How to Create a Memorable Campaign

Hi Everyone, Today I found an interesting article about how to get a noticed without all the shouting. I hope you find it useful for your next campaign. You can find the original article here:

https://www.theloop.com.au/blog/2014/11/a-guest-article-by-ben-welsh-mc-saatchi-executive-creative-director/, and I've copied it below to share.

How to Create a Memorable Campaign

There are lots of memorable campaigns out there, but few worth remembering. Too many rely on irritating voices, jingles or mnemonics to stand out. (Think any shouty retail ad, especially that recent one where the bloke screams at you). So let’s talk about creating memorable campaigns to be proud of.

Let’s start with the brief.

In principle, it’s easy: Have something worth saying. Say it in a way that’s worth engaging

If you have something original to say, then you’re already halfway there. Remember the Pyrex commercial where they melted the aluminium pan in the Pyrex one? If you don’t, look it up. It’s a brilliant example of the power of demonstration.

Perhaps you have an original insight? When we worked on New Zealand Tourism, our brutally simple thinking identified that the new monied world traveller was craving authenticity. In a world that was becoming increasingly homogenised, New Zealand offered that type of experience in spades.

Relevance, Originality and Impact

I once worked somewhere that had a briefing platform called an ROI, which stood for Relevance, Originality and Impact, as well as being a pun on the age-old acronym for return on investment.

This is a great place to start, because if it’s not relevant then why should anyone pay attention? If you’ve seen it before, then how will the audience know who it’s from? You could argue that if you get the first two right then it will have impact.

CommBank Can

We had a great insight – negative thinking is holding us back – and the bank was in a better position than any to deliver against it. We came up with a brutally simple idea in CAN, but crucially, we completely changed the way CommBank looked. Overnight the look of the brand changed. Gone was the polite Helvetica Light. Gone the limited colour palette. And the even more limited monochromatic look in film. Enter a big, bold, confident look led by the Aachen font.

Flexibility is now more important than ever

We talk about campaign glue – getting the right balance between flexibility and consistency. We all know what happens when you have too much glue – you get stuck. Everything starts looking the same and message outtake falls off. You may still be relevant but your brand loses impact and originality.

Whatever your idea is, you have to share the ownership and evolution of it with your increasingly vocal customers. Which is why, at M&C Saatchi we build brand platforms rather than campaign constructs.

There’s no formula except humanity

I’m not talking about archetypes here, more about being something people want you to be. It makes sense for a bank to position itself around enablement because that’s what people want from a bank.

And if you are part of the media it makes sense to behave like the media – inform, entertain, amuse, move; too many marketers want to sell first and connect later. Alain De Botton gave a great talk at Cannes in 2013 about Coca-Cola campaigns having the same ingredients as Epicurean Philosophy. He said that Coke represented the idea of ‘social pleasure’ that was core to their philosophy.

Since we’re talking about memorable campaigns I’ve chosen examples from before I got into advertising.

1. British Airways – Face. It didn’t launch the world’s favourite airline campaign, but it certainly gave it a significant boost. Connected with the heart and soul of the global traveller as well as tapping into a bit of Empire nostalgia.

2. Hamlet Cigars. The insight was bang on – a moment of indulgence with which to recover from whatever life was throwing at you that day. And from an age when we didn’t worry whether the choice of talent would reflect badly on our audience.

3. Audi. I don’t recall the first ad, but I do remember growing up wanting an Audi Quattro. And I’ll never forget Geoffrey Palmer’s voice at the end “or as they say in Germany ‘Vorsprung Durch Technik” and this “as they say in New York” version.