#MontythePenguin ~ The Science Behind the Story

For my money, Monty the Penguin is the ad of the year, created by Adam&Eve/DDB ~ arguably the most creative ad agency in the land. If you’ve not seen it yet, watch it here before you read on... [UPDATE: 17m views as of November 24th].

It looks very much like it was inspired by Calvin and Hobbes, (my all-time favourite comic strip), the story of a boy who went on very real but imaginary adventures with his best friend ~ a cuddly Tiger. The longer version is here but even the TV ad is 60 seconds of pure heart-warming joy. The sound track was taken from an unfinished John Lennon song "Real Love", sung here by Tom Odell. I had a tear in my eye the first time I saw it (and that was without the music on)...

This years campaign has been so carefully planned out that not only does Monty have his own Twitter account @MontythePenguin (look at who he's following), but there is a full range of merchandise (most of which has already sold out), an app and an interactive ebook read by Dermot O’Leary. Genius.

But a good idea and creative does not a successful campaign make. In the words of my friend social strategist Mark Schaefer,

Create Epic Shit Is NOT A Content Strategy”.

In my job as a strategist at Salesforce, the advice I give to content-driven brands is usually two-fold;

1. Make it simpler but not simple. (No matter how big the idea is, make sure you keep it as accessable as possible).
2. Make sure you have a science behind your storytelling. (A great idea on it’s own will never travel as far as an idea backed by solid data and audience insights).

Penguin Science

So what’s the science behind Monty the Penguin ~ and why will we look back on this one as of the most successful campaigns of the year? It is important to understand, especially for a brand like John Lewis where the vast majority of their sales happen around Christmas.

We first need to look at the culture of John Lewis to understand why they have chosen to run an ad like this in the first place. Unlike any other major retailer in the UK, I believe John Lewis Partnerhsip understand the value of a true community unlike any other. This stems back to the origins of the store and the values of the partnership that the company was founded upon. It is still owned by the employees and its 91,000 "partners" ~ an admirable model as relevant now as it was back in 1864. Read more about their model here.

The difference between an audience and a community is just which way the chairs are facing". Chris Brogan

I had some good debates with my social media friends last night about the ad, a couple of whom didn't like the narrative as much as previous Christmas campaigns (view them all here). They thought that Monty and the "I don't want to be alone" song was actually depressing for single people. Fair comment. I suggested that the core majority of John Lewis customers were 'older' and probably married. A few other singletons disputed this as they also loved to shop at JL.

(Earlier this year The Guardian published an article explaining that John Lewis had overtaken M&S as the darling of the British High Street ~ and was now reaching everyone, not just middle-England and families).

But what about the science? What does the data say?

I analysed the profiles of the @JohnLewisRetail twitter audience as it was the easiest dataset to access, and ran text algorithms over the data via DemographicsPro ~ a superb little tool that uses text analytics and behavioural analysis to predict with a 90%+ accuracy the demographics of any given audience, from publicly available open data.

As with any data analysis - the first thing we need to do is check that our data is accurate;

• Side note: You have to feel for the real @JohnLewis - a computer science teacher in Virginia!

So getting that out of the way (no fake followers to speak of in obscure countries to skew the data), here's a couple of things I quickly discovered;

In God we trust. Everyone else must bring data". W. Edwards Deming

72% married and young professionals (with families), but not high net worth executives or affluent by any means. It would be safe to assume a large majority of this audience have children between 5-7 years old, not unlike the the boy in the ad. All great creative seeks to drive an emotional connection with the audience. In fact, any brand worth it's salt seeks to drive an emotional connection with it's audience. A brand is intangible. It's emotional. It's what goes on in someone's head when they hear your name or recognise any of your comms.

Your brand is not what you say it is ~ it's that they say it is".

Some brands get it. Some brands don't.

People share emotions. They don't share facts". Facebook

What about the content? How should we tell Monty's story?

We have an idea of who we are targeting ~ but what about why we should target them - and with what kind of content? Again, what do the numbers say?

The John Lewis audience over-index in cooking, technology and soccer as interests and affinities. A scene involving supper time, a family watching a sexy new TV and a scene on a football pitch maybe?

We know most of our intended audience are married, but it looks like over 5% of unique conversations are about dating and 15% like funny things. So within the confines of a family, we need to involve an element of dating but in a way that is funny and cute...

A large chunk of our audience have closer affinities to commercial TV rather than radio or Youtube ~ so we need to have a strong promoted video on Youtube, but a branded TV campaign for 2014 still seems relevant (a recent trend is for brands to ditch TVC's in favour of just running Youtube ads or Facebook video).

It seems a no brainer to run a heavily sentimental ad, especially featuring the classic movie Wonderful Life, but the data confirms that the John Lewis audience respond most to positive stories and happiness...

The Science Behind Good Storytelling

What of the screen-writing? The actual story itself...?

This is where things get even more fascinating... Consider that all stories, especially the commercial ones targeted at families (not unlike the families John Lewis want to reach), have a science behind them. Think of the box-office-killing-machine that is Pixar. Every movie they have uses almost exactly the same formula. I was lucky enough to discover this a while ago from Pixar artist, Emma Coats. She explained to me how the script-writing worked;

Once upon a time____________. Every day____________. One day____________. Because of that, ____________. Because of that,_____________. Until finally___________.

For example, the pitch for Finding Nemo is:

Once upon a time there was a widowed fish named Marlin who was extremely protective of his only son, Nemo. Every day, Marlin warned Nemo of the ocean’s dangers and implored him not to swim far away. One day in an act of defiance, Nemo ignores his father’s warnings and swims into open water. Because of that, he is captured by a diver and ends up as a pet in the fish tank of a dentist. Because of that, Marlin sets off on a journey to recover Nemo….Until finally Marlin and Nemo find each other, reunite, and learn that love depends on trust.

So does this work for Monty?

Once upon a time there was a little boy and a happy-go lucky penguin called Monty. They were inseparable and every day they went on a different adventure. One day Monty started to discover that something was missing in his life. People around him seemed to have something that he didn't have. Someone to fall in love with. Because of that Monty got upset, and the adventures he went on stopped feeling as exciting as they once did. Because of that his best friend noticed that he was sad and he wanted to do something about it ~ Until finally it was Christmas! Monty soon discovered that this would be the best Christmas ever. He got everything he ever wanted ~ his best friend, a loving home and someone to fall in love with ~ Mabel the Penguin. And they all lived happily ever after.

We always have, and always will, make decisions with our hearts and justify them with our heads". Kevin Roberts, Saatchi & Saatchi #lovemarks

It all seems so obvious when you break down the story, but that's why it works. Science makes sure that the story resonates with us on a level that makes us look at John Lewis as so much more than a retail store. It's a place that makes dreams come true.

As if I needed to over-egg this particular Christmas pudding anymore, I'll leave you with a couple of words from a wonderful book I bought last week, written in 1857. I wrote extracts from it here. It was written for "Men in Business" as a handbook to explain how to talk, how to write, how to speak and how to do business...

Written 7 years before John Lewis was founded, the book reaches a conclusion that explains how a wealthy man was asked how he made his money, and became so successful. He replied,

Sir, I understood my business, and attended to it”.

Something John Lewis are doing rather well...

• Disclaimer: For the purposes of full disclosure, John Lewis Partnership (JLP) are a proud Salesforce client, but I do not work with them personally. All the data I have used here has been taken from the public interest graph from Twitter ~ and any opinions, thoughts and assumptions about their strategy are purely my own, and do not represent that of Salesforce, Adam&Eve/DDB or JLP. Thank you. Now go and adopt a penguin.

[UPDATE : Penguin books response to Monty the Penguin ~ What Penguins REALLY Want for Christmas]...