Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Christmas advertising.  It only seems like yesterday that I wrote about it, and here they come again.  A veritable blizzard of ‘oohs, aahs’ and sharing  of the new John Lewis Christmas ad has sparked me into writing again.

Yes indeed, John Lewis has done it again.  Pulled at my heart-strings with a fab child actor, some great product on display, a lovely little twist, and  a cool sound-track.   I have to confess stopping my Sky+ to watch the ad again yesterday, and it almost set me sobbing.  Thank you Mr John Lewis, I’ll definitely pop into your fine store and purchase a few gifts this year.

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So, did anyone see this over the weekend?

Copy reads: “When we launched 15 years ago, those four words summed up what we believed in. And they still do.

“We don’t need to paint them on the tailfins, like some advertising slogan. That would just be wasting your money.”

Ahhhh….there’s nothing I love more than good old mile-high brand rivalry, fighting it out over the pages of our weekend papers.    BBH has clearly spent many many hours, weeks and months wallowing in nostalgia, crafting the detail that went into the £20 million British Airways campaign ‘To Fly To Serve’.    Thinking through all the ways to imbue their hard work into our public consciousness, right down to painting the tagline onto BA tail-fins. And then Easyjet’s agency VCCP goes and knocks up a dismissive print ad in a couple of hours. Awesome.

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I read in Marketing this week that Moneysupermarket.com is planning to present itself as a ‘big brand’ with a new big advertising campaign, and a new spot ‘Gorilla’.   I am mighty relieved that they’ve lost Omid Djalili, but am I right to be feeling just a little cynical that their agency Mother has introduced gorillas into the mix…? The ad doesn’t break until Sunday, but in case you’re dying to find out what happens, the brand character Geoff is so excited to have saved money on his insurance that he interrupts a quarrel between two gorillas and ends up chief gorilla.  Can’t wait.

The gorilla ad to beat of course, (and hence my cynicism), is Cadbury’s ‘Gorilla’.  I don’t know how Fallon sold in that ad, but it is so bonkers that it generated stacks of buzz and PR, drove sales of Dairy Milk, won multiple creative awards and even revived Phil Collins‘ career.  To this day it remains beautifully watchable.

This got me thinking about gorillas in advertising, and I was struggling at bit until I remembered King Kong.  The ultimate reference point for toughness, Mr Kong is mostly used to plug cars. Read the rest of this entry »

I read yesterday that men and women respond differently to advertising: women respond more favorably to ads with product research information, more frequent brand name mentions and various types of product illustrations or demonstrations. Alternatively, men were significantly more responsive to ads containing superiority claims.  Research is from Data Gem, more info here.

Don’t you just love a good men vs women piece of research?  It tallies well with the vanilla advertising that litters our world – ‘oooh Bodyform’ (women), ‘the ultimate driving machine’ (men).

My view, for what it’s worth, is that women (and men) respond to shock tactics.  Which may explain why London is being plastered in pants and bra ads at the moment – despite the continuing furore about the sexualisation of children.  I was visually assaulted last night by this:

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Happy Friday everyone!

This week the news that the COI is to be disbanded made me reflect on public service advertising.  There have been some incredible campaigns over the last 65 years which deserve a  bit of a retrospective.  Fortunately (or unfortunately)  Marketing Week had the same idea as me and has already published an excellent review, with some of my faves including “Charley says always tell your Mummy” – an ad that inspired a certain song by The Prodigy.

So with the weekend ahead I’ve tracked down  three road safety ads that have terrified me into never drink drinking, drink texting or even driving for that matter:

And this one, filmed in a real pub with a car hitting a stuntman at 20mph.

And finally this one (an RSI not COI ad) for teenage texting.  Our client RAC’s report on motoring 2011 released this week highlights teenage texting is becoming a major issue.

Do share your favourite COI campaigns, and next week I’ll write a more positive and upbeat post, following a few days  at Cannes Lions!

This post is courtesy of Ryan Levitt ( digital consultant in our retail & food & drink teams) – a weekly recap of the ‘look at this fab digital thing’ emails that we receive at H&K – in one helpful list.  (edited / adapted by me)

LINK #1:Social Media has little impact on online retail purchases

This first link states that social media has little direct relation to purchases in the retail space? So why should people create social media sites for retail brands then? Well, it’s a must for brand awareness, and to highlight activity around key dates and sale periods. It’s also a great platform to generate email addresses for a database – which IS the leading method to generate sales.

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So M&S has got it’s knickers in a bit of a twist this week, with naughty Ann Summers copying its ad campaign.

Flic, who’s ex M&S thought that her former employer would laugh it off, but no, they’ve sued, and Ann Summers has had to take it down.  What a PR furore!  Brilliant antidote to all the Easter and Royal Wedding shenanigans.

Anyway it got me thinking about imitation campaigns.  Either the sincerest form of flattery, or bone laziness on the part of the advertiser/agency. Read the rest of this entry »

So, Royal Wedding nearly upon us…papers full of it…now bring on the ads.  Apparently ITV could lose £8million in ad revenue on the day itself, as Ofcom has set a ‘no ads’ policy during the screening of the royal wedding.

First up T-Mobile.  Have you seen this yet? Out today, it’s doing the rounds.  Royal Family lookalikes dancing up the aisle to ‘Everybody in the House of Love’ by East 17.  Have to say that some of the lookalikes look better than others. Loving Wills.  Not sure whether Alison Jackson had anything to do with this one, but she must be making a mint this year with all the other work she’s been doing.  The ad’s by Saatchi & Saatchi.

This one is a bit better – Freeview used the Corgis who starred in the King’s Speech in this ad to get people to upgrade to Freeview HD.  We see Corgis race across the country, stealing sausages, cadging lifts down the river to watch the Royal Wedding on an upgraded TV.  Cute.  Created by my lovely friend JT’s agency 18 Feet & Rising.  The agency has since  split with Freeview.  Shame.

And finally found this one – Wonga Envirofone.  This ad got banned apparently, although watching it you can see why people might have complained…Not sure who’s their agency.  Also a bit of googling reveals that their ads are often voted the most annoying.

That’s it for now – let me know if you find any more!  Happy weekend.

This week’s blog is brought to you by Ching-Han Wan & Gareth Kolze-Jones from our Technologies team….

Word on the (Regent) street is that it’s not what it does, but what it stands for. Some of the avid Apple fans we spoke to as the doors opened at 5pm had queued up outside the store for as long as 29hours! To put into context, in that time I had slept twice, enjoyed five square meals (interspersed with *ahem* snacks) and bombarded my colleagues with innumerable tenuous puns, but for these guys, it’s all about living the brand.

School kids, office workers and app developers were all prepared to brave the hustle and bustle (on occasion there was a lot more bustle than hustle) to be among the first to get their hands on Apple’s thinner, faster, sleeker iPad. But why? Not because of what it can do, but because of what it says about them; It says they’re modern. It says they’re trendy. It says they’re cool.

There’s an interesting point here – the point that if we believe in a brand strongly enough, we are prepared to go to extreme lengths to maintain that connection. It’s the same principles as monogamy – if you already have an iPhone and iPod, you shall stay faithful to your fair lady, Apple, and not cheat on her with any other tablets.

So why not the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Motorola Xoom, or HTC Flyer? Is it the iOS or the work of Jonathan Ive? Simple answer, neither. A large majority of the people we spoke to admitted that the reason they were there was because it gave them that ‘special feeling’, a Je ne sais quois, the X Factor. This is all heart-warming stuff, but we think it’s fair to assume that hype of this magnitude for a single product launch is the exclusive property of the world of technology.

The question need be asked, how do technological brands continue to draw so much buzz around its product launches? Simple; Legacy. The most successful brands create a series of products that have their own cache to the point where as Vince from Birmingham (who had queued up for the iPad for 22 hours) said: “yes it’s over-priced, but I’ve got an iPod touch, I’ve got an iPhone 4, so it makes sense for me to have an iPad to keep up with Apple.”

There might be no jaw-dropping revelation here, no earth-shattering epiphany to shake the world of brand development to its core, but the question worth asking here is; are you innovating or are just creating another piece of the wardrobe?

Is it just me, or are there lots of  animal ads on TV at the moment?  The adage ‘never work with animals and children’ really doesn’t apply when it comes to marketing.  Animals rock at selling stuff.  It’s been proven.  Also,  nothing beats a good animal story in the papers.  Unbelievably ‘Cat stuck up a tree’ still makes the news – here’s a story yesterday in the Boston Globe “Concord Cat Rescued After 3 Day Effort”

Here’s a selection of animals looking cute in ads, selling stuff:

Gratuitous black labrador puppy selling home insurance? Tick

Dogs attempting parallel parking? Tick.  (‘Dog Tested’, nice line).

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