The ‘life’s a game’ concept is nothing new, but it seems to be particularly resonant at the moment.
Russell describes what I’m feeling beautifully in this great excerpt from his epic playful post*:
“Just like when I walk through the crowds on Oxford Street a tiny part of me is pretending I’m an assassin slipping steely-eyed through the crowds in order to shake the agents on my tail. And I bet it’s not just me. I’m not saying I’m massively deluded, just that, very often, some bit of us is always trying to play those games, to make mundane things more exciting.”
It’s one of those lovely insights that could translate really well into brand activity.
And this Nike spot hits that sweet spot beautifully:
It works because it’s engaging – even if it’s only in your own imagination.
* Yes, I know I’ve linked to it about 10 times already. But there’s a reason for that: it’s wonderful. If you haven’t read it already, I thoroughly recommend taking a look now. Thanks to Neil at Welcome to Optimism for sharing the Nike clip.
Hypebeast and Today and Tomorrow have already featured this fantastic partnership between Lego and Muji, but it deserves more than a quick twitter link.
The concept is so simple that I’m sure children all over the world already have their own version.
However, there’s nothing wrong with brands celebrating existing behaviour.
The reason this partnership works so well is that it builds on the essences of both brands: Lego’s boundless creativity, and Muji’s delightful simplicity.
On a related note, take a look at this glorious anthropological study of Lego ‘nomenclature’, and this inspiring post from Russell Davies on the importance of imagination in play, communications, and the world in general.
This is a fantastic Nescafé campaign from the late 1980s.
It’s an interesting variation on the leitmotiv approach: evolve a creative concept over time to deliver increased depth and duration of audience engagement:
The same technique was harnessed in the equally wonderful Nicole, Papa work for Renault Clio a few years later.
Such storytelling is a powerful communications proposition that brands can deliver through conventional media like TV.
However, the proliferation of storytelling media like the Web means we now have many more opportunities to engage people than we did in the 1980s; which brand will be the first to refresh this approach and deliver the first epic transmedia story?
I’d love to see more examples of these brand ’soap operettes’ – please share any links via the comments section below.
“Not many brands ‘get’ the youth market; they’re either too in-your-face, or try too hard to be ‘down with the kids’.”
Some brands do get it right though, as demonstrated by a recent partnership between Burger King and a Singaporean fashion brand, Flesh Imp.
Flesh Imp have designed a range of items as part of the tie-up, including some great T-shirts and headwear, and have implemented some engaging in-store activity too.
The result feels very natural: a hint of self-deprecating irony from both brands builds their respective personalities by showing that neither takes itself too seriously.
Nicholas at Flesh Imp gave me a bit of background to the whole collaboration, but it’s probably easiest to let some pictures from the brand’s flickr tell the story instead:
‘King’ playing card T
T-shirts come packed in great ‘take-away’ boxes
The window dressing at the chain’s flagship store
‘King’ T close up
Have it your way…
Limited edition headwear
Here’s your order
The brand has put together a great Facebook profile that shows more of the collaboration:
[click image to enlarge]
The whole tie-up fits nicely with the global BK Studio initiative – something that Flesh Imp have helped the brand with before:
BK isn’t the only multinational brand that Flesh Imp has collaborated with though.
This clip gives a taste of some great work they produced on behalf of Coke Zero, again in Singapore:
They did a great line for the Transformers movie too:
Flesh Imp 3D Transformers T
The magic ingredient that makes all these tie-ups work is authenticity: Flesh Imp manages to find an overlap in relevance between these large brands’ positionings and its own irreverent personality.
There’s a similarity to the Adidas Originals approach:
The difference is that Flesh Imp creates success for partner brands as well as its own, connecting them with a more cynical, younger audience.
As Nicholas pointed out, how many ad agencies could achieve that kind of impact?
After the recent post on KINDED, I was interested to read about a Canadian credit union’s approach to ‘random acts of kindness’.
Springwise report that Servus is giving away 20,000 ten-dollar bills to allow people to “make someone’s day” and start what they refer to as a “Feel Good Ripple”.’
In their own words,
“The Feel Good Ripple was developed to inspire everyone to make a positive impact in their community – today and into the future. It’s the credit union way of creating harmonious communities and sharing our cooperative beliefs.“
Participants have already put some of the money to good use, including anonymously buying an elderly couple breakfast, and buying pet food for the SPCA.
It’s an intriguing initiative.
On the one hand, it’s great for provoking conversations; my first reaction – ‘what would stop someone from pocketing the money?’ – even works in the campaign’s favour, by increasing the likelihood that people will talk about it.
It’s also a refreshing and differentiating alternative to the usual banking campaign full of stock images and financial cliché.
Furthermore, generosity isn’t an attribute people normally associate with brands in the financial services sector. This ‘corporate philanthropy’ angle highlights the brand’s credit union philosophy and co-operative approach.
Sure, cynics may suggest that it’s all just marketing spin – that’s it’s just another example of brands trying to buy people’s affection.
But does that matter?
The brand could have used this money to produce the usual, irrelevant blandness.
Instead, real people are benefiting from the campaign.
And when it comes to choosing between one bland brand and the next, that little ‘feel-good’ edge could become a critical motivator.
Sometimes, it’s not about how good you are, but about how bad everyone else is.
Simon Law shared some thoughts in response to the recent measures of success post that alluded to another interesting question:
“Does advertising always need a message?“
Much like ‘big ideas’, advertisers increasingly question the validity and relevance of ‘messages’.
But I believe much of that criticism is unfounded.
Every advert – and indeed, every communication – needs a message.
The issue in advertising is not the relevance of messages, but what the word ‘message‘ has come to mean.
People use it arbitrarily to mean a variety of different things: slogan, tagline, theme,…
Strictly speaking, however, it’s none of those.
Defining the term
Communication is all about exchange.
The word’s linguistic root means “to make common” – i.e. to share.
Modern definitions have evolved to encompass a slightly broader context; this is dictionary.com’s perspective:
“The imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs.“
It’s clear from this that communication should always involve some kind of sharing.
And that’s where ‘messages’ come in.
Sharing what?
In an advertising context, the message is whatever we hope to share: thoughts, opinions, information, etc.
Put more simply, the message is
“The subject of communication.“
However, this is still a little too ambiguous.
The role of a message
We’ve seen before that the purpose of brand communication is:
“To create a shared understanding between a brand and the people it wishes to influence.“
In that context, the ‘subject‘ of brand communication is the understanding that we want to share.
So, fundamentally, a message is
“The thing we want people to think, believe, or perceive as a result of experiencing our communications.“
So why do we need one?
Some people have suggested that a ‘message’ isn’t necessary – that advertising can work perfectly well without one.
But that makes no sense.
All advertising must have a purpose: an objective that relates to the brand’s success.
Furthermore, that purpose will always involve sharing something with an audience that will influence their attitudes and / or behaviour.
So, in light of how we’ve defined ‘message‘ above, it’s logical to conclude that all advertising must have a message.
Deciding the message
Deciding exactly what that message should be is a lot more complex.
As always, the most appropriate message depends entirely on what the brand wants to achieve, and whom it’s talking to.
Let’s look at an example that many detractors cite when asserting that advertising doesn’t need a message:
I’ve heard many people suggest that ‘Gorilla‘ doesn’t have a message.
But, together with a group of very intelligentpeople*, I worked on the strategy that inspired Gorilla (and the subsequent ‘Trucks‘ and ‘Eyebrows‘ films), so I can confidently assert that it did have a message.
The expression of that message even appears in the clip, albeit subtly.
At the time we began development of this strategy, the Cadbury Dairy Milk brand faced an interesting dilemma: although it was still the nation’s favourite chocolate, it had become a category generic: Cadbury Dairy Milk was ‘chocolate’, and people didn’t perceive it standing for much beyond that.
Meanwhile, competitors were gaining ground with highly targeted positionings that appealed to specific audience desires.
A thorough exploration of the Cadbury Dairy Milk brand revealed that there was a generosity that ran through everything the brand did – from its cooperative roots, to the fact that Cadbury continues to use fresh milk in the production process.
Coincidentally, we already knew that the audience aspired to be more optimistic: they were tired of the constant cynicism that surrounded them, and they wanted to break free from that by surrounding themselves with more optimistic people.
We saw a relevant connection between generosity and optimism.
Then, when we reflected on the brand’s heritage of ‘a glass-and-a-half of milk in every half pound‘ (a well-known claim used in much of the brand’s historic advertising), the somewhat obvious line was too good to ignore:
“See the world as a glass-and-a-half full.“
The play on seeing the glass half empty versus half full is obvious: Cadbury Dairy Milk offers people an exceptionally optimistic outlook that counters the cynicism that pervades their lives.
It’s not rocket science, but then, choosing a brand of chocolate isn’t too complicated either.
I wasn’t involved in the specific development of the Gorilla film, so can’t comment with authority, but I think the intended ‘message’ is pretty clear:
“Cadbury Dairy Milk’s communications bring you a moment of optimistic joy – just like Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate.“
Communications always need a message: something that the brand wants its audience to understand, and that will help it achieve its objectives.
That message doesn’t need to be complex, and it doesn’t need to be expressed explicitly.
But we’ve always got to share something.
Even if that’s just a moment of joy.
*As a consultant at ascension strategy consulting, I helped to develop the proposition and subsequent positioning for the Cadbury Dairy Milk brand. Publicis were Cadbury’s agency at the time of this development, although the brand’s account subsequently moved to Fallon, who created the Gorilla film featured above.
KINDED is a fantastic idea – one of those rare occasions where I want to go out and try a brand just because of its communications.
It’s organised by KIND, a “not-ONLY-for-profit” brand of hand-made, all-natural snacks from Australia.
I’ll refrain from calling this a campaign, because it’s not.
Rather, it’s a wonderful way to bring the brand philosophy to life, giving KIND relevance and making the brand a welcome part of your life.
The underlying concept of this ‘movement’ is ‘ random acts of kindness’, but it adds elements of the game ‘tag‘ and features from this fascinating initiative that tracks the movements of dollar bills in the U.S.
Here’s what the brand has to say about its ‘movement’:
“Ever wish you could do an incredible kind act for someone else, but can’t do it alone? The KIND team wants to help make it happen.
KINDED is a movement inspiring unexpected kind acts. These kind acts can be anything from helping someone carry heavy bags, sharing your umbrella, or paying for a stranger’s coffee.
“KINDED cards” serve as licenses to do kind acts for people who might otherwise be wary, making KINDED easy to pass on.
And since each card has a unique code and can be mapped online, you can track how far your chain of KINDING travels and view kind acts happening around the world.“
They go on to explain that the KINDED cards make it easier to overcome the social awkwardness that some people associate with helping a random stranger, by acting as an ice-breaker and explanation.
At the time of writing, 719 ‘KINDINGS’ have already been performed.
You don’t need to wait for someone to pass their card to you though – you can apply for one and start a chain of your own simply by popping over to the KINDED website.
So why do I think this is such a great activity?
Firstly, the concept is very simple: it focuses entirely on sharing the brand’s philosophy.
That may seem a narrow objective, but I now know exactly what the brand stands for – what makes it different, and why I should be interested. And that’s enough to make me want to try it.
Secondly, there’s no need for people to buy anything. It sees the world from the audience’s perspective, overcoming the “I know you’re trying to sell me something, so why should I even pay attention?” factor.
But most of all, this activity will bring joy and warmth to people’s lives – it will make people happy.
That’s powerful ‘CSR‘ that will inspire conversations, PR coverage, awareness, and goodwill.
Thanks so much to Springwise for the pointer. Images ‘borrowed’ from the KINDED website. And no, as far as I’m aware, I have no connection of any kind to KIND – I just think this is a great way to build a brand.
