To conclude 2018, Spotify has once again amazed audiences with their Spotify Wrapped campaign. In past years, Spotify created an OOH campaign designed to humor users by highlighting certain habits that they picked up along with a witty comment. For example, in 2016 one billboard (see below) in NYC claimed "Dear person who listened to 'Sorry' 42 times on Valentine's Day, what did you do?". This year, however, Spotify raised the bar and made their brand even more personal. While they added their typical witty billboard OOH campaign again, they made a Spotify Wrapped 2018 microsite in which you could see your listening habits all in one place. This tool not only allows us to look back on our year as a whole, but learn even more about ourselves in the process. For example, they tell you how long you listened to your favorite artist (mine is Travis Scott at 10 hours) and more, eventually concluding with a shareable icon that consolidates all of your listening habits all in one place, conveniently the perfect size for you to share on your Instagram story. Spotify even got political in their video ads for their 2018 Wrapped campaign. The Youtube link below showcases a :15 pre-roll ad that concludes with "70,000 minutes were streamed to celebrate pride." Finally, Spotify tries to subtly push their voice command feature in the personal wrapped campaign (see screenshot below). In my opinion, Spotify knocked it out of the park with this campaign. Almost all of my friends posted screenshots of their own personal Wrapped 2018 picture on their Instagram stories, which generated a plethora of earned media for Spotify. Millennials are coming to expect more from their favorite brands nowadays, and Spotify is currently dominating the music streaming game with this new campaign, making their users feel even more connected to the brand.
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This Christmas, Burger King is giving the gift of Whoppers, but only if you go to McDonalds first. Wait, what? It's an insanely risky attempt from Burger King to garner more Burger King app downloads so they can get people to utilize their new mobile ordering system. Here's how it works: if a customer is within 600 feet of any McDonalds store, downloads Burger King's app and goes to mobile orders, they will be able to order a Whopper burger for only 1 cent. Burger King is not the first company to push app downloads through a generation discount, however. McDonalds and Wendy's have already pushed customers to their mobile apps by offering discounts, but nothing of this magnitude. Burger King tries to be creative and throw their customers on an experiential journey, which seems to be a growing trend. Consumers feel more connected to brands when brands give them more than just a product offering or discount. Although this is a pretty creative attempt at getting customers to use their mobile ordering system, Burger King obviously knows that the revenue opportunity is low, but the earned media potential is enormous. This is a huge PR stunt that has already gotten attention from dozens of huge media outlets, and will definitely bring Burger King back into consumer's minds. WOW #8: Google continues to utilize a humorous, simple advertising strategy for their new products11/25/2018 For the release of Google's new Pixel 3 phone, the company utilized a very similar strategy to showcase the innovative features of the product. Similar to the Google Photos ad from a few years ago (see below), the new ads for the Pixel 3 feature hilarious montages of typical problems that occur with iPhones, like flash ruining a photo, selfie lenses not being wide enough, and not being able to capture the perfect moment. The ads are simple, funny, and most importantly perfectly display the superiority of their new features compared to competitors. They perfectly address a problem with their competitors products and provide the simple solution: the Pixel 3. In one ad that showcases the Pixel 3's "Top Shot", we see a montage of pictures that were captured at the wrong moment, like a little girl blowing out her birthday candles, a little boy smiling as a whale jumps from the ocean behind him, and more. Then, someone using a Pixel 3 fixes their shot with the Top Shot function. Another features the display of the new Selfie Cam using the same formula, showcasing a montage of people failing to correctly fit their friends in a selfie. The third promotes the new Night Sight, which features a montage of people disturbing others when they use the flash on their phone. Overall, Google brilliantly pulls off a new campaign for the Pixel 3 that not only efficiently showcases the new features, but relies on the simplicity and ease of use that the brand relies on. It's the time of year where our news feeds are flooded with ads promoting the hottest Black Friday sales, best car deals and best ways to waste money on gift purchasing, but the International Committee of the Red Cross makes a statement with their new ad, titled "The One Gift Santa can't Deliver". It follows a dirty, frightened looking Santa Clause as he walks through what looks like a European town in the middle of a war. We see buildings explode, people shooting weapons, and Santa's grim expression as he looks at the horrors surrounding him, while background music ominously repeats the words "Happy Holidays". Overall, a very chilling scene made even more chilling with the terrified Santa Claus, who has been universally portrayed as a character who brings happiness to people during the holidays. In this scene, however, he does bring some happiness when he eventually finds a little girl alone in one of the half-destroyed buildings. He reaches his hand out to the girl, but when the camera pans to her perspective, she can't actually see anything - Santa was only in her imagination. The camera then fades black with the tagline "The one gift Santa can't deliver". Although this ad is admittedly dark for a TV advertisement, the ICRC does well to remind America and the world that there are millions who Santa can't deliver presents to this Christmas. It forces us to reconsider complaining about not getting that one small gift on our Christmas list or worrying if you may overcook the ham. We all have a safe place to call home and don't need to worry about our next meal, and for that, we should be thankful. It's quite refreshing to see an ad campaign that isn't trying to push a new overpriced product down our throats but instead tries to instill a true holiday spirit in each of us. This Thanksgiving, Kraft Mac N' Cheese released a new campaign that unveils the truths about Thanksgiving that nobody ever seems to talk about. It's a killer campaign that perfectly places the brand back into parents' mind as the go-to meal that's easy to make and won't make the kids fuss. The ad features a mother sitting at the head of the table at Thanksgiving, directly talking to the camera while the rest of her family feasts. The tone of her voice is satirical as she cheerfully describes the quality of their food, claiming the food is "totally weird every other day of the year." The camera then cuts to the child of the family, picking at his food with a distasteful look on his face. She continues, "to a kid, they seem weird all the time." She then sneaks into the kitchen and heats up a cup of Kraft Mac N' Cheese for her child so that everyone can leave dinner with a full belly. She concludes with, "It is possible to enjoy Thanksgiving without any of the Thanksgiving food," ending with the hashtag #ThankfulForMacNCheese. I really enjoy this ad because it both parodies Thanksgiving and points out some of its flaws. There are many subtle comments about stereotypical family members that make you uncomfortably chuckle, but the quote final quote about how it isn't really that important to eat Thanksgiving food on Thanksgiving makes us think about why the holiday is important: to be thankful for what we have. Yes, it's cheesy, but hey, you are what you eat. I'm thankful for this ad. Last week, our class had the privilege of visiting David & Goliath, a well-known independent shop with very recognizable accounts like Jack in the Box, Kia, California Lottery, HBO, and Universal Parks and Resorts. It's truly impressive to see an independent agency less than 20 years old become so successful, yet after learning more about their culture, I'm not surprised. David Angelo, the founder of D&G, fell in love with the phrase "Do what you fear, watch it disappear" and tried to incorporate it into his agency. The entire theme of the agency revolves around conquering fears. In fact, they have an entire wall devoted to framed pictures of various fears that employees are afraid of. If someone conquers their fear (ie, flying), they can stick a post-it note on the corresponding picture frame that says "Conquered". The entire culture of overcoming fears perfectly aligns with the biblically famous David versus Goliath mythology in which David, a feeble young man defeats the mighty Goliath. This underdog mentality has propelled D&G into an upper-tier of LA agencies, and I was honored to learn about their history and culture.
During our class session, we were introduced to several David & Goliath employees that would act as advisors for our project activations. Each team was given the opportunity to present their brand idea and campaign status to the panel of experts. All of us are right in the middle of our campaigns and are in dire need of assistance in pivoting our activations to fully optimize our KPIs. Each panelist had a unique area of expertise, like copywriting, analytics, social media, and more, so they all had different but brilliant ideas for us going forward. For my team specifically, they pointed out one limitation we might have with driving sales online, because we can't sell our shirts or HUG packs online. This is a classic case of our team having tunnel vision after spending so much time focusing on our projects, so feedback like that is always welcomed. They also gave us feedback on some of our slogans. They particularly enjoyed "Let's put the men in menstruation", which focuses on our theme of battling the stigma against talking about periods. They also gave us some ideas on implementing the idea of the "Pink Tax" in a disruptive way by making men experience the pain of having to pay more for an item, which gave us the idea to sell donuts on campus, $1 for girls, $1.50 for men, and film the reactions of men as they notice they are getting charged more. We decided to film it via a hidden camera so that we can capture people's reactions and add them to our Instagram feed. Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with David & Goliath, and hope that my relationship with this agency is sustained until after graduation. A new men's health brand is emerging, and it's trying to mimic the success of Dollar Shave Club by using the same youthful, trendy and subscription-based model of DSC, but by adding products that aren't for grooming, they're for general masculine health. The brand is called Hims, and features products like hair growth supplements, vitamins, skin supplements, and even Sildenafil (essentially Viagra) -- not the typical products you would see this style of advertising for. Snoop Dogg is even a spokesman for one of their TV ads (unavailable via YouTube but see screenshot below). The reality is the landscape of ads for products like hair growth, Viagra, and other supplements are quite stagnant and boring. Additionally, people are becoming more hyper-aware of good advertising, so the old formula of "Talk to your doctor if it lasts more than four hours" is quite bland by now. The oldest millennials are in their mid-30's, and I'm sure men that age are beginning to see a dip in their health, but would feel ashamed and "old" by looking into supplements supplied by the typical vendors. Therefore, Hims finds itself entering a very unique market of Millennial males feeling the pain of their egos that is only just beginning to emerge. With witty copy and a recognizable voice in Snoop Dogg, Hims is making these health products seem "cool", empowering, and most of all, normal. With their most recent partnership with the NFL, Tide has solidified itself as one of the most clever advertisers in the market today. This NFL season, Tide partnered with the Thursday Night Football crew on NFL Network to deliver mid-game Tide Ads that are both humorous and effective. Some of them include the commentators going on a tangent from the game to comment on the cleanliness of the players jerseys, and some involve hilarious lip-dubs of players mid-game. Each ad is unique, but serves the same purpose of showing that there's a Tide ad almost everywhere. If you see a clean pair of clothes, it's a Tide ad. What I really enjoy about this campaign is that each ad utilizes the feature program that viewers came to watch. In effect, it immediately grabs the attention of viewers because it makes them think that the game had returned from commercial break. The familiarity also adds to the trustworthiness of the brand because it is directly endorsed by the Thursday Night Crew. This also provides many different creative opportunities for Tide, and I can't wait to see what they do next. Last night, we visited Steelhead to learn about the ins and outs of the production process of a large scale advertising agency. Steelhead is the relatively new production arm of Deutsch, a very notable agency with clients like Volkswagen, Dr. Pepper, 7/11, Taco Bell, Sprint, NFL, and more. This was easily the most fascinating agency visit I've had in either semester I've had in the M-School, because one of my secret hobbies/passions growing up was film-making. In fact, the reason I came to LMU was to eventually transfer to the film school. Alas, I discovered the M-School and the production opportunities within advertising which I fell in love with, ultimately culminating in me being amazed with Steelhead's production facility. The cameras, enormous studio, high-tech monitors, and editorial staff -- it was like a director's playground. Our speaker was Eric Kaufman, one of Steelhead's premiere directors, who gave us a complete guided tour followed by a few case studies. He clearly knew so much about the industry and I appreciated the excitement he had - it made me even more excited to enter the industry.
Honestly, in the past year I've found myself become less and less skilled at the creative side of advertising, whether that be production, photography, or design, but the session at Steelhead gave me the push that I needed to get back on that horse and start making things. After all, that's what I came to the M-School for. I know I have the capability, I just need to put it to practice and gain some confidence in myself again. Last month, Allbirds released a brand new ad campaign that not only showcases the sustainable nature of their shoes, but the humor of their brand. The trendy shoe company hit the ground running last year and have quickly gained ground on major shoe retailers, but this new campaign sets them apart not only as a pair of shoes you wear with comfort, but wear with pride. The brand released two different ads that showcase the material of their "tree runners" made from eucalyptus trees and their "wool runners" made from -- you guessed it -- wool. In each ad, a woman or man is either at the dentist, getting their haircut, or something that requires you to sit for a long period. In the "wool runners" ad (shown below) specifically, a man is at the barber with half of his head shaved, when he stares at his shoes and seems to have an epiphany. He then stands up and begins to walk. A voice over starts playing as the man walks all around the world. The voice makes sarcastic remarks like "Even if you really really wanted to", "With nothing better to do", "We still think it's unnecessary, but technically, you could meet your shoes". The man stops walking once he stumbles upon a sheep. He says "Hi", and the commercial ends. In my opinion, this is a genius campaign because it subtly hints at all of the factors that make the shoes unique without directly saying so and perfectly adjusts to the new generation of advertisers. For example, the ad never talks about the durability, comfortability and walkability of the shoes, but it shoes the viewer that they are all of those things when the main character walks across the entire world to meet shoes, with a few close-up shots highlighting the stylish nature of them as well. Additionally, the recent trend in advertising has been to utilize humor, sarcasm, and an engaging story in every campaign that differentiates the brand and, even more importantly, offers an engaging experience. Allbirds does all of these things perfectly, especially the engagement factor, because if you visit "meetyourshoes.net", you are taken through an immersive experience that helps you meet your shoes. |
About the AuthorMichael Dennehy is a member of the newest cohort within the M-School Institute of Marketing. He recently returned from a semester abroad in Europe, where he travelled to 11 different countries. He is excited to finally begin his career with the M-School and beyond. Archives
November 2018
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