Asda: Every Little Helps

This one isn’t so much about advertising. It’s more about how sometimes, the best PR happens when you simply create an environment for simple, good deeds.

(Yes, apparently doing nice things can make people think that you’re nice. I also recently heard that the Pope is a practising Catholic.)

But the story I want to talk about is this one – an Asda store manager in Manchester taking a very small, but powerful decision to introduce a “quiet hour” for shoppers, and especially those who struggle with loud, busy places due to autism.

The screens go off.

The escalators halt.

Voices are kept to a minimum.

It’s a simple but powerful gesture.

And no, it isn’t earth-shattering. It’s certainly not the basis for a mass media campaign, and it can’t be. But there’s something simple, identifiable and attractive about a shop that takes a little step to help even just a little part of their community that feels underserved.

More interesting, more eye-catching, and more memorable as a brand offering than your standard bland slogan.

And there’s another point you can make about the “quiet hour”. We always assume supermarkets have to be brand-consistent, blaring music, jauntily tuned and brightly coloured behemoths. But there’s something to be said for stripping back the sound and fury, for subtracting rather than adding to the noise.

Something to think about. Possibly something for a future article.

But for now – time to shut up.

Everybody Needs A Pink Duckswan

Ikea is a well-loved brand. And they sure know how to stay that way.

Here’s an initiative with a good cause behind it – their charity fundraiser. Each year they create a new campaign to raise money for children’s charities. And in a quirky, off-beat idea, this year they’ve created a series of plush toys, their designs taken from the doodles of children themselves.

Hence, the pink duckswan referenced above.

(Now there’s a sentence you don’t often see. The cadence is all over the chart.)

And the rest. Which range from “goofball bat” to “depressed skunksquirrel” to the classic, much-loved “dinosaur with no arms and a Morph head wearing a beanie”.

I think you'll find that that was a perfect description.

(I believe it was Da Vinci who first developed this design, or perhaps it was Caravaggio.)

It’s innovative. Eye-catching, certainly. And in turning kids' ideas into works of art, it taps into something powerful – empathy, in playing upon something that people already do.

(Apparently “praising ads which tap into things which people already do” is now my theme of the month, going by the number of times I’ve referenced this idea recently. Don’t worry; using italicised asides is still theme of the year.)

Seriously. You can find story after story, gallery after gallery of this. Parents, artists and photographers working to translate silly, whimsical ideas and drawings from children into silly, whimsical, beautiful pieces of art.

Perhaps the fact that this does take inspiration from other projects undermines my claim of it being “innovative”.

(It’s always embarrassing when you’re inconsistent within your own article.)

But it’s the first time a major brand has this on.

And it’s executed so well. Bold. Beautiful. Un-self-conscious. They feel as much real, believable, plausible toys, as much as they feel like real toys designed by kids.

The fact that it feels genuine is the most important factor in the end. Ikea actually is a company which invests and focuses on charitable giving for children’s causes. $90 million since 2003. And the style of the initiative, the idea behind it, the childish, simplistic creativity – it’s all very Ikea, in the very best way.

It’s a brilliant campaign. A great cause. And it doesn’t feel forced. It’s a feat of its own, to create a charity campaign that is both authentic and actually engaging. Ikea makes it look easy, and natural.

And, to conclude, I would like to buy a pink duckswan.

Here's the full collection:

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Back To Burberry: A Careful, Concentrated Brand

I've said before that Burberry is one of the great examples of brand building in the past ten years. And luckily for me, this assertion happens to be backed up by facts. As of just the other day, Burberry is the most valuable British brand in the world – and well within the overall world top 100, at 73.

With credit to the Scotsman. We Scots can always be trusted to follow fashion brand news.

They’ve fought their way back up. Not by thoughtless expansionism. Not by forcing their presence upon everyone in media blitzes. But by being single-minded in the pursuit of one trait. 

Desirability.

It’s that relentless focus on remaining premium, on establishing a premium quality in everything that they do, which builds and maintains their position. They adapt with the times to be sure. But they never lose sight of the core brand. And they don’t let themselves be lost in a plethora of new lines and new products as they did in the 1990s.

When they do add new products or expand on old ones, it’s carefully planned. The brand comes first, before words like “market diversification” or “upscaling”.

A great recent example of this was seen in the launch of the new personalisation service for their famous scarves.

Watch here.

As AdFreak noted, personalisation can have a certain way of undermining the premium value of a product. After all, if anyone can have it personalised, what makes it special and valuable?

(Even spam emails seem to manage it these days. No I don’t want to email you my account details Halifox. Nor you, Clivesdale Bank.)

How do you combat that cheap perception? By highlighting the work that goes into the product. By showing exactly why it commands a high price tag. And most of all, by demonstrating that the personalisation isn’t a cheap tag-on – it’s a part of the construction of the product, an intrinsic step to its creation.

So in their launch, personalisation plays an important role – but only as part of the Burberry brand equity of quality and character. It’s treated less as a new feature so much as a deepening of the existing brand value. And it’s one of many qualities highlighted in the launch film.

(Including, apparently, teasels. Which I like to imagine are just weasels who make mean jokes.)

This is an actual teasel. Disappointing.

And thanks to the brand mentality and focus I spoke about earlier, the film isn’t just on-message about this new offering. It’s also a beautiful, watchable, absorbing wee film. The new product isn’t what resonates. It’s the brand value that informs the product and the film that is what is so engaging.

For Burberry that means premium quality in everything they create, care and attention, their definition of English style and English values. When Burberry sells, it never just sells the product. It sells the Burberry brand, and just as importantly, the Burberry values.

And in showing the careful, caring process of creating a personalised Burberry scarf, Burberry implicitly gives a reason to buy into them – because Burberry stands for careful, caring, focused fashion. 

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. Burberry shows that "why" in everything that they do.


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Brands Go To Space For Some Reason

It appears to be the year of strapping branded content onto a rocket and firing it skywards.

Why?

Because it’s the time to boldly go, to innovate, to connect with audiences in thrilling ways. Because companies want to excite our imaginations, to soar in our minds, to be a brand to which you can aspire.

Or, possibly, because everyone else is doing it and it’s pretty cheap and easy and we want to go viral like that guy with Red Bull.

(Felix… the cat? I’m not on Wi-Fi right now to check as I write this. Let’s go with the cat.)

In any case, there’s an epidemic going around.

(Puss in Boots is not the only one doing space-y things anymore.)

Whether its “space beer”, “space phones”, or even “space cocktail menus”, there’s not much of a pause from anyone to question exactly why jumping on this bandwagon so readily (and for so little reason) is such a good idea.

It’s hard sometimes to see the brand logic in going with the crowd and tying yourself to the next space balloon. Not everyone needs to join the space age buzz.

Nothing screams “we have no coherent brand message” more than

spinning wildly in the wind, copying whatever trend appears next.

(Well, except literally screaming at people “we have no coherent brand message”. Strategy meetings can get tense sometimes.)

That’s not to say there’s no point to any of this.

For beer brands like John Smith it’s a gimmicky selling point, but it does have a unique value to sell.

For Jose Cuervo, the frozen margarita may be a little silly, but at least it makes some kind of sense. Frozen margaritas are a thing.

(A delicious, delicious thing.)

And for Red Bull, the original, it of course tied in entirely with their brand ethos and message – Red Bull means extreme stunts and adrenaline.

(So Mog’s supersonic jump made a lot of sense, brand-wise.)

But for far too many brands now, space is just a shortcut to ‘cool’. It’s a thing you can do to make a nice film which doesn’t involve thinking too hard – and you can pray that it becomes famous in amongst a crowded market of near-identical “unique” events.

If you’ve got a distinctive, defined brand, you’ll know if it makes sense to do some kind of space stunt. But if you’re just doing it because you’re jealous of Bagpuss and Red Bull, you probably need to spend a little more time working out exactly what it is that you stand for.

(With apologies to Felix Baumgartner, who is an extremely impressive individual and doesn’t deserve to be repeatedly confused with various mildly-famous cats.)


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A Brand So Successful That Basically No One Knows About It

(I swear, that title will make sense in a moment.)

There are rare people who can claim to be globally, universally famous. Andrea Palladio isn’t really one of those people. 

(Though he does have a Wikipedia page. Which isn't bad.)

But he has had a singular impact on the world, by reintroducing Roman architecture to his building designs across Italy during the Renaissance – and soon spawning imitations all around him.

If you see a portico on a house – a porch roof with pillars – that’s him. Like this.

Even the reintroduction of intentional symmetry in architecture takes its cue from his ideas.

Outside of the world of architecture, he really isn't a household name.

(I mean I’m writing an article about him and I have to keep re-checking it. I keep thinking his first name is Pablo. Pablo Palladio.)

But his is a style of architecture that you can see traces of across the world, in city after city, in town after town.

In a very real way he spread his brand, his logo, his Palladian style, to every part of the world – without anyone even knowing it. It’s an anonymous brand in a way. But it’s ubiquitous. It’s universal.

Above all, it’s so infused into world architecture, so natural, so “right”, that it’s hard to imagine a world without Palladio’s influence. He created something that seems too obvious to be artificial. How can you imagine that “some guy” was the creator of so much of what we see around us?

To be sure, there’s more to the story than just Palladio. To call him the single root of modern design is to overreach. But it’s an amazing thought regardless. Everywhere. Easily identifiable. But almost unknown.

Perhaps that’s the best sell of all. Millions of people, around the world, buying into your brand, and your ideas, without even knowing that they’re doing it.

And perhaps the Palladio “brand” is the fulfilment of a thoughtful line from the TV series Futurama.

When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

(Told you it would make sense.)

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Cara Delevingne Is Not A Good Face For Your Brand

I’ll keep this short and simple.

Cara Delevingne is a very successful model. She’s got a distinctive look, and wears the camera well. She’s good at what she does.

But I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone is using her for their campaigns right now.

Think about it. She’s everywhere. She may look good, but she’s looking good everywhere, for everyone she works for. And she has multiple brands that she works for.

So there’s the problem. What’s the value in working with someone who is inherently disassociated and disengaged from your brand? Someone like Cara Delevingne may be the face of a brand for a moment, but all it gives you is five minutes of memory in the mind of the consumer, before they see her in some other ad, perhaps even a competitor.

I know she’s working for Top Shop right now. A few months ago it was Burberry. Next week maybe it’ll be Gap. Who knows.

Face it. When you get someone like Cara Delevingne to front your campaign, you’re not building your brand. You’re building hers.

A Bit of Branding from Richard Bran(d)son

Richard Branson of Virgin fame has some ads out on the Tube. The sales pitch?

Your sales pitch.

The idea is that you, the reader, pitch ideas for businesses – you #PitchToRich.

It’s brilliant.

Think about it. It’s a pitch for business ideas. They are advertising cash prizes for great business ideas. Richard Branson of course is a famously successful businessman, so it lends credibility.

But more to the point, this is a no-lose campaign for Branson. At best, he gets great ideas for businesses, at a relatively cheap price and with the chance to snap up entrepreneurs who may have the ability to implement them. These things cannot be taken lightly – but Virgin has the chance to win them at a low cost.

And what is the negative side? What’s the worst case scenario?

At worst, they get no good ideas. They perhaps lose a little money. But they build the Branson, Virgin brand for cheap. Because the basis for so much of Richard Branson’s success is not so much his business acumen in a literal sense, but his business acumen in the sense that he knows how to use the fact that people think he has business acumen.

I know - that’s a little confused.

But the point is that Richard Branson is famous for being an innovator, a great businessman – but most importantly as a man who takes risks and believes strongly in trying out new ideas. And even if it were not true, the fact that people believe it is in of itself a business advantage. It makes competitors afraid, and investors bullish.

And this campaign, whether it yields great ideas or not, is building and maintaining that reputation – and building and maintaining the business case for Richard Branson and Virgin for years to come.

Intermarché and Ugliness as a Virtue

This is a slightly older campaign to talk about, but if you haven’t already heard about the Intermarché “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” campaign by Marcel in France, you should really check it out.

It’s a very simple idea at its heart: promote the sale of ugly vegetables, in order to save money and resources for Intermarché, and for its customers. The less appealing produce was sold alongside the standard fare – except clearly marked at 30% off the normal price. Obviously this was quite an easy sell in a way, as everyone wants to be thriftier in the current climate, and it appeals to our environmental side as well.

More to the point, it was a witty, fun campaign, and captured the imagination. The campaign ran with jokey slogans about the produce which underlined the fact that, ugly or not, this was still good food that doesn’t have to be wasted: “An ugly potato makes beautiful mash”.

Intermarché is an up-and-coming brand, a plucky outsider, and this helped establish it as a brand that cares for its customers. 13 million people saw the ads for free on social media, and it wasn’t just a viral phenomenon; sales have gone up 24% since the campaign began.

And think about it from an image point of view. Ugly may be ugly. But it also conveys honesty, straight talking, and trustworthiness. Think Oliver Cromwell and his portrait, warts and all.

Who wouldn’t trust the brand that places value and quality over skin deep, superficial prettiness?

It’s a genius bit of insight.

There is Nothing Wrong with Selling

There’s an ad campaign going around in London, of various images sent in by people with the tagline “#beframeus”. Every time I read it I read “be fram-e-us”. And it annoys me. When I get home I’m going to try to find out what this campaign is all about. Because that is all the information given.

And that’s the problem. Sure, I’m going to make the effort (hopefully, unless I forget because I might have better, more interesting things to do), but I don’t really want to. And most other people I imagine don’t want to either.

“You cannot bore people into buying your product.”

Too many advertisers try to be overly clever with their campaigns, to make it a puzzle, to make it a mysterious pathway of content to carry the audience forward.

That would be nice if the audience were watching every ad in a row like a movie. But we don’t. We watch piecemeal – we watch at random. You can’t assume anything about how much the audience has seen. Of course you don’t want to patronise the audience. But don’t force them to do research to understand what you’re doing.

Too often this byzantine form of advertising is done because we’re afraid that our audience hate advertising, and want to have some kind of organic content experience. I’m not quite sure what that even means. But here’s the point.

You can’t be afraid of selling the product. Don’t hide behind clever lines and “guerrilla” advertising that is so guerrilla that it lives in a part of a jungle that no one has ever visited.

If you have a point to make, make it.

I don’t give a shit about #beframeus. Tell me what you want me to buy.

(Having looked it up it seems to be JCDecaux' new editorial content feature. So I guess in the end it doesn't matter that no one knows or cares about it, since the target is so small anyway.)

Rapid Remarketing with Berocca

Berocca is a well-known alka seltzer-type vitamin tablet.

(Those are sometimes known as effervescent tablets. Advertising!)

It has an ad that’s been running for a little while now, showing a guy detailing all the things he has to do today that mean he needs Berocca. It’s a nice, fun little ad that does a good job of outlining why you need this product and how it helps you.

But that’s not what’s interesting about it. What’s interesting is how blatantly it is acting as a moment of remarketing and repositioning. Because the beginning of the ad shows the star’s friend coming up and remarking that he must have had a big night.

Berocca has a reputation for being a hangover remedy. I can’t vouch for its effectiveness but that is the name it has for itself. That’s all well and good but clearly to Berocca it’s too limiting a label. And so, quite obviously to anyone with an ear open, Berocca is rebranding: not just for hangovers.

In just a couple of seconds Berocca acknowledges its reputation, and then declares that it is so much more. It’s so fast you barely notice, but it’s an open, rapid remarketing. And it is very effective.

And that’s it. I just found it interesting.

Personal Selling from Crowdcube

Here’s another nice, simple sell from a brand – a series of ads on the Tube right now. Crowdcube is an investment company (I know, from the name I would have guessed communal box sharing), and their big selling point is that they allow you to pick and choose investments and personally support new up-and-coming businesses, some of which are featured in the ads.

There are small-scale breweries, storage space companies – the list goes on. The key values in all this are choice, and personal connection. And it’s a good way to market investing. It’s an area that too often has the air of corruption, high living and immorality. So why not inject a little personality and humility to it?

Each ad gives you a feel for the businesses featured, an idea of their personality, and why their individual traits might make you, the reader, connect with them. And that’s the most important aspect, and the most apt for the current market.

We see everywhere now the economic power of the small scale. Not because of efficiency, or expertise, at least directly. But because people have come more and more to value a personal connection to products and services.

It’s why craft beer is exploding. It’s why artisanal coffee shops are a thing. It’s why Innocent Smoothies tell you where their fruit comes from and make the growers the heroes of their ads. It’s why supermarkets tell you which farm raised your chicken.

And it’s why Crowdcube wants you to have a personal connection to your investments.

After all, it works on KickStarter. The world of investing blew wide open with that little idea. Investing becomes not just easy, but filled with emotion and choice.

And it seems to be what we want.

And contrary to popular opinion, advertising isn’t about telling you what you want.

It’s about finding out what you want, and giving it to you.

Nice.

#TheDress and Jumping on a Trend

We’ve all heard of the #thedress phenomenon by now. A dress the changes colour depending on how you perceive it. Psychologically it’s very interesting. But what’s just as interesting from our perspective is the reaction of various brands and agencies to it – and what that says about the state of advertising.

First off, the creator of the dress (Roman Originals) has now released a white and gold version to mirror the original blue and black – capitalising on the moment and making use of the viral nature of the meme to create a (perhaps brief) trend. Since the meme began their sales have skyrocketed.

Meanwhile across the web various brands have referenced it, if nothing else to continue to be part of the conversation and engage their followers. (Again, social media is as much about keeping afloat as about getting ahead.)

Another interesting example is the Salvation Army spot by South African agency Ireland/Davenport that played on the meme to make a serious point about domestic abuse. It shows a model wearing the white and gold dress while covered in bruises, with the copy “Why is it so hard to see black and blue?” This ad actually was generated within the agency before searching for a charity to associate with – which if nothing else is a rebuke to those who say that advertising has no soul to it.

There’s a broader point to all of this. In a world of memes and trends and viral events, it can seem that advertisers are a bit passé, a bit out of step. The reality couldn’t be more different.

What advertising does is to ride the waves of trends and new events, to defend brands from risks and pitfalls. It also gives the opportunity, as with the S.A., to capture a moment and produce something that cuts through by speaking to people in a way that makes them listen at that moment – that is contextually relevant. After all, advertising is all about communicating with people in a way that engages with them.

Certainly the media world is changing beneath our feet. But while the medium and the method may change, advertising will always exist. Because advertising is not reliant on bricks and mortar. Advertising is about communication, and about communicating ideas. That is the core, and as long as you communicate it, you’re in advertising.