The Best of a Marketer’s Diary (May 2012)

In April we completed our first year of Marketers Diary posts. So we owe you a 2011/2012 end of year results post. This will follow later this month billed as The Marketers 2011/2012 Diary Awards. We will also be bringing you our Jubilee brand bandwagon post observations.

But for now, in time honoured tradition, we’ve stuck with picking our favourite marketing communications from the best brand activation examples out there from May 2012. Or as Ricky Martin might put it the Thor amongst the lesser competitors in the process.

This month we have seen the poster sites and TV screens blasted with a mish-mash of Jubilee, Olympic and Euro 2012 event leveraging ads. Some good, some bad, some just on a different (weird rather than wired) planet. It has almost felt that to not be topical, is to stand out at the moment! So with commendations to Direct Line, Emirates and City of Westminster who didn’t quite make the grade this month, we bring you the winners.

Best Campaign Idea – Wed 2nd May – Stella Cidre

First we had, ‘it’s not cider, it’s cidre’ and now we have, ‘into a chalice, not a glass’. So we move from an execution to a campaign. Nice work agency suit for turning one-off into a campaign with legs (or perhaps it was always meant to be). And congrats to planners and creative too for finding more content to make interesting within campaign theme. Although you might get stuck on ‘bar’ and ‘beer mat’ doesn’t have the glamour that glace commands. This whole package is just popcorn perfect and is doing a brilliant job in detaching the provincial perception of stella with this chic offer. Great all over. Not that I’m a cidre drinker – but I may just be tempted. and then art direction creates a great european art film effect too, adding to the romantic allure.

Best Brand Activation – Wednesday 9th May – P&G

This looks like a very interesting brand activation campaign. And one where I can look at the streets of London to see whether it has had impact – because they should be cleaner. On paper (or rather at the ad agency SPARK session), this idea looks like a perfect leverage of the Olympic sponsorship by P&G….let’s see how it works out in reality – hopefully it lives up to its promise and is more than just extra litter on the streets for the PGCapitalCleanup team to manage. I am sure it will. And will probably sign up myself to experience how it all works….and do my bit.

Best demonstration of an App in print – Thu 24th May – Halifax

This Halifax ad caught my eye initially because it didn’t have a member of staff in it! And then I realised it couldn’t as it’s a remote service. That must have been an interesting ‘brand identity police’ discussion because they are a brand you think about for their personal service, and personal has always meant ‘people’ to them.

But what I really liked about the ad was it’s simplicity, which will undoubtedly have a high perceived value to those in the market shopping for a new home (sadly a segment only slightly larger than The Eldorada Fan Club currently). But as a brand ‘innovator’ and a ‘we do mortgages’ message it stands out. Good work. Most are focusing on the technological wow of smartphone capability, especially in FS. The winners here will be those that move from technological to psychological propositions – because whether its tech or not, that’s what always gets consumers engagement.

I hope you’ve seen these ads and they caught your eye too. And if you haven’t I hope you see sense in our wildly inferred interpretations.

Posted by Christopher Brooks, Founder Lexden

Lexden is a marketing strategy agency which creates unordinary propositions to motivate customers and deliver commercial advantage for brands. 

For more information on how we can help you, contact christopherbrooks@lexdengroup.com orajairanawat@lexdengroup.com, or call us on T: +44 (0)20 7490 9123.  And you can follow us on Twitter @consultingchris.

What would your media footprint look like?

I decided back in May to start a diary. Not one that recorded my innermost thoughts or my hopes and fears. But something a lot more visual than that. The diary is a recording of the marketing communications that had the most impact on me that day. And because of what I do, I travel a fair amount and so have been able to capture a really wide selection of images.

I am using the images to create a broader study of what messages, brands and media appeal. And then, by correlating that impact on my behaviour and attitude towards them, try to understand why they appeal. It’s not scientific but, as someone who is responsible for helping clients develop marketing strategies and build brands and value propositions, being ‘alaways on’ comes with territory. However, I have now been approached to publish the diary when it’s complete and consider how to develop it in to a robust tracking study, so that’s cool.

It’s been running just for nearly six months so I thought I’d take a look at which images have been attracting attention. The overall stats say views increase daily as you’d hope. But when I looked at the individual image stats, it shows that one image has had a whopping 1,486 views!! This is the NatWest ad below.

Why? Who’s looking, or rather, stalking this ad?

There are other NatWest ads, as well as RBS comms which have caught my attention, but the level of interest in this one surprised me. As part of the year diary review I hope to be able to figure out what’s happening here.

In addition to this I have had some other big hitters. Here are the top 5 so far: Lucozade @ 201, Barclays Bank bike scheme @ 67, Halifax @ 50, TalkTalk @ 39 and Red Bull @ 38.

I’ve also had an ad where I managed to crop out the logo of the brand. Ronel Schoeman from www.mawdatasolutions.co.uk applied some cool image searching software to track down the missing brand which turned out to be Marc Jacobs. Thanks Ronni.

It’s probably too soon to be choosing favourites, or pointing out which media reaches me effectively, but there are trends emerging. I seem to be a fan of the unordinary: opera singers at Liverpool Street station for Macmillan Nurses, Renova the coloured toilet roll company using toilet doors to promote their range in Lisbon and Dior’s use of multi screen at Edinburgh airport.

Nearly 6 months later I can still recall these ads with ease and vivid colour. And as I look at the collection, I can also remember how I felt at the time-powerful stuff when it comes to comms. After all, that’s what it’s about.

Please do take a look at the full diary http://www.flickr.com/photos/66864671@N00/sets/72157626556021873/.

I would appreciate any comments. And if your brand is here, let me know whether you think I’ve consumed what was expected of me, or if you feel I’ve given it a rough time.

I’ll leave you with my top 3 memories from the first half of the diary.

Lexden is a marketing strategy agency which creates unordinary propositions to motivate customers and deliver commercial advantage for brands. For more information on how we can help you contact christopherbrooks@lexdengroup.com or ajairanawat@lexdengroup.com, or call us on  T: +44 (0)20 7490 9123. And you can follow us on Twitter @consultingchris.