McDonalds brings in Stormzy, while Aldi stays on beat

Welcome to the Beacon creative roundup newsletter. Here I’ll be taking you through the last two weeks in the creative world, through the lens of what’s been stopping our scroll here at Beacon. Expect to read this and come away with some new perspectives, creative inspiration and a nice mental break from scrolling through spreadsheets!

Order like Stormzy

Mcdonalds has brought us all a brand new campaign featuring none other than Croydon raised Stormzy. The new television ad focuses on his custom order and follows a sequence of people ordering the same meal and sounding like Stormzy. It’s funny, it’s lighthearted and just what we need to see, while the weather is cold outside and we’re seeking the warm familiar embrace of the restaurant many know and love. The highlight of this campaign is that it’s centralised around something personal yet relatable, your food order. This is going to make fans of Stormzy run to restaurants, and the McDonalds app to earn the prizes seen below.

In homage to Stormzy’s hometown of Croydon, the locals there are being given 48hrs early access to the deal making it all the more alluring. Creating exclusivity for wholesome reasons is a good way to make people who take part feel special, and who doesn’t want to feel looked after by the brand they’re investing in?

Keywords: Scarcity marketing, Collaboration, Relatability

KFC’S open door policy

The UAE woke up to KFC stores missing their doors in this new campaign! KFC made it super clear through their fun use of ‘once closed’ doors, that they want customers to feel at home in their 24/7 open restaurants. What a good way to encourage customers with a sight they already know in a place that meets them where they are.?

In collaboration with the team at TBWA\RAAD, KFC made the clever connection between the growth in importance for out of home marketing and reducing materials needed to pull it off. Not only does this make a much more interactive experience for those seeing it, but it also doesn't require the excess sourcing of production materials, making it a more sustainable option. The out-of-doors conceout-of-homept here actually brought viewers closer to the brand, bringing part of their stores to them!

Taking the doors off the restaurants literally made the campaign humorous and easy to understand. In a fast-paced world where you don’t have a lot of time to engage people, this was a quick and easy way to turn heads. The fact that the doors have windows on them also denotes transparency, which is part of the message KFC is really trying to get across here, and transparency builds trust. How can you position your messaging and visuals to encourage transparency within your brand? Use authentic images that really represent what you offer and messaging that is clear and explicit in what you really want readers to take away.?

Keywords: Sustainable, transparency

Aldi home on time

This year's Grammys have produced a wealth of talking points here in our team, but let’s have a look into some of the ads that really caught our eyes! Aldi never misses a beat when it comes to reactive marketing, putting a well-dressed employee with their on sale princess house above his head to hilariously imitate Jaden Smith’s well memed house hat head-dress. Dressing down this costume to something fun with a red carpet rolled out in the Aldi store will appeal to families and people who just love the random middle of items in their stores. No doubt this will have people running to their local store to see what grammy-worthy items they can find.

Bringing the fun and making it timely is the key to being reactive on social media. But it is also important to know whether that is the right strategy for you, if it isn’t appropriate to repurpose a trend for your company then don’t do it, wait for the next big thing. If viewers see you attempting to join a trend for the sake of likes and shares when it doesn’t align with your product or service, it loses authenticity.?

Keywords: Reactive marketing, authenticity

Superbowl ad highlights?

The superbowl always gathers a plethora of eye-catching visuals and this time around was no exception. The baja blast commercial featuring singer Becky-G caught our attention for its completely explosive nature, literally! We saw the singer Seal become a seal and perform a rewritten lime-based remix of his well-known hit ‘Kiss from a rose’. The cute characters filling the screen around him made it hard to look away, while the ballad continued on in the background. While the visual did a stunning job of catching me off guard and conveying the refreshing flavour of the drink, I found myself more focused on the animals than the product.

Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance has also been a major talking point, with hidden symbols as well as larger symbolism that we couldn’t ignore. From the American flag and his chain, to starring Serena Williams and SZA it was a feast for the eyes. I love this response ad from the American Heart Association, that aligned the tempo of this trending song with their purpose of saving lives. There’s a lesson to be learnt here though in that being subtle with your words, and letting your visual approach lead can be more enticing and memorable than just focusing on what you say. Try to take your audience on a visual emotional journey as well as giving them the most important pieces of your messaging.

Keywords: Reactive, storytelling

Thank you for joining me on this creative journey! I hope you were able to take something away from all we discussed. If you have any thoughts or questions I’d love to hear them, make sure to reach out in the section below. Like, share and save to your saved articles and posts, for more juicy creative content!

Tineshia John

Senior Graphic Designer

Beacon Agency