NHS | Covid it ain’t over yet

Covid cases are going down (slowly) in the UK but there are still lots of people in hospital, many on ventilators.

By: MullenLowe London 

Kraft | Heinz | Draw Ketchup

We anonymously asked people all over the world to “draw ketchup.” The result? They all drew Heinz.

Idea by: Agency Rethink -Canada.

#Heinz

Total and ultimate brand building is when your product is synonymous with the category. When you become the industry not only one of the top of mind brands.

Leica| Our Small, Magnificent World

The world deserves witnesses. Our minds tend to bias for negative events, a quality often stoked by all the things seeking to stimulate us over the course of the day. But there are millions of tiny miracles occurring around us all the time. When we don't look, we miss them. A whole life could be spent missing the beauty of watching someone you love breathe.

This is what TBWA\Paris conveys, so warmly, in camera maker Leica's "The World Deserves Witnesses."

It begins: "This is it. This is our world. Our small world, where everything happens…"

That voice you hear is American photographer Joel Meyerowitz, who gave us this compelling puzzle of a picture circa 1974 or 1975. In the video, his voice ripples with emotion as he lists all the everythings happening around us: revolution, peace, war, hate, love, tragedy.

Some 30 photographers contributed to the campaign, and their images punctuate each word. The work is so beautiful, the juxtapositions so mindful, that it's helpful to stop and really look at them: Peace is two men mirthfully kissing. Women in the trenches, wearing varied expressions, illustrate war. A stuffed bear sits, as if on a trip, atop the wheels of a tank for "the killing." A bodybuilder, shiny and proud, represents hunger; a nun licking ice cream is "the little sins."

Maybe we are more sensitive to the impact of this ad since the presidential inauguration, whose many images, shared over and over across social media, seemed so replete with promises. But this past year, and its many trials, also reoriented us, forcing people to interrogate what is truly important to them. Some manifested the answer to that question by getting really political on social media. Others quit jobs or left cities, left partners. Still others learned to bake an awful lot of bread.

There is something of that here, too—this sense that we are just more aware of the world itself, not as an abstraction but as a living place where we also live, and that requires as much nurture as we do. Dreams of joining a Musk-powered Mars colony aside, this really is it, as Meyerowitz says at the beginning. This is our world, our small world. Where everything happens.

The video "manifesto" was developed using only existing photos; none were staged to suit the campaign, and nothing was retouched or altered. It will air online, with accompanying visuals to appear in more than 15 countries. Images will rotate and change over time.

"I had goosebumps down my arms and along my ribs when I first saw the video," Meyerowitz, who also contributed an image, says. "It was astonishing! It was more human and inspiring than anything any camera company has ever done! No doubt about it."

Below, check out the gallery of prints.

CREDITS

Brand: Andrea Pacella, Director Global Marketing & Communication Jérôme Auzanneau, Global Director Brand, Partnerships & Accessories 
TBWA\Paris: Renaud Berthe, Matthéo Pressmar, Alexandre Stachowiak Executive Creative Directors: Benjamin Marchal & Faustin Claverie Associate Creative Director: Philippe Rachel 
Associate Creative Director: Carl Härborg 
Art Purchase: Elise Kubler, Isabelle Jaubert 
Legal: Caroline Paillard 
Post-Production: Eléonore Girard 
Sound Production: \Else 
Composer: Niccolò Pacella 
Head of Music and Sound: Olivier Lefebvre 
Sound Director: Fabrice Pouvreau 
Sound Engineer: Alexandre Robieux 
Photographers (print in bold):  
Emily Garthwaite /Institute  
Kai Wiedenhöfer  
Sarah G. Ascough  
Stephen Vanasco  
Chris Suspect  
Véronique De Viguerie  
Justin Mott 
Gabriele Micalizzi 
Eolo Perfido  
Craig Semetko  
Jonathan Eden-Drummond  
Christian Werner  
Godong/ Getty Images 
Hulton-Deutsch Collection/ Getty Images 
Dotan Saguy  
Brian Otieno  
Joel Meyerowitz 
Pierre Belhassen  
Matt Stuart  
Bree Garcia  
Bruce Gilden / Magnum 
Frédéric Lanoizelé  
Richard Tsong-Taatarii  
Damir Sagolj 
Jasper Doest  
Joshua Buana  
Sylvestre Dedise  
Lutz Müller  
Emil Gataullin 

Puma | How ambush marketing was taken to a new level at the Olympics?

Promoting at the Olympics is safely guarded. After all, the keys to sponsorships sell for more than a billion dollars every four years.

Outside of that, no shenanigans are permitted.

When the clearly-defined rules are tampered with, the IOC gets very angry. They impose steep sanctions on those who transgress.

Meanwhile, with marketing, the brilliance often occurs at the edges, the tiny, hidden grey area between what is allowed and what isn’t. It is in this small pocket, that guerilla marketers unlock fortunes.

This is why this story is so brilliant.

The Setup

Usain Bolt owns the word ‘fast’. He is sponsored by internet companies. He is sponsored by jogging apparel.

And at the time, he was heavily sponsored by Puma, who was paying Bolt $10M a year as his primary sponsor, making him the face of the company.

They needed to capitalize on the Rio Games to justify this investment. Running a mere minute-long commercial would cost millions. And they lacked the budget to become a full-blown Olympic sponsor.

They needed a workaround.



100m Final

Usain Bolt flew across the finish line in 9.81 seconds, securing his gold medal.

He lifted his golden shoes high up in the air, striking his pose, and then took a lap around the stadium




It was all staged.

And as soon as he’d crossed the finish line, the marketing department at Puma kicked into high gear. It was 4 a.m. in their German offices. Their social media teams started carpet bombing social media with these images:

Notice this image doesn’t include a picture of Bolt or a reference to the Olympics. This was deliberate.
Here’s why

If you look at the actual footage from the race, he was wearing his gold shoes but they were modified:

The Olympic Committee had strictly forbidden marketing slogans being displayed by athletes. This was enforced down to the most minute details.

How Puma and Bolt Tricked Everyone

Technically — they hadn’t broken the rules. At the time of his race, the phrase was not an official marketing slogan. It was just in the moments after that it became one.

Additionally, and with a slight twist, the phrase on his shoes ‘forever fastest’ was simply a homage to Puma’s official slogan ‘forever faster’, which was named after Bolt in the months prior.

Bolt and Puma planned beforehand that he would hold the gold shoes up while doing his pose to help them be seen on cameras.

The inscribing on the insoles of his shoes was also deliberate. Bolt was zoomed in on more than any other athlete during the Olympics.

There was an additional reason Puma didn’t reference the Olympics or medals when posting Bolt’s shoes: they didn’t need to.

Everyone on the planet who was following the Olympics knew Bolt won his 100m when they saw these images. They knew exactly what Puma was talking about, without Puma having to be explicit.

By circumventing the rules, they’d pulled off a monster free advertisement that would have easily cost them tens of millions to buy. In turn, it led to more than $50M increased sales of their product in the following months.

Meanwhile, Nike was infuriated. They’d paid more than $100M to be the featured shoe brand of the Olympics. They threatened legal action in the aftermath, but when push came to shove, there was nothing more they could do.

Following these Olympics, the IOC had to tweak the marketing rules yet again which, when it comes to ambush marketing, is the surest sign of a win.

How to Get the Most From Instagram for Your Brand

 Fearing to be left behind in the social media race, the vast majority of brands have ventured into social media space with little strategic thought or understanding of how to get the most out of their platforms. Many brands are using their pages as avenues to run short-term behaviour and reward activities which may harm brand value in the long term by teaching already loyal consumers to become sensitive to sales promotions (Kotler & Lee, 2008; Schultz & Block, 2012; Gambetti & Graffigna, 2010; Nelson-Field et al., 2012; Romaniuk, 2011).

After a decade in business, Instagram boasts one billion active worldwide accounts (Instagram, 2020). As of April 2020, the US has the highest number of Instagram accounts of any country with 120 million users (Clement, 2020). Brands big and small across the globe are using Instagram to drive their marketing and sales efforts. “When 90% of accounts follow at least one business on Instagram, it goes without saying that brands want in on the marketing action, too,” (Chen, 2020).

Arguably, Instagram is the most important platform to succeed on in the Western World in 2020.

According to research by Neilsen (2015) Instagram campaigns have achieved results two to three times above those possible on other online channels for the same set of brands and advertising goals.

Why is this possible?

Instagram is so different from other social media options because it allows firms to tell compelling brand stories in the style of a visual diary, carefully selected to represent a chosen identity. A visual ‘lifestyle’ mood board loaded with brand associations.

Therefore, brands can truly integrate with other Instagram users, marketing themselves in a non-confrontational manner and portraying authenticity by downplaying commercial motives.

“People today are discontented with this commercial existence and lack faith in marketing, with almost everything in their lives seeming to be contrived,” (Napoli, Dickinson, Beverland, & Farrelly, 2014). To combat this, consumers no longer search for an objective truth of reality, but instead hunt for cues of authenticity (Beverland & Farrelly, 2010; Beverland, Lindgreen, & Vink, 2008; Peñaloza, 2000).

Brands that come across as inauthentic, seem intrusive and irritating to consumers (Hall, 2014). Conversely, consumers have reported being more receptive to brand messages if they are ‘hidden’ in social media, rather than presented as traditional direct advertising (Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009).

How Brands Can Portray Authenticity on Instagram

1. Use ‘authentic’ cues

These specific firm-level intangible cues have been found to denote authenticity (Napoli et al., 2014, Gundlach & Neville, 2012; Sandlin & Pena, 2014; Harris & Deacon, 2011; Illicic & Webster, 2014):

• A commitment to quality
• Heritage
• Relationship to place
• Sincerity
• Nostalgia
• Craftsmanship
• Consistency of design

Successful brands weave these cues into their Instagram advertising to build authenticity and credibility with their followers.

2. Personify the brand

Consumers use a firm’s Instagram account to build a picture of their favourite brand as if that brand was a human.

Instagram users I interviewed for my thesis about this phenomena could specifically describe the person they imagined a brand to be based on brand associations visually depicted in Instagram photos. For example:

• “The skinny as, fashionable girl, who is kind of sulky, quite pale, slightly edgy, a bit too cool.”
• “Dark moody type… She doesn’t care what other people think. Simple, clean-cut, no frilly stuff, and it’s not girly whatsoever… Just strong and independent, gives no shit.”
• “This person’s [the brand as a person] concerned about their image. So, they dress nicely and have pretty nice branded clothes… Creative. Thinks a little bit differently.”

Portraying brands as ‘people’ on Instagram is tied to understanding how consumers come to see brands as authentic members of their Instagram communities. Social media space is personal and social and therefore corporate messages must be personable and relatable to be accepted by consumers (Chow & Shi, 2015; Simmons, 2007; Berry 2000).

I un-follow something as soon as it’s like ‘Shredzergram get the 60-day challenge for this much money’ because I’m like that’s no longer an inspiring pic with someone with nice abs, it’s now like, it’s a sale.

Human warmth and social presence are key factors in establishing relationships between brands and consumers (Chow & Shi, 215). Building and communicating a strongly humanized brand allows a firm to win consumer trust, generate a perception of credibility, and tell a compelling story (Berry, 2000).

Ruby and Superette [two brands] I stopped following. I think they posted too often and too advertisement-like. Whereas I like seeing people that look more natural, like it was almost someone’s page. When it looks too advertised it’s just boring… you want the brand to be more personable.

3. Telling a lifestyle story

Authentic brand perceptions are built via the creation of ‘brand lifestyle stories’. A lifestyle story was found to be crafted via a series of images depicting branded products in use in real-world situations.

I like that because… they’re not selling their product, but they’re selling like a lifestyle that comes with the product.

And:

It’s the lifestyle that they’re selling so it’s what I like to see.

Interviewees expected brands on Instagram to depict their products authentically in use, rather than hanging up in the shop. This allowed brands to downplay their commercial motives, and fit in more effectively with their consumers on Instagram.

The story going behind the photos can almost be just as important…as… if they’ve thrown up this new watch because they’ve got it into stock, or if it’s a sale on or something I’m just not that interested. Whereas if a guy had been out climbing the mountain with it and had been bashing through the snow for eight hours and then took a photo that was all covered in snow and it was like pouring down then that’s cool.

This style of marketing on Instagram means creating staged ‘brand autobiographical memories’ to tell a lifestyle story.

Sharing personal autobiographical memories is known to help people bond and make interactions more authentic and meaningful (Bluck, 2003). Visual autobiographical memories are snapshots that link a person to a memory or experience (Bluck, 2003). Authentic brands adapted to this method of digital self-identity presentation by staging ‘branded autobiographical memories’, which allow these brands to build authentic identities in the eyes of their consumers.

For example:

Huckberry does a lot of events… they were trying to get a whole lot of people together in Yosemite national park, in California and they were having photo-shoots. They were getting people out there as well, and so then it was like almost documenting that trip. And they had photos of guys in the hammocks that they sell, with sunsets behind them and the big cliff-faces in Yosemite, and that had all been going on while they were having this event so that when there is a story to tell I like it.

Maintaining continuity of elements over time allows a firm to align their brand with a specific lifestyle theme; (for example, wilderness exploring or surfing) that the consumer can relate to. Congruency between the lifestyle portrayed by the brand on Instagram and the consumer’s values drives genuine consumer connections. Consumers choose brand companions that re-affirm their ideas of themselves (Kumar, Luthra & Datta 2006).

Say, it was a surfing brand, I’m taking surfing pictures so I have a common interest which is surfing or the outdoors or something kind of like the drawcard. So the reason that I follow them [brands] is that they’re posting… they post material that’s similar to myself.

Aspirational lifestyle escapism also has a role here. It fills a hedonic need of consumers: to escape their own perceptively mundane realities, and imagine themselves as part of a new and exciting digital world. The use of artistic visuals allows consumers to achieve the hedonic escapism they desire by allowing firms to effectively downplay their commercial motives and present a virtual ‘brand-world’ that consumers can escape into. For example:

I think she’s in France which is just the ultimate chic to me. Walking through a European town, kind of old school, black and white, she looks chic. She’s not actually even wearing the Lonely Hearts clothing so it’s not really an advert, but I’d love to be in Paris, sitting at a café. She’s sitting by herself, I’m quite a wanderer by myself. I like wandering. It looks kind of like she is listening to people’s conversations. She’s really chic, and I’d look at that in an art book.

The reference above to Instagram images not being perceived as adverts, but more as pictures that could be found in an art book is at the crux of why Instagram is so effective for perceptively authentic brand building.

Artistic visual media on Instagram allows firms to downplay their commercial motives which encourages consumers to hedonically escape into a brand’s lifestyle story. As another example:

This picture here is a picture of someone, it looks like an old picture, wearing a Belstaff jacket that you can’t really see, and they’re riding a motorbike away from you so the jacket is not the focal point of the picture, it’s the motorcyclist… I like how it’s subtle. It’s not really trying to sell you anything. It’s displaying how the products can be used and that’s how I’d like to use the product so that’s why I like it. I would like one of the jackets and I would like a motorbike like that.

4. Using consumer-generated content

Featuring consumer-generated content allows brands to use their consumers as endorsers, which functions to further foster perceptions of authenticity due to endorser relatability (Kumar et al., 2006). This reflects the power of the typical person endorser which has long been acknowledged (McCracken, 1989), but also the power of directly bringing the consumer into the brand story (Gensler et al., 2013). For example:

I think it’s cool. It shows a connection between the brand and the consumer. It’s basically all trying to make it seem like it’s not a big corporate, and it shows how other consumers are using the products. Also the worn look… People like it. I’d quite like to see how a pair of shoes will look a couple of years down the line and what they can be used for.

And:

Lonely Girls Project is dedicated to all the Lonely girls that buy the Lonely Lingerie, and I think it comes through hashtags, so if you put a hashtag up under your post they can feature you under their page. And this is much more fun because you can see real people wearing it. Because you see the models wearing it and you think, really, does it sit that nicely? Then you see real people wearing it and you see people of different shapes and sizes who love their Lonely, and, you know, and it’s much more real… Rather than just a thing that seems unobtainable because you just see celebrities and models doing it.

A possible consumer-generated content feature on Instagram also provides some consumers with a reason to follow brands: the potential for wider exposure for their content, and fifteen minutes of fame. Multiple interviewees followed brands in the hope of having their photos featured.

Summary: How to get the most from Instagram for your brand

• Market brands on Instagram as if the brand was a person, to allow consumers to befriend, connect with, and follow the firm as they would one of their best friends.
• Use Instagram to tell lifestyle stories by constructing content based on staged autobiographical memories.
• Maintain a continuity of elements over time to allow a firm to align their brand with a specific lifestyle theme.
• Present content that is artistic and fits with the culture of Instagram as a community.
• Recognise the value of using consumer-generated content to both make their brand relatable to consumers, and as a reason for consumers to tag the brand in the content they want featured, generating electronic word of mouth.