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ADVERTISING
1. THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE
The famous sentences of McLuhan “the medium is the message” can also be reversed into “the message is the medium” this means that “what stands in the middle” (= “medium” in Latin) is something meaningful and it defines the content (example: with a smartphone you are urged to take a selfie; social media allows you to write whatever you want because you don’t physically have anyone in front of you, but it completely changes your way of expressing your ideas). All aspects of every media have an irresistible force and every single media has the content that is more suitable to the medium itself. Without virtual reality there would be no social media. Every media demands its own kind of message → different media = different content. McLuhan started the consideration of our age as a mass-age: media massification. Advertising started as storytelling, so: turning an idea into a story. The “commercial/economical advertising” equals to making a product popular, and it can be then considered as old as the printed medium (late 19th century) using only words, then colors and images. So, from newspapers we moved to magazines, then the radio was invented, then TV, internet, social media… Each step had the goal of making something popular. What kind of content is trying to become popular? It depends on the medium (technology changes the media): the medium is the message and the message is the medium. “Madman”: it stands for “Madison Avenue man” and it is a TV series that talks about the beginning of adv. Printed media are based on words and so the first creative professional in the advertising business was the “copywriter”, who wrote copy/words (texts, headlines, punchlines, radio scripts). Because advertising was text-based, the creative director (the head of the creative department) was the copywriter. The two birthplaces of advertising were Chicago and New York, in early 20th^ century. There is a difference between advertising and simple product description because advertising creates value around the product using psychological leverages and numbers that we can have thanks to studies made on TV and other media (metrics, big data). The copywriter writes taking in consideration psychology and statistics (if you know how to use the right words in the right way, you create the right perception). Adv. is also about highlighting key words. During the history of adv. The only thing that has changed is the technology we are able to use, but the attitude has always been the same. Example 1 → “King of beverages” by Dr. Pepper: It is an authority and a leader. “Free from caffeine” + “doctor”, the doctor is someone you can trust, caffeine is dangerous for the heart, Dr. Pepper doesn’t have caffeine = better than competitors. It is healthful so you can drink as much as you like = psychological leverage is on the fear of dying. Every word used is important to have a reaction on the client. Example 2 → “Dayton’s goodfellow’s”: “Good fellow”, someone you can trust, it is an endearing trust fellow. “We satisfy”, since it is a good fellow it satisfies you. “What the men are wearing”, everyone has it you want to be like the others = psychological leverage is on emulation. Example 3 → “Gem paper clips” (1890): “Don’t mutilate your papers”, psychological effect of a personification, transfer of meaning
from a person to an object= psychological leverage is on empathy. (This was created in 1894, not even 19th^ century yet but they already used psychology.) The copywriter was paid to write headlines enhanced with psychology. The headline with the word “mutilated” triggers us, we visualize a paper mutilated by an ungentle clip: but Gem Paper Clip is gentle and great to use. Example 4 → “Opera”: “Triumph”, I had a bad day, so I need a triumph = psychological leverage is on compensation thanks to the psychological effect of entertainment (and before TV people found this entertainment in the opera). Example 5 → Movie “Trainspotting”: Trains are predictable, they always go one way or another: satisfying. Art Director for magazines: when we moved from newspapers to magazines visual content started to be more and more important and here the focus is not just on the image itself but how it is laid out in the page (the layout) because advertising is not just about psychology data and numbers anymore, there is also the element of visual entertainment (fun, humor, visual storytelling). The copywriter was the head and the Art Director stayed with the print people, he merely supervised the printing department. Before this revolution the art director wasn’t considered as important as the copywriter, in fact he was in the printing department. Then William Bernbach (founder of BBDO) and the BBDO (adv company) revolutionized the advertising industry with the approach of “visual storytelling” with the advertising: IMAGE+WORD = copywriter + art director → CREATIVE COUPLE, heart of the creative part of the company, most important people in the agency, their ideas are the most important to the company advertising efficiency and strategy. Example → “Lemon” for Volkswagen: It was shocking because we were just used to a lot of words. Moreover, the commercial was also ironic: firstly, because “Lemon” in American English means disappointment (if life gives you lemons, make lemonade), secondly, because there is an opposition between big American cars and this beetle style vehicle from Germany and, finally, because the slogan “think small” is the exact opposite of the American “go big or go home”. David Abbott used copywriting from a visual point of view and so the “copy ad” was born. It is a piece of advertising made only with words, where words are used in a visual way. The visual of the ad is not an image but a text, words. Example 1 → “I’ve never read the economist.” Management trainee. Aged 42. – by David Abbott: It is a written paradox because it is impossible that a management trainee has never read the economist, unless he/she is an idiot. The color together with the font (same as the newspaper’s) create the power of the advertising, they work together to achieve a better result: simple but effective because now there is also the art director’s point of view. Pt. 2 → “Would you like to sit next to you at dinner?” (the economist by David Abbott): It sounds like a rhetorical question against rhetoric → used to play with your mind Example 3 → “Absolut campaign”: The use of the product outlines as a visual element, campaigns can also touch important subjects to get to the client’s mind/heart. Example 4 → “Whiskas, feeding your cat’s instincts”: Visual paradox
first spot aired during Monday night football on December 20th, 1999. The ad campaign was run worldwide and became a pop culture catchphrase. The actual payoff was the word “true” but the catchphrase everyone remembers is “whassup”. The copy strategy was to depict how Americans truly behave watching a game on TV. The copy strategy and the creative idea was “true”, then they had this amazing idea of a catchphrase; the catchphrase took over, it was a “viral vampire” because it sucked awareness, memory… The difference between the first two commercials and the “whassup” one is that the first two are cinematic. On the contrary, “whassup” was inspired by TV sitcoms of the 90s, by lifestyle TV comedy shows such as “Friends”. Therefore, the intended medium demands a certain kind and style of content (if your mainstream medium is cinema the production approach must be movies, if the medium is tv sitcom in cable tv the production approach will be cable tv sitcom). true = common usual way of living of the American → “watching a game, having a bud”. Example 4 → "Allianz" Costs of production were enormous, high budgets: many people and actions involved, but the idea was profitable enough. On YouTube, you can have the same budget, big money production approach that you have on TV for advertising. Main changes: content can be seen multiple times and in different places, every detail can be analyzed, extra contents can be added and the concept can be better understood. Example → “Rio 2016 paralympics": After the video content there are some extras like the interviews or the backstage. Since it is for the web the content is not made to be watched once as you do on TV, in fact it is not a commercial it is a “content” because it is something that always stays inside a medium, an environment. You can comment on it, you can share it or make a parody. This is a huge budget idea. There are a lot of people, a lot of cameras involved in the storytelling. It is a huge production even if it is for the web. Another difference is that in the tv commercial the logo and the name of the brand are omnipresent, in the video content the brand can vanish, it is not the most important thing. But, by vanishing it becomes omnipresent because the brand becomes the ecosystem. First law of Guglielmoni: “revolutions always begin at the borders”. 1st^ book: “The foundation cycle” by Asimov. They are starting to produce the cinematic version of this book thanks to new developments in technology. As a matter of fact, thanks to the MCU (Marvel cinematic universe), now they’re thinking of producing the first narrative sci-fi environment created by men, which is the foundation narrative cycle, which in turn is a whole narrative thematic environment created by Asimov. In this cycle, the central intergalactic empire is collapsing, so the new empire will be born at the outer limits of the galaxy, not in the center but at the borders. Why? We can see that in Kuhn’s book. 2nd^ book: “The structure of scientific revolutions” by Kuhn. Ideas are always anomalies at first, but then become the “new paradigm”. Something unpredictable comes from the less predictable environment. So, not the center where everything is happening but at the border, where nobody is looking. Eventually anomaly will replicate itself becoming the new paradigm. There are also revolutions, happening at the borders of the advertising empire and the next revolution will be “technological”: the “Ted” (technology, entertainment, design) one (the payoff of Ted is usually “ideas worth spreading”, but this time since it is an adv. award, they changed it in “ads. worth spreading”); then there’s the “Vimeo festival awards”; “The sound by southwest
SXSW” (which is an interactive technology and design festival in Austin, Texas); “Mashable” (the most important blog and web magazines about social media created the “mashes awards”). Tech. is on the verge of becoming the new adv. paradigm. Everything is blooming from tech. Right now the empire is the internet, social media. If you want to create good content on YouTube or any other social platform you must understand how it works. Example → “Carousel" by Philips 2009: It is an ad piece for Philips TVs in stores. The piece is called "Carousel". This commercial was both on the web and on tv and it is the perfect example of the merging of these two worlds. This is not just a commercial, but it is also a content because it asks you to be re- watched until you get to know every detail, it is not by chance, it is designed to be that way. It was something that only the bullet time technique could do; it is a cinematic tech. invented especially for the matrix movie. Basically, you multiply the point of view, so it looks like you don’t move and it’s the camera moving around. So, there is a circular Carousel effect, where the end and the beginning are the same since it is a Carousel. Before the matrix movie this wouldn’t have been possible. Everything is a remix on the web. The internet mindset amplifies the remix approach that is very present in pop culture. Example 1 → “Deadpool”: The opening titles clearly remind of the “carousel” of Philips. The director of Deadpool himself stated that he paid his homage to the adv. director of the Philips’ Carousel. Example 2 → “Scary movie”: Remix of the “whassup?” Commercial Example 3 → “Simpson’s episode”: Remix of the “Got milk?” commercial THE HISTORY OF ADVERTISING IS THE HISTORY OF THE MEDIA
It is a carousel of clips in which we never see a computer, we just see the logo at the end. That is because the entire ad is about the “think different”. We see people who have been crazy enough to think they could have changed the world and that at the end actually changed it (“here’s to the crazy ones”). There are only values, no products. Emotions are the main lever that transmit something to the customer. Creativity is the goal of advertising → AIDA: attention + interest + desire + action (get someone to look at our product, get their interest even if they look at other thousands of advertisements, making it desirable will bring people to think they need it, then “action”). Brands started thinking about advertising, not only to promote the product but also to make us trust their values → want us to believe in something. More emotional and deep. “Dove” started the so-called “brand activism/purpose” → ads made not just about perception but also about brand reputation/activism/equity/honesty. Example 1 → “gray or gorgeous?” by Dove: At the beginning of their brand history, they only sponsored the soap’s quality and produced moisturizing creams, they had very specific properties like a product recipe. Then they decided to make a CHANGE = promoted a campaign for real beauty, compared to the other photoshopped brand images that have changed our perception of reality and beauty. They didn’t change their attitude: the product itself is made to respect your skin but the shift was from respecting your skin to respecting your dignity and feelings. The CallToAction is not a commercial proposition (buy and you will have some benefits/ discounts...) but it is about your dignity, your attitude and lifestyle and you as a human being and not only a customer. NO product shown, only logo at the end. Example 2 → “Real beauty” by Dove: Dove also made a viral commercial that was shot like a “behind the scenes'' of a beauty photoshoot, in order to show to the public how much of the beauty that we are shown in the ad is modified (by makeup/photoshop). This ad came out after Dove made a survey to understand their female customers better and more intimately. They discovered that, more than the moisturizing soap bar, their customers were passionate about their “real beauty” and that they didn’t want to be judged and feel different from billboards and unrealistic, perfect beauty portrayed in other advertising (promoting unrealistic beauty). They turned perception into advocacy and belief, making the audience proud and intimate with the brand purpose (in this case: let you appreciate your natural beauty, free from adv stereotypes). Example 4 → documentary ad by Dove: Here there was a drawer that had to draw many women using only their self-description, then they asked someone else (that met the woman for a few mins. in advance) to describe her, finally they showed both drawings to the women and, for every single one of them, the drawing that the artist made following their description of themselves was uglier than the one he did following the description given from the other person. The meaning behind this ad was “you are more beautiful than what you think”. Here there is no product, they are just showing the brand purpose. Example 5 → Patagonia: They are a brand that wants to stop climate change, so, when Greta Thunberg started her Friday strikes, they showed her their support by closing all their shops for one day. They lost a lot of money because they valued their reputation and actions more.
Another time they showed the importance of their values was when they sent many emails to Trump to show that they didn’t like how he was managing the environment issue + before 2020 elections, they put on the label “vote the asshole out” in part of their jeans. The dark side of “brand purpose” is called “brand washing”. That is when a brand does something just to make people talk about it and not because it really represents the brand values. Example 1 → Vogue: They published one magazine copy without a cover photograph, as a protest against waste and pollution. But it didn't work since it wasn’t consistent, they made it look like they were doing something good, but it was fake, staged, they didn’t really think about the problem itself but without a real fundraising for example. It was just to make the brand look good for one day. Example 2 → ENI: They tried to surf the wave of ecological process, with their new campaign ads during Sanremo, but they didn’t actually change anything. So, the difference between two brands like Patagonia and Vogue is that the 1st^ one actually put aside their income in order to promote their values, whereas the 2nd^ one tried to promote fake values in order to increase their income. !!! Without brand consistency and honesty is not brand purpose but is only brand washing !!!
the product? → Examples:
- Know the product and try it
- Change ideas/habits (think outside the box)
- Switch brand
- Use a product more often
- Use a product in a new way
- Consider the brand before choosing
- Increase frequency
- Generate trial
- Consumer profile (= audience profile targeting): understand and define the audience, who is your customer, who are you trying to reach. “So what, who cares?” tone, message, style → part of the tactic, important to understand out communication how to come up with ideas in advertising:
- Briefing: moment in which you discuss your ideas to arrive to understand the situation of the clients and try to solve clients’ problem, creative thinking is more efficient in a relaxing and joyful environment (example: coffee houses)
- Brainstorming: 5 tips to use in a session
- Don’t criticize, it makes you defensive and, when you feel under attack, your mind will shut off creativity.
- Quantity first, quality second because the more ideas/considerations/connections you have at the starting point, the better.
- Nothing is never too weird, weird is original → don’t judge,
- Let ideas have sex in the sense that ideas must be free to combine themselves to create new ones.
- Understand “what’s in the fucking box” (reference from movie “Seven”), because if we are aware of what is in the box, we have the tools to go outside the box Make the client trust you because you understand their needs and problems. When we want to start brainstorming when can follow the of the “six hats” technique:
- “White hat” that represents “facts”, so objective thoughts that focus on facts and info;
- “Red hat” that represents “feelings”, so emotional thinking (logic is forbidden), intuition and emotions;
- “Black hat” that represents “judgment”, so logical and critical thinking that are useful to find the weak points;
- “Yellow hat” that represents the “positivity”, so optimism thoughts that are helpful to see advantages and opportunities;
- “Green hat” that represents “creativity”, so looking for connections that are out of the box, different angle that can improve the idea;
- “Blue hat” represents “planning”, so looking for the bigger picture and looking at the ideas from a wider angle, not focusing on the problem but on the environment around the problem. → There is actually another important color to mention: “purple hat” represents “remarkability”, “don’t be quick be purple”: from the purple cow book. Being outstanding and noticed is the main aim for every client/product.
4. LOVEMARKS
Brands always need a “big idea” that has to be creative, broad and powerful to start all communication. pieces of a durable campaign. In fact, a campaign is something long and in order to be able to sustain it for a long time you need to start off with a big idea. It is, therefore, important. to know how to develop a big idea from a creative strategy (that will be your blueprint). These two elements will be connected by a “feedback loop” because, sometimes, in order to sustain your idea, you will have to change your strategy and you will understand that through feedbacks that you should listen to (because, if just a few changes could help expressing the full potential of the idea, you should do it). In order to create a big idea, there are some questions to ask yourself: what’s the real problem? What does the comm. objective mean? How to link the product to the objective? How to summarize the communication objective into copywriting? Do we need to move the brand positioning? → Have to have the answer to these questions before going along with the communication campaign. “Lovemarks” is a concept, but also a book written by Kevin Roberts where he defined this methodology to come up with the big idea that can last and be powerful to be a great campaign. He said that brands are running out of juice, they lost quality, love was needed to do better advertisements. Emotional part of our mind: mystery, sensuality, intimacy → define if the brand is a lovemark or not. Simple things such as “style”, “tone of voice” or the “product demo” can be the big idea of a brand. If you show the product using a tone of voice you choose to show the product from a specific angle, and this simple big idea can last for ages. For this reason, just showing the product or its benefits can already be a big idea. Example → Coca cola spot: They wanted to share the message that when you open a Coke you are not just opening a drink, but a bottle of happiness and joy. They did that by reproducing the “Willy Wonka factory” inside the vending machine that sold Coke. So, here the functional benefit is that Coke is good and you can have it wherever you want and the emotional benefit is that behind the vending machine there is a factory of cute animals that manufacture happiness in the form of Coke. Coca cola was already a successful brand but they wanted to rebrand themselves into something more appealing. They did that, not by changing the product, but by changing the comm. Coca cola is not just a drink anymore it is an emotion → establish an emotional connection When you are a lovemarks, people will love your brand and communication → you have a better age, you inspire loyalty, and activate the love for the brands in the consumers. Top 10, Love Brands by Watchmojo (from last to first):
- Taco Bell Chihuahua: Here the big idea was the lovely character and the fact that they made the ad very sensorial.
- Gap campaign: The big idea was the tone of voice and the music, especially the music style because it goes even beyond the brand (inspiring swing culture renaissance in adv.). Used trendy music to attract people.
- Dove: The big idea is the empathy and intimacy with the people that creates loyalty to the brand. The brand understands you and sees you for what you are. Like one of your most intimate friends, the brand becomes more important than the product.
- Dos Equis: The big idea is the character of “the most interesting man in the world”, it was
reach the emotional benefit, if we don’t have the functional one.
- Netflix: Qwikster Rebranding. Netflix was the first video stream platform but, before becoming the Netflix we know, they tried to become Qwikster (video-rental service). They hadn’t found the real benefit yet.
- Ford: The face of the car reminds of the Munch Scream, or the Scream Face, so, the design was totally wrong because it was a disaster from an emotional point of view.
- New Coke: When you have a product, whose benefit is well established, you do not have to change the benefit, you only need to enhance the emotional benefit. So, we can see that showing only the product can be boring, so emotions and non-material benefits of a brand need to be enhanced. Therefore, we need to go beyond the simple brand. We can use the image to understand the two fundamental qualities for the brands of the future: 1) respect 2) love. If a brand has low love and low respect, it is just trying to sell products without caring about the emotional benefit. If a brand has high love and low respect, it is going to be short-lasting. If a brand has high respect and low love, it has to work on its emotional side. If a brand has high love and high respect it becomes a love mark. 3 pillars of lovemarks:
- MYSTERY:
- Great Stories
- Past Present Future
- Taps In Dreams
- Myths And Icons
- Inspiration
- SENSUALITY:
- Sound
- Sight
- Scent
- Touch
- Taste
- INTIMACY:
- Commitment
- Passion
- Empathy You have to consider all of these aspects and possibly use them at their best. When we create a love mark, we create continuity and this is why we call adv. “campaigns”. Example 1 → “Absolut Brand”: They used the same campaign for ages where they gave the shape of the bottle to something recognizable. And this was seen as an ongoing game with the audience. The bottle is the benefit, no matter how the product looks, you have to find a way to tell a story around it. Example 2 → “Coca Cola”: The brand wanted to be part of your life → created a game with the audience by putting
names on the products, turned Coke into a gift (with the catchphrase “share a Coke”). Seeing your name on the bottle of your favorite drink becomes a reward for passionate and loyal customers. They used the concept of Santa Claus that makes gifts and transformed the brand into Santa. Example 3 → “Just Do It” by Nike: They only used one tagline, but they were able to create one of the most powerful pieces of advice to give to their audience → trust yourself, you can do it. The brand was able to connect in an emotional way to the customers in a long-lasting way. They also created huge continuity by always using it. Example 4 → “Google Spot 2017”: How can a tech engineering brand become a love mark? By shifting from product feature to emotional feature. Google wanted to establish the brand not only as a service to search things online, but a service to search useful things to do good in the world. So, they made a campaign that was inspiring, sensorial (music, video edited, voices). The watcher forgets it is a campaign, it is seen more as a message of careness and loyalty to the customers. Example 5 → “Got milk?”: One of the most long-lasting campaigns ever, the product is not shown (milk on the mustache). The focus is on emotion, turning the audience into advocates by using relatable characters. By being a love mark brands can become iconic, and you can’t forget the logo, example: McDonalds → one of the most recognizable brands, didn't have to show the complete logo to make the audience understand what the campaign is about → minimalistic but brilliant. LOVEMARK IS A BRAND THAT ENGAGES YOUR EMOTIONS AND CREATES LOYALTY BEYOND REASON
The goal is hiring people that believe what you believe and having customers that believe what you believe. The why takes both the inside and outside of the company. The why is important to attract those who believe what you believe? Because of the law of diffusion and innovation. The first 2.5% of the population are innovators, 13,5% are early adopters, the next 34% are early majority, 34% late majority, rest are laggards. We all sit at various places at various times on the scale, but the law of diffusion and innovation tells us that if you want the mass market, you can’t have it until you reach the point of 15%-18% market penetration. The thing is that the early majority will not try something until someone else has tried it first. And the innovators and early adopters are comfortable making those gut decisions. Failure example → TiVo: They were the highest quality product on the market. They never made money, because, when TiVo launched their products, they told us what they had, not why. Success example → “Doctor King”: In the summer of 1963, 250’000 people showed up in the mall of Washington to hear Doctor King speak. They had no invitation, there was no website to check the date or hour. Doctor King went around to tell people what he believed in. And people who believed what he believed, took the cause, and they told other people. No one showed up for him on that day, they showed up for themselves, for what they believed. So, when you find your purpose, it's more valuable than anything else. You can make other products with the same reason. Before the purpose, there was something slightly similar, which is vision and mission. What’s the difference? Do we need any more than Vision and mission? Yes, because:
- The vision is where you want to get;
- The mission is the what; The purpose is the why. The why is more profound, more true, more human (but we have to remember that the purpose has nothing to do with ethics). Every campaign is built around a tagline/payoff, but they will not have power if the purpose/why is not strong enough. Tagline is different from purpose. The tagline is the creative expression of a unique selling proposition. The 5 Ps that a company needs to consider are:
- Product → what you make
- Price → how much your selling your product
- Place → where you decide to produce it
- Promotion → ad to sell your products
- Purpose → it becomes the first P because it’s the most important, it has to be real otherwise it will have the opposite effect. Example → Netflix:
- Place: couch/sofa
- Purpose: binge watch The purpose doesn’t have to be ethical, but it could also be a way of thinking and living (Apple: living and thinking differently): the brand’s purpose has proved to drive sales, appealing to our human nature. 5 fields of human emotions and values → help us find out the brand purpose:
- Eliciting joy (cocacola)
- Enabling connection
- Inspiring exploration (airbnb during covid)
- Evoke pride (mercedes benz)
- Impact on society How do we discover the brand purpose? We need to consider:
- What the world needs,
- What we (as a company) are passionate about
- What we are good at. Example 1 → Redbull: The tagline “It gives you wings”. The purpose is to revitalize your body and mind, drinking caffeine. Passionate about sports. the company makes more money from the company itself instead of the products sold. Example 2 → Under Armour: They want to make you a super healthy person, make the most from you and overcome your limits, make you live longer Example 3 → Chevrolet: The payoff is rebelieve in cars for brilliant people by using real people in the commercial, in the advertising campaign. It’s the best way to show that your tagline and your purpose are the same thing (opposite to Mercedes Benz ). It expresses consistency in its belief: real people = real cars A firm has to:
- Find out the people it wants to talk about
- Find out the human behavior
- Build a specific human brand purpose: a human brand purpose is a purpose which makes a difference in people’s life (changes people’s life) Before, the product was the “hero” of the ad, everything in communication was focused on product features. Then we had the “brand era”, where brand positioning or promises were the most important thing. Then we have been through the “idea era”, where ideas were intended to enhance and boost brand values. Now we are in the “people era”, where we are putting people at the center of our mindset. To communicate we have to identify:
- The people it wants to talk about
- The human behavior
- A specific, meaningful human purpose for the brand: a human brand purpose is a purpose which makes a qualitative difference in people’s lives (changes lives) The old way was: brand → positioning → promise → consumer The new way is: from human behavior → human brand purpose → acts that influence human behavior. We need to create powerful ideas to make people move and that are relevant to them; so, in the people's era, we need acts, not ads. Example 1 → Starbucks
- Human behavior: I need my daily refuge everywhere I go
- Human brand purpose: transforming Starbucks in that refuge
- Act ( “how?” ): Starbucks is not just a coffee place, is a place where you can relax and feel at home
→ it is not focused on the product (only a part of the storytelling): the campaign was shot in a huge number of Starbucks stores around the world in the same days, like there was no distance between them. Great things happen when we are together: have a better society connected with technology, but also face to face. Tech is a plus but I need to be in the presence. How do I write a humankind creative idea?
- Tell true stories, start from real human behavior, so creativity must not be a fable.
- Start considering your reputation, what people will tell about you because your brand is only as strong as the stories people tell about you and stories must fit the purpose and must be consistent about what you ask the people to do.
- Find the story in every brand because every brand has a true story (not a storytelling), it could be the founder story (like the docu-film about the McDonald’s founder).
- Stick to the brand’s origin story.
- Be relevant for people, inspire behaviors, actions…
- Stay real and stay approachable, if you want to inspire actions and behavior, people must feel it’s in between their reach. Example 1 → the “Earth hour”: Great example of Humankind from Leo Burnett.When we switch the light off for 1 hour, to save energy for the world. This act, this behavior, started locally in Sydney and changed the behavior of the world eventually. This happens because ideas are contagious. People began talking about it, and it became bigger and bigger. It’s not storytelling where you hit the like and that’s it. If you like it, you do it yourself, you act. This determines the success of the brand. Example 2 → “Got milk?”: It started as the willingness to change the behavior of people who drink soda by telling them that they will have bone problems. We want people to change their behavior for their own good rather than just to make money. And, to do so, we create a storytelling which has a CTA that is not only to buy milk, but to become a healthier person. Put the product in the spot without showing it (a lovemark): it managed to put passions in a mum’s everyday life, doing everything she can for her son/daughter Humankind scale: evaluate ideas with this scale.
- Destructive
- No idea
- Invisible
- I don’t know what this brand stands for
- I understand the brand’s purpose
- An intelligent idea
- An inspiring idea, beautifully crafted
- Changes the ways people think and feel
- Changes the way people live
- Changes the world The usual target is 7+ (the “Earth hour” is a 10 because it changed the world).
6. HOW TO DISRUPT EXPECTATIONS
We have talked about “lovemarks” (which aim was to inspire emotions) and about “humankind” (which aim was to inspire actions). Today we’re going to cover another quality on the creative idea: how can we come up with something that has the potential to inspire emotions and actions? To do so, a strong strategic basis is needed, like a good brief, a good creative strategy. What’s the quality that the idea has to have? Its quality is able to enhance continuity. As a matter of fact, continuity is really important, it’s what creates brand loyalty. Example 1 → Marvel cinematic universe: It has created such a continuity that goes beyond cinema, that involves TV, streaming services, YT... it ignites new behaviors because it’s not only content, not only movies, it’s a narrative environment, which you can live in). “Wanda vision series” , which is a mini- series about the Marvel characters. This was able to create many discussions, in fact, there are many channels on YT discussing and deep diving into this subject. So, a whole new media behavior has been born. When a brand becomes so powerful that it is able to create emotional engagement, behavior activation… it is going to change not only the (cinematic- in this case) industry but also the world. What’s interesting about Marvel continuity? The fact that relies on anomalies, no movie is the same as the other. Every single movie can be considered branded content (the brand is Marvel, the content is the movie) and they’re different from one another. But they were still able to create and achieve this continuity. Why is that? Because creative ideas are an anomaly. If you can ignite, unleash and control the power of anomaly, you will achieve both love-mark approach goals and humankind approach goals.The real challenge was to unleash the anomalies within a given framework → reach their objectives. Example 2 → The Economist campaign: Example of continuity → they have achieved a big reputation because they have covered so many subjects but they always used the same layout: red background and white headline. This creates continuity even if the content is always different. The disruptive element (different from other campaigns) → call to action, it’s an anomaly. Here the continuity is the CTA, stay smart, use your brain. The economist wants to ignite cultural change in the economy because they want to make people understand that: the economy is for smart people, not the one who wants to get rich. It’s for the one who knows how to use their brain. In both cases (Marvel and The Economist) the creative idea is an anomaly, so, something we don’t expect. Anomalies start from disruption → something that goes against normality, goes against habits. How to disrupt expectations? Why is disruption so important? Disrupting means to find a new prospective, new angle which gets you to the right point in terms of brand strategy. A new point of view that is more interesting than the average. Something not only new, but new in a functional way. Disruption is important because we need to get something from advertising because it asks for our time, our attention, our actions but, in return, they give us something: satisfaction and we are surprised by the enjoyment, the pleasure of creativity and of advertising.
