clients include Johnsonville Sausage, Taco John’s, Roundy’s Supermarkets, Piper Jaffray, Pure Fishing, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P., United Sugars, Bremer Financial Corp., Mall of America, Minnesota Zoo, and the YMCA. For more information about Kerker, visit www.kerker.com. Kerker is a member of Worldwide Partners Inc., the world’s largest network of independent marketing and communications firms.