DDB Influences 5.16
Welcome to a new edition of DDB Influences: June 2016
In this edition:
- The Rise of the WAG: just in time for the Eurocup launch we’d like to give you the lowdown on the women behind our beloved soccer stars and the impact they have on culture and advertising. In “The Rise of the WAG” you can read about our six different typologies of the wives and girlfriends of the professional soccer athletes.
- Content Marketing the Marvel Way: content marketing continues to be a buzz topic as it is hailed as one of the brand-antidotes to our media-fragemented world. But who can really say what the best practice is? In “Content Marketing the Marvel Way” we seek inspiration and learnings from the real professional storytellers in Hollywood — Marvel Studios — and see how they create complex yet unified content universes.
- The Rise of the WAGs
Have you ever heard the acronym WAG before? Well, if not, in case you are an avid reader of yellow press or like to watch participative TV formats, you have very probably run across them. The “Wives and Girlfriends” of famous football heroes.
The Euro Cup is the perfect time to reflect on what marketing can learn from football. And lots of media will look at the game and its tactical and strategic impressions it is making on culture. We are shifting our view to something at least equally interesting: the rise of the women that accompany them. And something so dangerous, it apparently needs to be banned from the stadium.
What’s the influence?
With the rise of social media, we see a shift in the presence not only of the sport heroes themselves — but also their spouses. The 2006 World Cup saw a starting point for the new phenomena — with the British wives and girlfriends (“WAGS”) of the players becoming media stars on their own.
WAGS mark quite a shift to the footballer wives of the 80s and 90s — were their career was usually the one of a true housewife, keeping him sorted, preparing a nice home, mostly staying in the media background. Only very few were present as business partners, acting as their managers like Bianca Illgner or Martina Effenberger.
WAGS — player tag-on or media celebrities in their own right?
We took a closer look and found that there is a clear classification of WAGs today. As of course there is more than one type of player’s mate. The most obvious cluster is the “cliché” category of “socialite”, or self acclaimed “media influencers” as well as “aspiring designer/ model/ actress/ singer”. But there is more:
The Invisible Wife: Yes, they do exist — the ones that rather aim at minimizing their media presence. They lead their own lives — either as classical housewife, supporting the player from the background. True to the motto: there is a strong but invisible wife behind every successful guy. Not necessarily shy, but with enough self esteem, this is their sophisticated choice. Manuel Neuer’s girlfriend, Nina Weiss, is one of them. Same goes to Jessica Farber (girlfriend of Toni Kroos) or Montana Yorke (of Andre Schürrle). Rising star Lisa Müller is one of them — being the wife of Thomas Müller has never been something she sports in the media. Life as a WAG is rather something that happened but won’t be used as a career path.
The Manager Wife: A type of the past, she is the perfect addition to the player and uses his career by becoming the manager at his side. A role built on strength of character and management skills rather than looks, it was more prominent in the 80s and a role that actually build the myth of the WAGs. With Italia Walter, wife of Fritz Walter. And Martina Effenberger, Gaby Schuster, Bianca Illgner and others there is a group of German soccer wives that could be found here.
Today, we mainly see this type: The classic WAG, Decorative Add-on & Media Icon: They encompass “achievable glamour” and are making a career of their relationship status. Only being able to develop their own brand as “wife/ friend of”, the relationship is the entry ticket to a new world and new opportunities. German player wifes Kathy Hummels (wife of Mats), Ann Kathrin Brommel (Marco Götze) are two prominent examples, both aiming to be known for their skills as model, blogger or singer. Colleen Rooney, wife of Wayne was a first mover here. Today, British television can not be imagined without her.
The Indepentent Eye Level Partner:
Shakira and Gerard Piqué make a good example — were the woman is at least as prominent as the player, but in a different discipline and already was so before they hooked up. A match where it clearly is about equals with independent lives, something to be seen also outside sports (just think Clooney & Amal). Latest addition to this cluster is Ana Ivanovic, fiancée of Schweinsteiger, and quite successful as a tennis pro herself.
The VIP Wife: Another category is the group of women who already had a rising media presence when meeting their man. Prominent girlfriends like model Lena Gercke (ex girlfriend of Sami Kehdira) or singer Mandy Capristo (Mesut Ösil) belong here. The combination gives them a broader visibility and access to more media fame and if things run well, they will not be left behind as the “ex of” later on.
If things run well for the VIP Wives they’ll climb the olymp and achieve the status of The Synergetic Power-Couple: 1+1 = 3 — only together can they be as successful as they are. Who would think of Victoria Beckham as a classic WAG? David and Victoria are the prototype of this category — her having achieved a designer career that get international attention by herself. Couples like Sara Carbonero (Journalist) and Ika Cassillas are trying to achieve this. And the same went for Silvie Meis and Rafael van der Vaart when they were still married.
The successful examples show that media attention is no achievement in its own right, but purely happens due to the relationship they are in. True respect comes from own achievements.
WAGs as part of brand communication
The WAGs with a visible media presence are also the ones getting in on the sponsoring and advertising business. We’ve seen brands using WAGs back in in 2014 and we might see more of them in the next couple of weeks during the Eurocup …but from our perspective, there is a room for a lot more as the following examples show.
Ronaldo & Irina Shayk’s Vogue Cover Shoot
You might remember Ronaldo and Irina Shayk — a superstar meets super model to form a visual dream team, with a continously strong media presence, up to a Vogue cover shoot — a win-win for both Vogue and the Ronaldo brand franchise. And more fame for Irina Shayk, as well. That seemed to be a highlight back in June 2014.
The Axe Fancurve sticker collection
At the 2014 Eurocup Axe created their own spin on the Panini collection sticker albums with the “Fancurve” collection — the most sexy eleven WAGs in stickers.
The Beckhams get their own tarot cards
The Beckhams make a great piece of content and are part of a tarot card deck in the Sunday Times’, together with other celebrities, promoting their annual “Rich List,” — the newspaper’s list of the U.K.’s wealthiest people.
Barilla partners with Thomas and Lisa Müller
Barilla is looking to boost its business by betting on Thomas and his wife Lisa as testimonials in the new “Do it like the Müllers, do it Bravo” campaign this spring. As Barilla relies on rather traditional family models, this seems a great fit for the brand.
MediaMarkt’s Summertales
German electronics retailer MediaMarkt seems like one of the firsts to exclusively use the wives without the player: three of Germany’s most prominent WAGs — Cathy Hummels, Ann-Kathrin Brömmel and Scarlett Gartmann — humourously place a service message in an online “summartale” video format.
By:
Nina Rieke // Chief Strategy Officer // DDB Germany
2. Content Marketing the Marvel way
With ad-blockers and an ever growing customer sensibility, content marketing is hailed as one of the future paths advertisers and brands should go down, urging businesses to create relevant, engaging content for their marketing purposes. But seeing the need to do so, many business and agencies alike are struggling to find a way to do exactly that. It may be worthwhile taking inspiration from the professional storytellers, more specific Hollywood and even more specific Marvel Studios.
What’s the influence?
When it comes to content marketing strategies we should consider setting up a long-term strategy for an interconnected narrative that engages customers for longer through the use of a story-network expanding over and catering to various media.
Marvel Studios & the MCU
After some more or less questionable attempts to bring their comic book heroes to the big screen, Marvel Studios decided in 2008 to take a different approach. Contrary to how movies have been made before, by cramming the adventures of one hero into a two hour movie or maybe a triology at best, Marvel came up with a much more sustainable vision.
Borrowing the storytelling architecture of its printed comic book series, Marvel decided to set up a whole connected, continually expanding universe in which its heroes all coexist together.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, the major characters and their respective origin stories are introduced to the audience through their own stand alone films, starting with the first Iron Man movie in 2008. From then on more heroes were introduced, slowly but steadily broadening the scope of the universe. Once all the major characters were established they were united in the first Avengers movie to fight together against a common threat.
The one thing that sets the MCU apart from other franchises is its continuity. Because all the heroes exist in the same fictional universe Marvel has the possibilty to let them interact with each other, have them team up like they did in the Avengers and have their actions in one movie influence the events in another production. They all are building blocks that contribute to the greater good, the MCU, making it one of the most succesful franchises of the last decade.
Marvel was so succesful even, that Lucasfilm is planning to set up a similar universe within the Star Wars franchise.
The MCU does not just take place on the silver screen, there are television series like Agent Carter and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC and Daredevil and Jessica Jones on Netflix. Furthermore Marvel releases tie-in comics that elaborate on events that are only briefly mentioned in the movies or explain certain origin stories of protagonists. They even set up a fictional news channel to cover the events surrounding the Avengers.
So what can brands learn from this?
It is still a long way to go until brands can reproduce the same level of connected storytelling, there are however already some brands that make a more serious efforts than others.
John Lewis and its interconnected storytelling around Christmas
In 2013 John Lewis told the story of “The Bear and the Hare” by teasing the story with a 2 minute premiere on national television gradually unfolding the story through various media from there on. One year later they shared the story of Monty the Penguin in a similar manner. Today people have come to expect a rich, entertaining and interconnected content story from John Lewis during Christmas time.
Taking the time and care to set up a strategy similar to the MCU with the brand values as the governing principles of this universe will let brands create meaningful content on a long-term basis that communicates the core brand message at several touchpoints. Not only do customers want to hear what you have to say - they will want to hear from you over a longer period of time.
By:
Frederick Braake // Junior Planner // DDB Germany
