Marketing Inspiration— September 2017
Collected these for colleagues, figured I’d share more broadly. These are the most compelling marketing-related links I found in the month of September, with a focus on award-winning work this month.
Fearless Girl dominates the Clio awards. “The renowned Wall Street statue, which became an overnight sensation when it was placed in Bowling Green Park in March, took the top prize in the Branded Content, Events/Experiential, Innovation, Out of Home and Public Relations competitions.” via Adweek
Gold Clio: Kenzo’s “My Mutant Brain.” Demonstrating the power of branded content (that is, brand-driven content that is itself a destination, and not an advertisement that interrupts the main attraction), this incredible music video was passed around via social media, racking up 10s of millions of views, hundreds of fan-created cut-downs, gifs, spoofs, reaction videos, and so on. Watch it here.
Grand Clio: Ikea’s “Cook this Page.” To fire up store managers for their annual kitchen promotion, and to solve a problem for domestic nesters, Ikea inspired them to break out of their routines with simple-to-follow interactive recipes. Check it out here.
Grand Clio: Burger King hacked Google Home. Burger King hacked the Google Home device and engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with Google in real time. via Clios.com.
Grand Clio: Burger King’s burning stores. Burger King chose a brave way to reinforce a “reason to believe” in one of its key points of differentiation, the flame-grill cooking method — using ads that show photos of real-life BK restaurants on fire. Restaurants in flames in Italy, Oregon and Pennsylvania appeared in the print campaign. via AdWeek
Clio Gold: Pretzels, Baby by Snyders of Hanover. What’s the oldest snack in the world to do when a bunch of flashy new snacks are stealing all of the attention? Put on a wig and charm the elastic-banded pants off of everyone, that’s what. via Clios.com.
Clio Gold: White Hants Wanted by US Army. Hacking for good can be cool, too. The US Army created a riddle that only hackers could solve to find qualified candidates. via Clios.com.
Clio Grand: Lo and Behold. Another branded content winner, Netscout, an internet security and services firm, created a documentary that won awards and critical praise. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 93% approval rating based on 61 reviews. ““Usually we pay for eyeballs in advertising, but here you have people paying money to see [the film].” Watch the trailer here. Read about the marketing journey here.
Nike’s Da Da Ding (many awards). Nike’s moved beyond exhortations to “just do it” and into experiences that inspire and enable their customers to do it. Watch the campaign explainer here. Music vid here.
Measuring experiential marketing. “Experiential is a uniquely fast and effective way to build brand awareness through one-to-one connections with consumers. It engages all five senses, sparking emotions that form lasting memories which have been shown to drive brand loyalty.” How to measure it? “ Brands say that when it comes to data and measurement, they have moved from being passive (hoping that an experience is so impressive that people post about it on social media) to being active (including data points and tracking as part of the experience or integrating social efforts that make people use the brands’ hashtags or geofilters) to guarantee that they will have the analytics they need to justify the expense of experiential.” via AdWeek
Valve open sources Valve merch. “In a new partnership with the 3D Printing company Shapeways, Valve will now allow anyone to make and sell their own personalized models for series such as Half Life, Portal and Team Fortress, as well as items for Valve’s Steam Link and Steam Controller. Valve will be paid 10-percent in royalties based on the cost of the model. via RollingStone
Old but good: the brand report card. A simple list of 10 characteristics that great brands share. via HBR
Giphy could make billions in six seconds. “Giphy has capitalized on its cultural currency to amass an audience of 300 million people who see a GIF from Giphy every single day, triple its total since just December 2016. They share more than 2 billion GIFs a day across Giphy.com and the many platforms where Giphy is embedded: Facebook, Twitter, Tinder, iMessage, Slack, and even Zendesk….” via Fast Company
The power of precision writing. Clear writing comes from clear thinking, sure, but clear thinking can result from the effort to clarify writing. “Whether your content’s aim is to inform, educate, entertain or sell there’s one golden rule you need to follow. Your content, regardless of use, needs to be as long as necessary, and no longer.” via Have-a-Word
