What do Arsenal (UK Soccer Team) and the The English National Ballet have in common? Not much, most would say, except some fancy footwork. These icons of Sport and Culture have been cleverly put together in a campaign to promote the new Citroen DS 5 called "Refined Redefined".
The ad is certain to draw lots of viewers on YouTube and positive word of mouth. The ad's originality and humour will no doubt have a positive impact on the Citroen brand. Because of the respectful yet comical way in which all the players are cast - the Arsenal team members, the dancers and the car, its likely that the ad will have a halo effect on all brands. Even Tchaikovsky Swan Lake was redefined in a refined sort of way.
Sometimes examples of well-executed creative ideas take a while to cross the ocean. This is one from Holland that I thought was really fun and effective.
HEMA is a Dutch department store that opened it's first door in 1926 in Amsterdam. There are currently 150 stores all over Holland. In June 2008 they launched a campaign to promote their new online shop, but instead of a creating a typical digital ad, their agency turned the new website of HEMA itself into a viral hit, based on the simple message: "The products of HEMA can now be found online at hema.nl"
The website had 700.000 visitors the first week, and 1.500.000 after a month. It was featured on all major blogs in the Netherlands as well as worldwide blogs such as Gizmodo, BoingBoing, Wired. It got over 2.400 Diggs. Google blog search reports over 2.000 mentions of the site's name.
Powerful advertising has the ability to engage both visual and auditory senses. Jingles have always played an important part in lodging brands into our brains and influencing purchase decisions. Sometimes, annoyingly, like Subway's current $5 dollar foot-long ad). Now that's a jingle that's tough to shake. And it does work - or it did on me. When at an airport the other day, I visited my first Subway for a sandwich in years.
A study conducted by Buyology Inc. and Elias Arts, a sound identity company in New York, looked into the impact of sounds in advertising. They wired up 50 volunteers and measured their galvanic, pupil, and brainwave responses to sounds using the latest neuroscience-based research methods.
What was interesting, was that the most powerful sounds were not the familiar and comforting sounds from nature but that of a computer chip, Intel - especially since a computer chip doesn't even have a sound.
The third most powerful sound was the vibration of the cell phone. This sound had a Pavlovian effect on the volunteers who immediately stopped what they were doing to check their phones. Curiously, cell phones on "mute" are not considered to have a sound but as the study shows, the unintended sound of the vibration was powerful. (Hmm - can you create an ownable vibration sound to build brand recognition??).
As marketers, we know that sound is important in generating emotion and brand recognition. For me, this study makes me look at sound in a new light. Here are the results from the 50 volunteers. A small sample to be sure, but it gives directional food for thought.
THE MOST IDENTIFIABLE SOUNDS
Non-branded and branded sounds: 1. Baby giggle 2. Intel 3. Vibrating phone 4. ATM / cash register 5. National Geographic 6. MTV 7. T-Mobile Ringtone 8. McDonald's 9. 'Star Spangled Banner' 10. State Farm
Top 10 Branded sounds: 1. Intel 2. National Geographic 3. MTV 4. T-Mobile 5. McDonald's 7. State Farm 8. AT&T Ringtone 9. Home Depot 10 Palm Treo Ringtone
Top 10 Non-branded sounds: 1. Baby giggle 2. Vibrating phone 3. ATM / cash register 4. "Star Spangled Banner" 5. Sizzling steak 6. 'Hail to the Chief' 7. Cigarette light and inhale 8. "Wedding March" 9. "Wish Upon a Star" 10. Late Night with David Letterman Theme
Starbucks is fighting all sides to maintain its market share and position as most beloved coffee shop and what does it do?It runs some print ads telling us to “Beware of a cheaper cup of coffee” in one ad . (Now you’re telling me what to think?) In another it reinforces it’s money-back guarantee – "If your coffee isn't perfect, we'll make it over”. (Isn’t that what all good companies should do?Stand behind their product?)
Given all the passion and creativity that built this iconic brand, I’m disappointed that this is all they’ve come up with. Is this meant to reinvigorate the brand?
I’ve always believed in the fundamental principles of branding and marketing - leverage your strengths and points of differentiation.Think about it.Starbucks has built a business by building communities (Howard calls it The Third Place) – just walk into any well run store and you’ll see people engaged in conversation, mom’s meeting other mom’s and chatting about baby health issues, hopeful singles meeting for the first time, girlfriends breaking up with their boyfriends, business conducted over lattes.
Life happens over coffee –
When all the right elements are working, what makes Starbucks special is the unique spark and energy generated by the people who inhabit the café – the baristas and the customers.Now more than ever, people need community.People need affirmation, they need a place for renewal, a place to gather and discuss. Think of all the online communities that are springing up.Starbucks is missing a wonderful opportunity to cultivate these emotions and become the heartbeat of the community once again.
So who is doing a good job creating an emotional connection with their advertising?I can’t believe it’s a car company – but it’s a car company.Honda has done a wonderful job of warming the cockles of my heart.I want to join this group of people and converse with them, I want to drive this car and share the values that make up the Honda community.
Starbucks could learn a lot about creative and innovative advertising from Honda. In their ads, they’ve shown how a shared experience can create a community. Take a look and tell me what you think.
The advertising coming out of McDonald's Sweden continues to both amuse and baffle me. It is so quirky and so un-McDonalds-like that if you took away the logo, you'd never guess that it was from McD's. This print ad is composed of a bunch of one-liners - obviously scripted in the wee hours after a night on the town. When have you come across McDonald's copy such as "What's your name? Can I sleep with you?" or "Anyone that sleeps with me gets a free DVD".
And in case you missed these 2008 beauties, you have to take a look. These ads are a Swedish mashup of Dunkin Donuts meets Burger King meets IKEA meets the Brothers Grimm (ok, they were German). It's even weirder than that - you be the judge.
So how does McDonald's Sweden get away with these ads? I understand that you cannot advertise to kids in Sweden, so your communications and brand messaging strategy will be different. Global brands are constantly trying to strike the right balance between global brand consistency and local relevance. Yet, these seem way off the core brand positioning and personality.
I'm not sure what the folks in Chicago at McD's corporate are saying about their colleagues in Sweden. (Would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation!)
Here is some McD's Sweden trivia in case you are interested:
McDonald's Sweden recently introduced charging posts for electrically powered vehicles.
Strong and enduring brands create an emotional connection with their core customer. For example, tapping into personal values such as freedom, creativity and independence are at the core of Apple’s success, whereas brands like BMW tap into values of excellence, speed, and competition.
In brand communication, there’s always been a debate between the effectiveness of the purely functional/rational hard sell (think Tide gets clothes clean) and the emotional (think Sunlight – modern, caring, gentle). In "Brand Immortality" a book published by two Brits, Hamish Pringle and Peter Field, these former ad agency execs demonstrate that there’s a quantitative link between the effectiveness of emotional advertising and business results. In fact, they posit that emotional campaigns are almost twice as likely to generate large profit gains as rational ones, with campaigns that use facts as well as emotions in equal measure falling somewhere in between the two.
With trust at an all time low in today’s economic and corporate climate, this is a timely book. The current environment gives brands the opportunity to deepen the emotional connection by addressing consumers’ needs for stability, honesty and simplicity.
Brands that “get” this will win. In the case of Tropicana, we’ve seen how a change in packaging has sparked a huge negative emotional reaction. On the other hand, General Mills is using consumer sentiment to its advantage and is leveraging nostalgia to drive sales. They’ve gone into their archives and have re-introduced box designs for some of their best-selling cereals - Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs and Trix.
Do you have an example of a brand that has leveraged current consumer sentiment effectively to create an emotional connection?
In my last post on t-Mobile's “Liverpool Station Dance” (aka flash-mob), one of the questions I asked was around the stickiness of the t-Mobile ad.Would viewers notice and, more importantly remember that it was a t-Mobile ad?Since then, I came across an interesting snippet from Martin Lindstrom who reports on brands for Ad Age.He did a piece on what works (or not), in large-scale advertising campaigns and presented some of the conclusions from a research project using “neuro-marketing” – a type of brain scan where participants are exposed to marketing and communications stimuli.
According to the results of this study in which 2000 people participated, it seems that most product placement and sponsorships do not work.For a brand to be effective, Lindstrom suggests, you need an integrated approach to storytelling.You also need to be relevant and consistent in your message in order to help consumers store brands in their long term memory.
Logos alone don’t create any consumer awareness and in fact can create consumer suspicion.This is bad news for the billboard industry or sponsorships that basically sell you ad space where your logo is a dominant part of the medium.(It seems the Pepsi folks aren’t aware of this research as they are relying heavily on outdoor to launch their updated “smile logo” with words like “Change”, “Hope” and “Yes you Can”)
In the t-Mobile spot, the logo is the last thing you see, almost like production credits with t-Mobile’s distinguishing jingle/sign-off.Very subtle but perhaps also very effective.It begs the question at the end of the Liverpool Station Dance video – who made this cool thing??Thus allowing the viewer to discover the advertiser vs being bombarded with logos.
Guess who else is using this strategy?Hint:it starts with a G.
Brands need to be put into a relevant context and you need to be consistent. The key, however, is that the storyline needs be told in an indirect way and the story needs to be incorporated into all you do – live what you say versus “all hat no cattle” as they say in Texas.
t-Mobile has created a powerful platform for “Life is for Sharing”.Isn’t it wonderful that you can capture a spontaneous moment and share it with your friends and family through the phone?And think about the cool ways they can build on this idea in an integrated and fun fashion.
In-direct signals like colour, shapes and sound are more powerful memory triggers than logos. Ten out of ten for t-Mobile.
What about Pepsi??(Not that I wanted this post to be a t-Mobile vs Pepsi discussion – Pepsi deserves it’s own post).Let it suffice to say that Pepsi has spent a ton of $$ launching the new logo as part of their “Refresh” campaign. I’m not sure that using words like “Hope” and “Change”, (words also heralded by the Obama campaign) are inspiring when juxtaposed besides a revamped Pepsi logo.And while the music track of the now infamous Super Bowl Pepsi ad is catchy, seeing a Dylan selling his once youthful and rebellious soul to a soft drink company feels a little like Joan Baez being the spokesperson for Sleep Number beds - incongruent in a "doesn’t sit right kind of way".
Today I received an email from my 82 year old dad.He sent a link to a video on YouTube which his good friend Hans (also in his 80’s) had forwarded to him.I clicked on the video, and it was the t-Mobile UK’s Dance (Life is For Sharing) at Liverpool Train station that has been a viral sensation since it aired on January 16th .
there have been over 2.9 million impressions on YouTube and some 6500+ viewers cared enough to leave a comment
the video has ranked amongst the top 10 videos seen – on Feb 3 it was #3 – and this for an ad
the video has also been mentioned on over 26,900 blogs around the world
And the commentary has been incredibly positive, using words like “heartwarming”, “Restores your spirit” and “OPA! Meu primmeiro post”
All this for an ad by a phone company.Brilliant.
The ad broke through the clutter, taking “flash-mobbing” from guerilla to mainstream. Flash-mobs are not new (see history below), but t-Mobile is the first big brand to use the medium effectively.Interestingly, Home Depot and Best Buy have been flash-mobbed by “Improv Everywhere” (http://improveverywhere.com) back in 2006 in their stores, but the videos did not generate the viral impact that t-Mobile’s Dance has. And the brand & marketing folks from those big box stores did not see the potential to take the idea into the social and viral media the way t-Mobile's agency did.
The campaign is about getting people to engage in conversations and share stories by encouraging viewers to post camera videos on a YouTub website accompanying the ad. It hit the brand's bull'eye, "life is for sharing" spot-on.
When I asked my Dad why he liked the ad, he said “it makes you feel good and lets you still enjoy a moment where you can forget about the misery and chaos in the world today”.And it wasn’t just one person enjoying a moment, but it was the spontaneous combustion of joy that erupted over music and dance.The medium was viral so friends are sharing with friends.
No animals were used to create the dance – it was cruelty free and organic.
And finally, the ad is engaging – it lifts the spirit, it is both modern and nostalgic, appealing to universal youth – (80 year olds are in reality 20 year olds trapped in older bodies - or at least my parents are!).It has managed to connect with a variety of audiences in a fragmented media market.
It is refreshing to see how T-Mobile is tapping into the culture of today not by rehashing the Depression (like Allstate – and yah, I know it’s all about the values) but by bringing us a pure moment of joy.While brilliantly choreographed, it was the implied simplicity of song and dance, all very human and inspirational, that touched us.
So like any effective ad, it will be interesting to see how this campaign translates into additional users/sales for T-Mobile. With all the millions of impressions, did the brand name stick or was it purely “advertainment?(My Dad, for example, did not know it was a t-Mobile ad).
And what's next? It looks like there is huge upside for the brand to use spontaneity and video sharing as a viral platform to build phone usage (especially upsell to new/better/faster/richer media models).
Who knows - perhaps t-Mobile's "Dance" will inspire people to create their own flashmobs or random acts of joyful spontaneity.
Yes……life is for sharing.
Pure potential!
Background notes:
From Wikipedia:
A flash mob is a group of people who organize on the Internet and then quickly assemble in a public place, do something bizarre, and disperse
Another example of a well known flash mob was the April 2006 silent disco in London. At various underground stations around London, people gathered with their portable music devices and at a set time all started dancing to their music. At the time this was by far the largest flash mob gathering by a considerable amount. It was reported at Victoria Station more than 4,000 people were in attendance.This impacted the regular service of the London underground system enough for the city's police to begin crowd control and slowly clear people.Though no one was arrested it was reported that the City of London pledged to counter future disruption of the underground system. Since 2006, there have been several flash mobs including subsequent silent discos, comparable in size, in the London underground.
t-Mobile “Dance” info
- Secretly filmed at Liverpool Street commuter Station at 11am
- 350 dancers
- Celeb Choreographer Ashley Wallen took the dancers through an intensive 80 hour rehearsal to ensure they nailed the performance as they could only film a single take.
- Commuters stand and watch in amazement as the routine gets going and many can be seen taking pictures on their phones still unaware of what is happening around them.
- The stunt happened at 11am and the crew had 36 hours to film, edit and get the piece to air which was premiered as a full ad break during Celeb Big Brother.
- Music played: LuLu's 1965 hit Shout, 'The Only Way Is Up' by Yazz, 'Don't Cha', Pussycat Dolls, 'The Blue Danube Waltz' by Strauss, Kool & The Gang's 'Get Down On It' , 'Since You've Been Gone' by Rainbow, 'My Boy Lollipop', Millie Small and 'Do You Love Me' by The Contours.
The Essential Orange is a blog about brands and marketing. My goal is to examine how companies connect their brand to consumers and differentiate themselves in the crowded marketplace; how they build brand affinity and brand loyalty in new and different ways.
I have 20 years experience building brands and marketing strategy for both Fortune 500 and start-up companies including Unilever, Labatt/Interbrew and Starbucks. I joined Starbucks in 1996 where we pioneered new ways to build brands, breaking new ground as a responsible company, committed to environmental and social change. Instead of relying on huge advertising budgets, we developed innovative advertising and marketing programs that sparked conversations and built social networks. I held progressive marketing positions in the U.S. and Canada, joining the international team as VP marketing in 2004.
In 2008 I branched out on my own with a desire to work with companies who wanted to make a difference. I’ve had the privilege to contribute to their success by developing strategies and plans to build a following and effectively communicate their story leveraging both traditional and social media marketing tools.
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