Learning from the pioneers! — ReLate
When we first introduced ourselves at the Ad Discovery and Creativity Lab by Professor Betty Tsakarestou in the department of Communication, Media and Culture of Panteion University we formed a team that consisted of me, Ioannis Spiliopoulos, and my colleagues, Μάντυ Βλασσοπούλου and Xenia Sotirchou, that would work on an advertising agency that reflected our interests and hopes as future marketing people.
In order to make our baby steps in the field of marketing we needed to study and take our cue from colossal advertising brands and pioneers of the international and local market. That being said, we shed our light on a successful agency, found a great campaign and studied the brand strategy of an iconic company.
Ogilvy is one of the most prominent companies in the world of marketing and advertising not just in Greece, but in the whole world. At first, we decided to study the strategy that Oglivy follows with their clients: their goal is to create a cultural significance around the brand that they’re representing by going through a process called “Brand Ambition Star.” It involves four steps, through which they explore the current market (such as the competitors of their clients), the identity of their client and the way they can build their brand around that identity and the use of social trends as a means to promote it. In class, we presented what we thought to be one of Oglivy’s most successful campaigns: “Lacta — The Taste of Love.” It took place mostly on YouTube as a teaser for the movie and used real-time data to present ELLi, an AI who doesn’t know what love is. The users could go to thetasteoflove.gr and upload a photo that they thought captured the feeling on love, as well as “dive” into ELLi’s mind and see the data that other users had uploaded before them. The movie was released in 14th of February and helped Lacta reach its biggest market share in the last three years.
In another lecture of the lab, we were asked to browse through the awarded campaigns of 2019 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and find one that inspired us in order to present it to the class. While there were many worthwhile campaigns in the winning list, “Go Back to Africa” was the one that caught our eye. Go Back to Africa was created for Black & Abroad, a company that specialized in creating vacation packages for black people in various african countries, as well as creating a crowd-sourced information hub for explorers. Black & Abroad urged travellers and clients to upload pictures of their trips to countries to Africa and use the hashtag #GoBackToAfrica. They used the pictures to reclaim the racist slur and create a new, empowering narrative around it. We chose this campaign because it seemed to be very well structured around an important social and racial problem in the USA and it seemed to address it successfully — both of those goals were very compatible with the values and vision of our own agency.
Last but not least, we familiarized ourselves with the brand strategy of one of the most famous companies in the world, Apple. After studying the theory of brand strategy, we discovered that Apple, one of the pioneers in brand building, has built its brand around two major concepts: first, by creating an experience around its brand. The product symbolizes some kind of experience instead of just a functional tool that you can use for calls or to listen to music — it suddenly gains a sentimental value, a tool that you can use to connect with the world around you, enjoy your favorite music or shows and even create your own art. Secondly, by making the consumption of their product a kind of holistic experience. When someone buys an Apple product they don’t just buy the product, they also buy a way into the Apple community. Every part of the purchase of an Apple product becomes an experience, from ordering it on their site to unboxing it.
Those three companies — Oglivy, Black & Abroad and Apple have helped us shape the way we view our own agency and the way we think about our own projects, from including our ideals and views into our work to marketing our services in a way that will convince our target audience that we are an agency they want to co-operate with.
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