The first creative steps of “ImpACTful ADults”
Οnce upon a time, there was a vision for an innovative and pioneering advertising agency… And this vision became reality!
«ImpACTful ADults» is an advertising agency based in Greece, which is focused on promoting change and cultivating meaningful audience interactions through smart and likeable campaigns
The story begins in 2022, when the idea of an advertising agency was conceived by its founders: Ilias Anagnostopoulos, Kyriakos Babalis, Vasiliki Grammatika, Kyriaki Koutrouki, Katerina Niagasa and Matina Xenou. But how did this concept come about? Flashing back to the past, the motive was given by the Professor Betty Tsakarestou and through the ADandPRLAB, as we talk about six undergraduate students at the Communication, Media & Culture Department of Panteion University, Athens.
We want people to believe in us, as we believe in what we do!
What about our name? We brainstormed a lot because of our need for that to represent — suit all our members and be influential. We came up with this specific brand name in order to highlight our main goal: influencing in a positive way through our actions and helping our clients make their mark in this competitive landscape.
The time passed pleasantly, while as a group we learned well what cooperation means through the exchange of opinions — ideas and the utilization of each individual’s creative abilities. For sure, there were also some difficulties due to the different members’ characters and the pressure for the best possible result. Ηowever, in any case we managed to overcome them and become even better with hard work, empathy and respect.
It is worth mentioning that we were all called upon to adopt multiple roles and respond in the best possible way to different tasks, always keeping in mind the dynamic and active representation of our agency. We divided our pieces equally trying to finish them within the deadlines set by the coordinator, Ilias Anagnostopoulos.
Let’s explore some of our challenges so far!
“COSTA COFFEE” STRATEGY FOR GREEK MARKET
Regarding our collaboration with Costa Coffee, we started out by paying close attention to Mrs Despoina Pappa’s presentation of the brand and the coffee industry as a whole. Mrs Pappa, Senior Brand Manager of Costa Coffee and CEE at the Coca-Cola Company, gave us an inside look on the identity of the brand and the aim of its communication strategy. Following the assigned brief given to us, as detailed below, we took action by arranging in sections our tasks and in some way delegating them to each member. Of course, through the whole process we were in constant touch informing each other with our progress so far and exchanging advice.
We got our assignment of the ground from a marketer’s point of view by carrying out an in - depth investigation regarding Costa Coffee’s main challenges. In context of this investigation, we also got the chance to research the brand’s competitors, their strategies, weaknesses, sales scale etc. This way, not only were we able to track more easily the aspects used in our SWOT analysis, but we were also at an advantageous place as for our 4Ps recommendations. But to be more specific and descriptive in relation to the steps we followed as marketeers, we started consumer research, both quantitative and qualitative, through questionnaire, focus group and general observation.
We put out the questionnaire for two weeks and 100 respondents filled out the 15 questions asked. As for our focus group, we chose to gather the six participants at a cafeteria serving Costa Coffee in order to achieve an intimate atmosphere. Last but not least, we visited cafeterias serving Costa Coffee, supermarkets providing products of the brand and its birthblace, London. Going through our quantitative and qualitative research, we got the chance to track down the brand’s consumer base, its main competitors, such as Illy, Jacobs and Nescafé, its strengths and weaknesses compared to these other brands and add them as well to our desk research, thus creating on the one hand a table with their main characteristics and a map with dimensions the awareness and the consumption on the other hand.
Later on, having already gathered these statistics, both facts and data, we gravitated towards Costa Coffee solely and we executed our SWOT analysis and 4Ps constructing our strategy so as to upgrade the brand’s capabilities and notability. Our last action concerning the work from a marketer’s angle was the formation of a client’s brief, which also encapsulated the positioning. To be more specific, the brief contained brand statements, product details, opponent brands, goals of the campaign and the audience it strives for. As for the positioning, we raised four questions in order to comprehend Costa Coffee’s bearings on the Greek market, the reason behind it and the approach we need to have from now on to upgrade the brand’s performance on the target market.
After concluding our in-depth market research, we had successfully collected enough key data to proceed with the advertising strategy. We put our creativity to the test and brainstormed our way until we reached the big idea! But before we get into that, let’s take a few steps back for the full picture.
· Target Group: We worked on building a persona that best reflects our brand’s target audience. The final result was Alex, a fictional representation of the modern Gen Z’er, who consumes coffee 2 times a day on average to cope with the hours of studying or hard working late nights, struggles that are very common to nowadays generations.
· Communication Strategy: The most important aspect of a brand’s identity, after the name and logo, is the tone of voice. How the brand approaches customers must reflect and fall in line with the tagline and ultimately the big idea. Thus, we decided to adopt a friendly, homey tone of voice, less premium but easier to grasp. Since our target audience is young adults, adding premiumness to our brand is not our main concern. We needed to focus on communicating low costs, good taste and homey feelings. How we achieved that? By adding modern, enthusiastic and motivating elements to our copy and combining them with easily recognizable sounds of coffee drinking (e.g. sipping, adding sugar etc.), in an ASMR manner.
· Creative Rationale: In modern times, people like Alex, have little to no time to focus on themselves or socialize. Even during that time, they carry the stress and worries of work and assignments. So, in this “live to work” society that is so full of concerns, personal time is valuable. But social relations have taken a wrong turn. Instead of using our little time to get together, forget and have fun, we instead prefer being alone. We are afraid to communicate and socialize in an environment, which, thanks to technology, zeroes out all distances. So Costa Coffee, in a society where people’s houses were so close, but their hearts so grown apart, comes to save the day. How?
· Big Idea: By Bringing home wherever you go! Choose your flavor and you are all set! Our communication strategy, is your comfort zone! When socializing, when tired in work or university, just take a sip of Costa Coffee and travel your thoughts back home! Our coffee keeps you up and running and our brand helps you grow out of your comfort zone, while simultaneously eliminating the awkward feelings of doing so. Don’t believe us? Try it out.
We acted as explorers, artists, judges and warriors!
Here are our executional advertising ideas for the “BIG IDEA”!
In general, all our executional ideas aim for a homey feeling through a simple design & tone of voice, absolutely in harmony with our BIG IDEA!
Regarding the “Above The Line” category, we applied some safe strategies, such as the creation of a promo clip, which will fit in all media with the main slogan “Share your pleasure secret & win”. In the radio world, there will be a live competition in each show, where the producers will invite listeners to share their own personal moments of enjoying their coffee. At the same time, on the TV we can transfer some podcast episodes cut as well as the new creation of a clip with coffee sounds due to the fact that these are in harmony with the enjoyment of coffee.
Furthermore, we will also take advantage of the bus stops by placing advertisements for our brand as we want to build its awareness. It is a good practice, because many people use public transport to go to work, school etc. Our poster will be a visual stimulus, as the visual piece will present “Costa Coffee” capsules in a box and the advertisement will be accompanied by a similar slogan “Only the taste dilemma exist”.
In addition, we created a promo game with images and sounds of coffee, sugar etc. in order to promote our contests that will run on our social media, and YouTube — Tik Tok special campaigns. The first is very much related to celebrity friendly couples -mainly from the YouTube space- such as Fipsterr and Vasalos. The slogan? “Say it with Costa Coffee”. Οn Tik Tok platform, we created funny homey content using the caption & hashtag #CostaCoffeeBringsYouHome wanting to show how the brand always creates light feelings like the ones you feel at home. Finally, with the corresponding trending sounds and hashtags we can be promoted organically at no cost and we will strengthen our awareness in the age group we are targeting.
Last but not least, CSR campaign is our «big gun»! We decided as an agency to share our homey feeling with those, who don’t have it, running a sale period at our brand’s points of sale to collect some of these sales by communicating our action to our consumer community while at the same time we will work with the non-profit organization “Estia” to build some houses for the accommodation of those, who do not have a house.
And do not forget the “Below The Line” category!
- Supermarkets: In-store activations at regular intervals to increase our recognition and build our loyalty.
- Sponsorships: We decided to appear as sponsors in several events that will be related to our target group.
- Coffee truck: Our coffee truck will participate in coffee festivals and some days it will be placed outside universities, where a free sample will be offered (taste test) and whoever wants will fill in a short anonymous questionnaire, which will make us better as a brand.
- “Costa Coffee Friends” at Syntagma square: We all exhausted our creativity in this event. Inspired by the sitcom “Friends”, we will put a sofa in the fountain of Syntagma Square and get some testimonials from the public. Those, who want, will sit like friends on the sofa and enjoy a free cup of Costa Coffee sharing with us some moments of coffee enjoyment or some funny moments.
We have to thank for their guidance Mrs. Diana Birba, Mr. Mark Aris & Mrs. Lina Bakalexi
HEURISTIC EVALUATION OF “YAZIO” APP
In the context of the second workshop and special sessions, we had the opportunity to act as UX heuristics reviewers under the guidance of Dr. Panagiotis Zaharias (Founder - Lead UX Researcher, the UX Prodigy) and Antonis Birmpas (Co-Founder - UX Researcher & Designer, the UX Prodigy). It was an interesting process, through which we mainly understood the criteria that make a website or application effective, efficient and satisfactory. Specifically, we were asked to select a website — app as a group in order to create a protopersona of its potential users and evaluate it based on heuristics.
The members of our team first brainstormed so as to lead to the best possible choice, which we wanted to be somehow popular as well as responsive to the modern reality. Under these circumstances, we ended up with Yazio, a well-known app for health eating and weight loss, which is gaining more and more users every day due to the prevailing culture for a healthy lifestyle. More specifically, Yazio offers many features, such as a successful calorie counter, a pedometer, and a variety of healthy food recipes.
Each of us downloaded the app using many of its functions and services in order to understand how it works and get an overview of the content and interaction. And then we actually took action! Initially, we aimed to specify the demographics of the app’s potential users and capture their likely behaviors and needs in order to approach our protopersona, Phoebe. How would we describe her? As a university student, who has adopted a fitness oriented lifestyle and is ambitious setting constantly long term goals and attempting to achieve them. And what she is looking for from Yazio?
- Tries to find a balanced diet, because the work pressure makes it hard to set the week’s nutrition goals and plan a cooking schedule
- Wants to lose some weight or gain “healthier weight”, by eating better foods.
- Needs a reminder to drink water
- Searching for a variety of healthy recipes
Then, we clarified the three tasks we’d like to focus on in the evaluation based on both their usability and popularity. These were none other than: 1. creating a personalised account, 2. adding a meal in your daily nutritional schedule, 3. counting your steps.
So, taking into account the ten heuristics for user interface as proposed by Jacob Nielsen and with the support of our critical thinking, we individually proceeded to record the right and wrong aspects of the application regarding usability. Our team felt it was necessary for everyone to evaluate the tasks separately since we have a different perspective and more findings could come out. Of course, then we all discussed together so as to determine which mistakes we need to focus on and suggest improvements. In general terms, our views were suprisingly very close.
Τhe key points of our evaluation
SIGN UP:
- The user can return to the previous step — question of the process whenever they want in order to change their answer in case of mistake (user control & freedom)
- The only possible error can be related to the internet connection, where the app informs you to check it (help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors)
- The user cannot find advice related to the sign-up process at the help center of the app (help and documentation)
ADD MEAL:
- Using both simple (breakfast, lunch) and scientific vocabulary to describe the nutritional data — value of a meal (carbohydrates, saturated fat), which may not be understood by everyone (match between system and the real world)
- Containing much information and data, which may disorientate the user whose memory load is full. However, they can save their preferences regarding the meals (recognition rather than recall)
- Not minimalist and aesthetic due to the large quantity of nutritional data — categories without using graphics or pictures (aesthetic and minimalist design)
COUNT STEPS:
- When the connection is slow, shows a loading bar (visibility of system status)
- When achieving the desired daily steps, a “Congratulations” message appears (match between system and the real world)
CREATING A QUIZ APP
On Wednesday the 11th of January 2023, Mrs. Magy Kontou (Co-Founder & Lead Product & UI/UX Designer at SimpleApps company | Trainer at Grow with Google | Ambassador at Women Techmakers | Fortune 40Under40 | TEDx Speaker | Co-Organizer at GDG Athens) introduced us to the world of mobile apps through a Zoom Meeting.
- Analyse is the 1st step of creation. All can be started in a whiteboard with brainstorming ideas that will be transformed to Use cases and a Flow Chart.
- The 2nd step is to be a UX (user experience) & UI (user interface) designer by prototyping and make an interactive & beautiful app.
- The 3rd step is implementation. This allows our work to integrate with Third-Party Services.
- Before the public meet our creation, the 4th step of testing has to be climbed in order bugs to be fixed.
- Last but not least is the 5th step of publishing. Apple Store & Google Play can distribute our app.
After this introduction, we were asked to follow the above steps & make a mini quiz game with 3 questions. Proto.io was the useful tool that gave us the opportunity to be creative and become programmers within few minutes. For the first time on this semester, we worked individually for all the project and we created apps on different interesting topics. The process was enjoyable and fun!
Here are some samples of our work:
One week after, on Wednesday the 18th of January 2023, the Zoom class started with some extra information about the kinds of advertising that can be placed on mobile applications in order to make the job profitable. The importance of metrics & statistics also reported. At the end, we had Mrs Magy’s feedback and also some advice to improve our application task.
We were so enthusiastic about this process that we used ‘proto.io’ to create another application for the parallel workshop of the semester on the promotion of the Costa Coffee brand and the big idea we developed for this advertising campaign (photo above)
A fruitful and creative semester is over, but our #ADandPRLAB journey goes on…Stay tuned!
We would like to thank our professors, Betty Tsakarestou and Stavros Kaperonis for their valuable contribution to the workshops and their always trying the best for us!
FIND US on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and our website
Team Members: Ilias Anagnostopoulos, kyriaki koutrouki, ΑΙΚΑΤΕΡΙΝΗ ΝΙΑΓΑΣΑ, Σταματίνα Ξένου, Basilikegrammatika, Kyriakos Babalis
