• by Steve Ellwanger , October 11, 2022

Even though no millennial or Gen Z consumers were around to see the debut of “The Partridge Family” on television, printer brand Brother USA perhaps hopes they’ll bond with a new series that’s a play on the name, "The Cartridge Family.”

The five-part series represents an advertising pivot for Brother from trouble-shooting videos to office humor to promote its printers and Brother Genuine ink cartridges.

Brother chose four social media influencers-turned-actors to represent ink colors in the personages of Celia (cyan), Marcus (magenta), Yelena (yellow) and Barbara (black).

In the first episode crafted by the WE agency, the team meets on Monday to help Black brighten up a corporate presentation while exchanging jokes and jibes about their lives in and out of the office.

Yelena can’t help but boast about the medal she won in a 10K race over the weekend.

“Yes, and you posted 10k pictures of it, so, we know,” says Celia.

In episode #2, Barbara teaches Marcus that some deals offered via email phishing scams are too good to be true after he fails security training that lured him into buying non-genuine ink or toner.

“Subject line: Super Great Deal Best Ever No Downside At All and great is spelled with the number 8,” Barbara notes.

“Okay, so the subject line should have set me off, but the body of the email was uncannily like your voice,” Marcus responds.

Using humor is a way to engage with different customer age cohorts like Gen Z and millennials, according to Eric Dahl, senior director for product marketing at Brother USA’s consumer division.

“This was the year we thought we could lean into some corporate humor in changing times and appeal to a lot of what’s going on—with people returning back to offices, hybrid work and then corporate culture that people have missed out on,” Dahl tells Marketing Daily. 

To help spread the word, Brother is creating a branded GIPHY page featuring “The Cartridge Family” content that people can incorporate into their digital office chats.