Our team at Magnum Opus Partners, redesigned famous football club logos in a minimalist style. Inspired by the Juventus logo, we reimagined what the likes of Arsenal, Manchester United, Barcelona and Paris St Germain could look like if that went down the same minimalist root.
What does your ad agency know about, besides running ads?
The chances are, perhaps quite a lot.
Ad agencies can be mines of good ideas, if you let them be.
Because of the focus on creativity in every agency worth its salt, they’re invaluable resources to bounce ideas off in terms of new ways to reach people, service delivery, customer relations, even product development and manufacturing. And because agencies work across many different industry segments, they can often suggest ideas that might not occur to your own people who have grown up and learned what they know in your own industry.
The other thing great agencies can do for you is think outside the box to create ideas that will guarantee people talk about your brand in a positive and enthusiastic way … even without you running any ads.
One such idea was for Lacoste, whose 85-year-old crocodile is one of the 10 most famous logos in the world.
Lacoste agency BETC suggested they make a limited edition series of shirts with a series of threatened animals on them. While only relatively few shirts were made, the awareness of the project was enormous. “Save Our Species” was one of several campaigns in 2018 that involved new manufacturing … as the Clio Awards noted, a welcome sign of creatively expansive thinking.
Another brilliant fashion brand promotion from the same year came from Diesel, which created its own counterfeit brand, Deisel, and sold it from their very own knock-off store during New York Fashion Week. Facing up to — and thus disempowering — the business of counterfeit products was a brave idea that fitted Diesel's risk-taking DNA perfectly. Conceptually brilliant, the campaign was many things — a PR idea, a commerce idea, an experiential idea, a video idea—but it all gelled into one of the year's cleverest campaigns.
Advertising heads can also think of clever ideas that don’t use traditional mediums but which make a huge impact.
How brilliant is this ad for a pasta company?
Ads like this are called “environmental”, because they leverage the environment around them. And the boat owners will have appreciated the small contribution to their harbour fees.
You’ll never get this idea suggested to you by a media buying agency, that’s for sure.
Another hugely growing area is so called “Experiential” marketing, where you encourage people to physically interact with your brand in an unusual way. Again, it’s way different from a standard ad.
Globally, hundreds of billions of non-cash transactions are made each year. And knowing how often we whip out our cards, German charity Misereor decided to put our bad habit to good use with its charitable giving billboard with what they called SocialSwipe.
Set up in airports, these digital posters would display images of some problems that Misereor works to resolve - hunger was depicted with a loaf of bread, for example.
But the screen was equipped with a card reader, and when someone went to swipe a card - for a small fee of 2€ - the image moved to make it look like the card was cutting a slice of bread.
Or the card might sever the bonds of someone’s tied wrists.
You can see the idea in action here:
Needless to say, this experience required a lot of effort and co-ordination with banks, airports, and a mobile payment platform. So to make it worthwhile, the experience couldn't just be a one off. The people who interacted with it were later reminded of it when they got a bank statement. On the statement, a thank you note from Misereor would turn up, with a link to turn their one-time 2€ donation into a monthly one if they so wished.
So encourage your agency to think outside the dots, and come up with ideas that you don’t expect. It might be the best thing they – and you – ever did.
Written by Stephen Yolland - Partner/Creative Strategist
THE MASSIVE DANGERS OF “JUST GOOD ENOUGH”
When companies set their internal expectations for customer service – when they decide what is reasonable in terms of meeting deadlines, providing information and feedback, product or service quality, and so forth – one question that always needs to be asked is “Says who?”
Companies often set their customer experience performance by looking at their own internal processes. “Well, it takes us this long on average to do “X”, so we’ll add on another day or two to cover off the unexpected, and then tell the clients that’s how long it will take.”
The problem with this kind of thinking is that this outcome might be eminently reasonable, and supportable in terms of internal process, but it may nevertheless cause customer dis-satisfaction or even anger.
A classic example is airlines. Airlines “pad” their on-time performance, quoting longer times than actually necessary to fly between A and B, so that when a plane arrives a little sooner than the schedule predicted then theoretically people are delighted. And a small delay in arrival (up to 15 minutes from the scheduled time) is actually regarded by the regulatory authorities as “on time”. So they can actually be late, but still spruik their reliable performance.
The criticism levelled at relying on such padding is that it is also used as a reason not to upgrade airline efficiency, whether that be in terms of on time performance or a host of other issues like airport customer experience and environmental impact.
So airline management are happy, but their customers perhaps less so. Airlines spend millions discovering what snacks people want, or how much chair recline they need, or what colour the cabin should be, but what most regular fliers want is simple reliability. “If it says your plane will get there at 8am, then I want to get there at 8am. Because everything else about my trip is predicated around that basic fact.” This very obvious (and entirely reasonable) expectation seems to pass some airline executives by.
The starting point for any moves to make the Customer Experience better needs to be … the customer.
If you’re a pizza shop, and you’re proud of your delicious pizzas and you know you pour your heart and soul into making them look and taste great, you might think cooking and delivering such a delicious pizza in 30 minutes is great. But if the pizza shop next to you delivers an acceptably yummy pizza in 20 minutes – and those ten minutes matters to your customers – then you’re potentially in big trouble. Even if their pizza isn’t quite as good as yours. But how many pizza shop owners ever stop and say to their customers, “Is that OK with you?” Or “Hey, how did we do?”
Now think about any … bank … finance or insurance company … airline (again) … oh, hang it, ANY big organisation. When customers ring, do they get “Thank you for calling Impersonal Corporation Ltd. We value your time. Press 1 for blah blah …”
All these companies employ sophisticated telephone answering and call forwarding systems because they perceive they are saving money – and creating efficiency, not just for them but for their customers – by using those systems to screen calls.
It works, sure. But customers often hate them. They sigh as they hear the digital spiel begin. Some of them even hang up. But which CEO is famous for saying “You know what? Let’s go back to the future. I think we should actually answer every call as it comes in. Train the call answerers properly. And then transfer it to the right place. OK, that means more staff, and better staff, but it’s a price we will pay to be more personable.”
Answer: none of them.
And the real downside of poor customer service is that bad news travels very fast. Warren Buffett once said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." No truer words have ever been spoken about business, yet not all businesses think that way.
So here’s a few thoughts to spur you into taking your customer’s experience very, very seriously indeed.
It is said to take five times as much investment to find a new customer as it does to keep one.
One you’ve sold something to a customer once, it is estimated that you are anything up to ten times more likely to sell to them again as you are to a new customer.
Customers who rate your customer service are less likely to either ‘bad mouth’ you, or leave you, when there’s a hiccup. And they are more likely to praise you to their friends. The research that demonstrates that this word-of-mouth effect is by far the most important element in creating your public persona is voluminous.
Employees working for customer-focussed businesses stay longer and enjoy their work more, so they’re more productive.
And here are a few “Well, I can do that today” thoughts:
Pay to have your business secret shopped by professionals who carefully record the entire exercise and tell you what you need to know, rather than what you want to know. Chances are their advice will pay for itself in no time flat.
Get someone you trust implicitly – a family member or close friend – to telephone your business and report back to you on how it made them feel. Feel, not just whether they found what they wanted.
Get them to go on your website. Forget those complicated reports and waffle that is mainly used to justify the existence of your IT department. Get back to basics: above all, was it easy to use?
Get a bunch of your most recent ads, and play them or show them to real people who you consider to be averagely brainy and sensible. Do they get the message they’re supposed to get, are they able to respond easily, and perhaps most important of all, does the advertising mesh with their real life experience of dealing with your company?
When you’ve done all that, either empower your Customer Experience employees to make real, substantive changes to the products and services you offer, or take over their job yourself.
One well-known Australian business owner of our acquaintance insisted that ten randomly selected customer complaints a week be directed to his desk, so he could then call the customers personally and resolve their problem.
Often they couldn’t believe he was calling them personally, and the word of mouth impact of the CEO actually ringing them was well worth his time. He also knew when his direct reports were gilding the lily on customer satisfaction.
Now just imagine if the CEO of your Bank called you. Or the head of your preferred airline. Or your electricity company. Or, for that matter, the Premier of your State.
Even just once. Just once.
Yeah, that.
Written by Stephen Yolland - Director of Creative Strategy
Sure You Want To Change That?
There’s a problem with advertising campaigns, and it’s one that very few people in the industry care (or dare) to talk about.
It’s that – often – advertisers change their advertising because they’re bored with it. Or their agency is bored with it. Or because a new advertising manager or a client’s new agency don’t have the guts to say “Actually, there’s not much wrong with that”, and suggest just a minimal change to an existing hard-working campaign.
They fear being seen as unimaginative.
And very often, they throw the baby out with the bathwater and change advertising LONG before the public has tired of it. Ask any agency head or creative director over a quiet glass of wine one day, and so long as you promise not to name them publicly they’ll confirm it.
We have made a fetish of originality. And originality is often a really good thing, no question. But there’s also plenty of good solid evidence to support patiently evolving your advertising rather than instituting a wholesale revolution.
There are a number of reasons for this, and they can all be debated. But the first should be blazingly obvious. Consumers “learn” ads, and become attuned to good ones, over time and multiple viewings. But when you change the content dramatically you create dissonance and have to start from the beginning again, no matter how many millions of dollars you have invested in creating consumer understanding.
As the CEO of Communicus pointed out in an article a year ago:
• We identified 109 new campaigns that were launched by our clients’ competitors despite the fact that research results indicated the old campaign was still working. Of these, further exploration identified 28 cases in which a marketplace-based reason supported the switch. (For example, in one case a competitor had introduced a major new product that threatened to redefine the category.) But that still left 81 cases, or 74% of campaigns, that were replaced for no good reason. These were cases in which personnel or agency changes, or simple boredom on the part of the decision-makers, appeared to have driven the change.
• Of this group of 81, most new campaigns failed to generate results that were on par with those of the old campaign. In fact, by the end of their first year, only 20% of new campaigns were performing as well or better than the existing campaign.
Do you like those odds?
The same rule applies to product development and packaging.
Do you want to be the marketing manager who came up with a new taste for Coke?
Or how about the marketing manager of Tropicana juice who produced lovely new modern packaging only to see sales plummet 50% in five weeks, losing $60 million, and a rapid switch back to the old pack.
So is this an argument for just continuing to do the same stuff again and again and eschew originality altogether?
No, of course not. It’s an argument for being very careful about what you change, and not changing stuff for the sake of it. Indeed, it’s an argument for what used to be the holy grail of advertising agencies and their clients, to wit, to find a genuine CAMPAIGN idea – one that can evolve over time, refreshing the creative elements but not replacing them, and bringing the public along for the ride.
Knowing what to change requires smart strategic thinking, sensible consumer research, and buckets of good old-fashioned commonsense. Why spend millions establishing a great campaign idea in the public’s mind, only to throw it away because someone needs to be seen to be being creative?
Great ad campaigns (as opposed to great one off ideas) are legendary, because they build businesses in every market sector.
“Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach.” was one such. “Probably the best lager in the world.” for Carlsberg was another. And even when they changed to “That calls for a Carlsberg …” they kept the single word “Probably” on the packaging.
“Finger licking good” for Kentucky Fried Chicken was another brilliant campaign, even though it translated as “eat your fingers” in Chinese. Ok, they evolved the name of the business to KFC to get away from the horrid word “Fried”, but Finger lickin’ good is still right up there next to the drawing of Colonel Sanders. And good on them.
Arguably, Commonwealth Bank should never have changed from “Which bank?”, and so on and so on.
Beanz Meanz Heinz still works so well for Heinz after 50 years that last year Heinz partnered with retailers to mark the 50th anniversary of the famous slogan by updating its iconic packaging with limited-edition labels. Fifty different iterations of the catchphrase Beanz Meanz Heinz were generated from consumers' associations with Heinz Beanz. These variations included "Beanz Meanz Mumz", "Beanz Meanz Eggz" and "Beanz Meanz Palz" now emblazoning tins. And they even produced 50 special limited edition tins priced at a whopping ten pounds a tin, signed by the original creator of the slogan, Maurice Drake.
In 2012 Creative Review named Beanz Meanz Heinz the top slogan of all time, narrowly edging out Nike’s “Just do it.”
In all these wonderful examples, the clients and the ad agencies evolved a brilliant core idea, sometimes for a generation or more. The strategy survived changes of marketing personnel, changes of creative teams, and changes of ad agencies.
So before you send out that next brief – or your response to it – just pause for a moment to consider this great and timeless piece of marketing wisdom.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Written by Stephen Yolland (Yolly)
What's In A Name?
My full name is Patrick Michael Langton. My mum calls me Patrick Michael - mostly when I've done something wrong - but all my mates just call me Pat. I guess you could call it my brand.
A name - especially if it’s somehow different or unusual - will change the way you perceive something, and can make it easier to recall. My business partner Stephen Yolland has been called “Yolly" by everyone in the industry for thirty years. I’m not sure anyone remembers his real name anymore.
Nike is a great example of a brand with an unusual name. Now, I've heard the brand pronounced two completely different ways: Nike like Bike and Ni-key, as if there was a ‘y’ on the end. (For the record, it's the latter.) And some might say this is confusing for the consumer, but it actually makes the brand more interesting.
A little-known fact is that Nike was originally called Blue Ribbon Sports. (Which doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?). They were the US distributors of the Japanese company Onitsuka Tiger.
In 1971 they decided to manufacture their own brand and needed a new name. While searching for that name, a few interesting ideas were floated, including; Dimensions Six (hmmm), Peregrine (yeah, nah) and Bengal (not bad, but not quite good either).
Nike was actually a last minute decision as they had a 9 am deadline and had to go into production and Nike was the best they had. Nike was actually the Greek goddess of victory, that some may already know.
Sometimes the beauty of a deadline can force a decision. And it’s worth remembering that a name in itself doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It’s what you do with it that matters.
Needless to say, Nike went on to become one of the most iconic brands in history, with some of the best advertising in its market, produced consistently, turning it into one of the most iconic brand marks in history.
The same goes for Adidas. Again I've heard it pronounced two completely different ways - in fact, you're probably saying them both in your head right now. Both companies are two of the biggest in the world, and their names help.
Branding and advertising are all about standing out and it should start with your brand name. It's one of the reasons why the 'dot com bubble' burst so badly back in the early 1990s: it wasn't books.com that survived, it was Amazon.
That’s why the recent name change of JWT to Wunderman Thompson is just dumb. JWT is one of the strongest brands in advertising history, and one of the best known. A brand like JWT needs to be kept alive and making a new Frankenstein name while discarding a trusted brand franchise is just not the answer. Wunderman is a great agency with a proud tradition, and they do great work, but they don’t have 122 years of branding behind them. I just don’t get it. Same goes to VMLY&R, both WPP group agencies. Somewhere there’s a strategic rationale running to hundreds of pages about why it’s a smart idea. Commonsense says it isn’t.
A name can shape your life, Marilyn Monroe just has a better ring to it than Norma-Jean Mortenson. So when starting a new business think hard about the name: done right - and promoted right - you may just have a huge impact on that industry.
Written by Pat Langton - Creative Director