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Why the Pepsi ad could end in triumph

A truism that pervades our industry is that the worst thing that can happen to your work is not to have it hated, but to have it ignored.

Well, I hope this thought is keeping the Pepsi team warm tonight, because it’s probably the only morsel of comfort to be found in the wreckage of their latest ad and flames of mockery that have engulfed it.

To be fair I guess they can also take heart in the fact that they did indeed manage to unite people – just like they said they would – it’s just a shame that the common ground they provided was at their expense.

There probably hasn’t ever been an ad storm quite like this, but the closest parallel that comes to mind is the infamous Protein World scandal from 2015.  And this should make us pause for thought.  For Protein World’s campaign was not only hated; it was incredibly successful, garnering £2 million of sales for the small brand in a few short days.  Could the same reward befall Pepsi?

The short answer is… probably not.

The two scenarios aren’t really analogous, since Protein World chose a particular side of an argument, and simply defended it to the hilt, thereby attracting hate from one faction but fandom from another.  Pepsi on the other hand also chose a particular side in the culture wars, but it is this side that has turned against it the most viciously, with the protesting classes voicing deep offence at the work while the other side of the aisle simply shake their head incredulously.  In other words, at least some people were on Protein World’s side – Pepsi on the other hand has no one.

That said, if hatred is better than indifference, then there should still be glimmers of hope to be found for the brand.  So here are three reasons to be (sort of) cheerful…

The Ironic Purchaser

About a decade ago a game swept across American college campuses called “Icing”.  What it essentially involved was hiding a Smirnoff Ice in a creative manner so that someone would stumble across it (like baked in a cake say).  When they did, they were officially “Iced”, and as such were obliged to drop down on one knee and down it – unless they happened to be armed with an “Ice” themselves with which to block the attack.

Needless to say, the root of this game was not a deep admiration for the brand.  In fact it was the very perceived “naffness” of Smirnoff Ice that gave the game its humour.  Not great for the brand you might think, until you realise that an ironic purchase looks the same on the bottom line as a sincere one, and the people buying the product for this reason are in fact incremental buyers who otherwise wouldn’t be buying it at all.

When it comes to Pepsi, the fact is that the vast majority of people will be unaffected by this ad.  They might have a laugh at the brand’s expense, or more likely let the scandal pass them by completely; either way their base layer of sales won’t go anywhere.  

Pepsi has now unwittingly launched an all new purpose for itself – a sort of ironic “injustice shield”.  All around the United States people will be handing cans to cops, creating memes, and generally battling prejudice with the cans for quite some time.  Who knows, it may follow them for years, just like Icing did Smirnoff.  And these sales, they’ll be a bonus.

Mockery Is Not The Same As Hate

Generally when a brand gets embroiled in something like this, there is venom in the criticism they face.  That’s certainly what Protein World experienced, as have most other brands who waded into murky political waters.  With Pepsi the tone has been rather different.  Maybe it’s the earnestness of the spot, or the fact that they were clearly trying so hard to be “good”, but there’s something in the commentary that is more patronising than furious.

The most common term I’ve heard applied to it is “tone-deaf”.  That is not the same thing as malicious, and as such one would imagine that the mud is unlikely to stick to the brand for long.  There have been no calls to boycott, and indeed there has been something bordering on affection and pity in much of the commentary.  Could Pepsi actually emerge from this with slightly improved unconscious brand sentiment thanks to their utter haplessness?  Stranger things have happened.

Finally, Let’s Face It, It’s Massive

If we accept some of the above premises, namely that most people will have the details of this case rather pass them by, and even if they don’t they will feel more pity or amusement than anger towards the brand, then we can only conclude the following: this is kind of a hit.

Rarely has any ad generated so much buzz, or received such numerical success as this.  Pepsi, now, are simply more famous than they were a week ago.  A brand that hasn’t made ripples for a long time has just cannonballed into the pool of public consciousness, and the principal residue that will be left behind will probably be simply fame.

For a product that’s bought on impulse, with little deliberation by a fairly disinterested buyer, that’s not such a bad result.

Alex Smith is Planning Director at real world marketing agency Sense.

The article appears on Cream Global.

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A lesson in social engagement

It’s refreshing to see brands working really hard to connect with their target audiences in original and creative ways, and recent campaigns by Walmart and Stella Artois in partnership with water.org certainly showed this commitment. Yet one was far more effective than the other by better harnessing multiple channels, from social to real world, and developing a cross-channel ‘portability’ that extended both reach and lifespan.

Retail giant Walmart showed it clearly understands the power of storytelling to inspire customers and employees with The Receipt campaign – a series of minute-long films shot by some of the best young directors around. The filmmakers Antoine Fuqua (Southpaw, The Magnificent Seven), Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball, The Kite Runner), and Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Superbad, Neighbors) were commissioned to shoot films based on popular items found on Walmart receipts, Bananas, paper towels, batteries, etc. The only instructions Walmart gave the directors was for them to be storytellers. The films were scheduled to be shown as TV ads.

The below chart shows that although there was interest in the campaign and a spike in searches online, most likely coinciding with the campaign’s viewing slots, performance fell away rapidly after the ads were aired. It also reveals that there was very little traction on ‘The Receipt’ itself as a search term.

Google search trends data for the 24 hour period when the Oscars took place mapping US internet searches

Although a highly original approach, in terms of interest it was fairly short-lived, and more could have been done to extend engagement, as well as capitalising on the influencers involved – the directors. Although Walmart tweeted relentlessly throughout the Oscars, including tweeting at Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, they received minimal engagement. Their highest performing tweet achieved 2.7k likes for the Bananas Towns’ film. But sadly Seth Rogen did not even respond or share his own work – where Walmart have a following of 800k, Rogen has over five million!

With any campaign, especially if it is something that is going to break from tradition or what your audience expects of you as a brand, you need to build a conversation and buzz around it before the campaign is launched. The disconnect between the brand and the consumer can be seen from some of the comments on social media below.

Having such influential people involved in the project is great for wide-reaching impact and publicity, but do they connect with the Walmart’s core audience? Was there scope in Walmart’s brief to engage with influencers whose reach may not be as broad, but is much more targeted and relevant, meaning they can create additional content and with a much more highly engaged audience. Also, if you have a lower level of amplification running in the build-up to the launch, it then extends through and after the ‘BIG’ moment, not only giving your campaign a longer life span, but ensuring you widen your reach and continue the conversation for a longer period.

In contrast, the Buy A Lady A Drink campaign collaboration between Stella Artois and water.org, highlighting the critical need to provide clean water to people in the developing world, really hit the mark. It seems like every brand is embracing a purpose at the moment, and while Walmart turned its hands to storytelling, Stella Artois and water.org took advantage of the sheer topicality and global interest in the ‘Who are you wearing moment?’ on the Oscars’ red carpet.

Fashion House Marchesa created a dress made of crystals formed from the Stella Chalice to represent the water. It was worn by Oscars attendee actress Olivia Culpo generating lots of interest, including a number of interviews as she walked the famous red carpet.

The effectiveness of this collaboration was down to the selection of the right moment, the relevancy of the collaboration/partnership, and the delivery. The below graph demonstrates the power of ‘red carpet’ as a moment. By leveraging this, the brands knew there would be press and cameras everywhere, meaning there would be no need for a press launch, etc. This was a great strategic decision.

Google search trends data for the 24 hour period when the Oscars took place mapping US internet searches

Unlike Walmart’s campaign, all brands involved shared the campaign on their social channels. The results were fantastic!

Instagram @marchesafashionMarchesa posted two shots on Instagram, one image which achieved 15,851, and a video post which had 2,209,954! Olivia Culpo posted this on Twitter to her 200,000 followers and was interviewed by several journalists and on her own show, with TV figures for this year’s Oscars estimated to be 32 million. On Instagram, she posted four images and videos and achieved a total of 41,700 likes on the images and a total of 754,000 views! Stella Artois’ strategy on Twitter was also much more engaged compared to Walmart, they released a series of tweets about their collaboration, showing behind the scenes with Olivia Culpo in the lead up to the Oscars. On the night they answered questions from people regarding the collaboration and also retweeted people who had been sharing news items about the dress.

@stellaartois Pre Oscars

@stellaartois retweet

What’s more, to continue the conversation post Oscars, in partnership with E! News’ content studio, Stella Artois and Water.org is rolling out a three-part digital movie narrating the making of the dress – from Marchesa and Olivia’s first meeting to the story behind the glass beads.

This social campaign demonstrated clearly how having a clear strategy and strong partnership with your client and partners ensures success, while highlighting the opportunities Walmart missed.

Ally Biring, Digital and Social Director at real-world marketing agency Sense New York.

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Where were the brand experiences at this year’s Ideal Home Show?

Rather than discovering a host of creative ideas and exciting experiences at the UK’s leading lifestyle event, Rose McDonnell, Group Account Director at Sense, was disappointed to find that it was more like walking through the cosmetics section of a department store.

If your brand had the opportunity to engage with almost a quarter of a million people face to face, wouldn’t you jump at the chance?

This is what the Ideal Home Show offers its exhibitors over 17 days – including the first week of the Easter holidays. It provides a wonderful opportunity for related brands to take themselves beyond the printed page, computer screen, and mobile device to touch people in a deeper, more authentic way in the real world. And with recent research revealing that 38% of people are more cynical about brands than five years ago, this has never been more important.

Sadly the majority of exhibitors at this year’s show completely missed this opportunity to give visitors – and paying ones at that, let’s not forget – a truly engaging and immersive brand experience. That’s a captive audience eager to learn about new products and services; looking for inspiration about how to improve their home and lifestyle; keen to sample new and exciting experiences – surely a marketer’s dream.

Unless your product or service is absolutely unique, new, and innovative, you have to do more to stand out, be original, be memorable. Especially, if you are sited next to or in the vicinity of your key competitors, which many brands at this year’s event were. Unfortunately, each stand looked pretty much the same. It was basically like walking through the perfume section of a department store – only worse because you had paid to get in.

Panasonic and Vitamix, for example, were neighbouring exhibitors promoting similar products: food processors. Yet their stands were almost identical, both offering similar solutions: the same functional benefit from a blender. Where was the emotional benefit and the true experience? What would visitors gain from buying Panasonic’s over Vitamix’s? Who knows? Those brands certainly weren’t giving out any hints.

You’d think that at least disruptive startups Gousto, Hello Fresh, and Able and Cole, which are currently shaking up the grocery sector, would recognise the huge opportunities to sign up thousands of new members and really put on a show to differentiate themselves from each other. Well, you’d be disappointed. Each had a salesperson and a simple branded stand. And the even more bizarre thing is that taking a stand at The Ideal Home Show is far from cheap, so you’d think that every brand would be doing its utmost to maximise the return on this not-insignificant investment.

It’s not a case of having to throw money at it, but rather simply communicating what your brand is about in a creative and engaging way. People buy people and rarely do brands get the chance to be this close to the people who really matter, show off their personality and get across that they’re all about. For many brands at this year’s Ideal Home Show it seemed to be more about: “We’d better have some kind of a presence” – a token gesture. Perhaps they prefer to focus on other forms of marketing like digital.

Sadly, it seems that many brands failed to understand that by creating a truly effective live brand experience – especially over nearly three weeks – provides the ideal way to bring together all their campaigns and amplify them through digital and social media. Real world marketing is increasingly becoming the hub around which many campaigns now spin. It’s a shame many of the exhibitors at this year’s Ideal Home Show missed this point.

Rosemary McDonnell is Group Account Director at Sense.

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Experiential spend rises 4.9% in Q1 2017, says Bellwether report

Event marketing budgets, which includes experiential and brand experience activity, have grown for the 13th successive quarter, according to the latest Institute of Practitioners in Advertising’s (IPA)  Bellwether report for January to March 2017.

Spend on live marketing was up 4.9% on the fourth quarter of 2016, showing that brands are continuing to invest in engaging with consumers in the real world. Although the figure is down from the 12.3% budget growth, it continues a positive trends that began back in 2014.

Looking forward, the signs for 2017 and 2018 are good, with the Bellwether reports stating that the industry should expect upward revisions for budgets throughout the coming financial year, with final data showing that a net balance of +10.6% is predicted for 2017 and 2018.

Total spend across marketing disciplines was up 11.8% overall. The strongest increases were in internet and main media advertising, with the former recording its highest growth in just under four years at 16.9%, and the latter jumping up to 10.7% from +5.1% in the final quarter of 2016.

Experiential

Whether it be Festivals, Trade Shows, PR Stunts, Installations or Pop Ups to name a few, we believe brand experiences are one of the most powerful forms of marketing to impact consumer perception and attitude towards a brand. They can create real behaviour change when born out of a deep consumer insight allied to a compelling idea. And it’s these fundamentals we look to get right whatever the live, virtual or hybrid task in hand.

Sampling.

Sampling is all too often perceived as an unsophisticated, somewhat ‘blunt’ marketing tool. Over the last 16 years Sense has pioneered a set of strategic principles which underpin our unique approach to sampling and which are highly measurable from both an ROI and consumer behaviour change perspective. We will happily guide brands through the myriad of sampling channels and products available so whether it’s mass face to face sampling, in offices, digitally, at home or just a strategic framework that you are after, we can provide a blend of tactics to fulfil both brand and sales objectives.

Retail.

With many clients now focused on activating in channels more closely associated with a sale, our heavyweight retail experience closes the loop on a typical shopper journey by encompassing the moment of truth in store. Be it prize promotions, shopper toolkits, key visual creation, path-to-purchase communications, category strategy, B2B campaigns or Amazon optimisation, our goal is to create forward-thinking retail experiences that deliver demonstrable brand value. We aim to make ‘retail fail’ a thing of the past for ambitious brands looking to thrive is an ever-competitive landscape and believe our streamlined team is perfectly placed to do this.

Foresight.

Knowing what will keep a brand bright, exciting, and vital means we need to keep one step ahead of the curve. Our thought leadership hub, The Futures Lab, helps us to understand the marketing trends of tomorrow. It’s also the origin of strategies and methodologies which have created over 65 award-winning campaigns. 

Rigour.

Creativity is nothing without results. And we know that commissioning bold concepts, capable of changing minds, requires reassurance that it’s the right thing to do. 

Data, insights, and research precedes every campaign we do, and our proprietary measurement tool, EMR, gives us a decade of campaign performance metrics. Which is why we’re proud to have been recognised as industry-leading by brands like The Economist, Coca-Cola, and Molson Coors. 

Trust.

We believe brand experience is inherently more varied than other forms of marketing. No formula, no template, no cookie-cutter approach – and often no precedent. 

That’s why, Sense places trust at the heart of its business – grounded in teamwork between our people and yours. Our processes are efficient, our senior team stay involved and our partnership mentality had helped us sustain powerful client relationships, some lasting over 10 years.