In einem früheren Beitrag habe ich bereits einige Beispiele von Social Media Kampagnen gezeigt, die es nicht nur geschafft haben innovativ mit neuen Medien umzugehen, sondern auch ihr “Verkaufstalent” unter Beweis zu stellen. Getreu dem GREY-Motto “Famously Effective”, habe ich dieses mal drei neue Beispiele aus den diesjährigen Cannes Effectiveness Gewinnern ausgesucht, die auf sehr unterschiedliche Art demonstrieren, wie Social Media und neue Technologien etwas “Gutes” bewirken und sich Marken dadurch für Menschen “nützlich” machen können (siehe auch “Homo Connectus” Studie).

NO RIGHTS NO WOMEN:
Diese Kampagne zeigt, wie tausend einflussreiche libanesische Frauen Facebook genutzt und es mit einer einfachen Änderung ihres Geschlechts geschafft haben, sich erfolgreich für mehr Frauenrechte einzusetzen. Diese Aktion hat nicht nur viel PR generiert, sondern vor allem Menschen dazu bewegt, eine Online-Petition zu unterschreiben, die zur Abschaffung sogenannter “Ehrenmorde” führte.

HONDA INTERNAVI:
“Internavi” ist das Navigationssystem von Honda. Basierend auf Echtzeit-Verkehrsdaten anderer Fahrer, die ebenfalls Internavi nutzen, wird die beste Strecke evaluiert. Nach dem schlimmen Erdbeben und Tsunami, der 2011 zahlreichen Menschen in Japan das Leben kostete, nutze Honda diese Technologie, um Menschen in dieser Notsituation zu helfen. Die Idee war ganz einfach: Anhand der Daten von Internavi, wurde eine Echtzeit-Straßenkarte aller noch befahrbaren Strecken erstellt. Dank dieser Karte konnten die Hilfsorganisationen vor Ort viel effektiver arbeiten und sicherstellen, dass die dringend benötigten Hilfsmittel ohne größeren Zeitverlust den Weg zu den Menschen fanden.

ROTES KREUZ SINGAPORE:
Die Idee des “Roten Kreuz” in Singapore ist ein weiteres Beispiel, wie Organisationen oder Marken Technologien auf ganz einfache Art nutzen können, um sich für Menschen “nützlich” zu machen. In diesem Fall wollte das Rote Kreuz in Singapore dafür sorgen, dass ihre 12.000 zertifizierten Ersthelfer stärker in Anspruch genommen werden, wenn Menschen in eine Notsituation geraten. Dafür hat das Rote Kreuz eine App kreiert, die basierend auf GPS-Koordinaten mit nur einer Berührung des Telefons, Menschen in Not mit Ersthelfern in ihrer Nähe verbindet und zudem auch automatisch den kürzesten Weg zur Unfallstelle zeigt. Falls kein Helfer in unmittelbarer Nähe ist, ruft die App automatisch einen Krankenwagen.

Wer sich die Ergebnisse dieser Kampagne anschaut sieht, dass sie auf mehreren Ebenen effektiv war. Die Bekanntheit für diesen lebenswichtigen Dienst des Roten Kreuz, konnte deutlich gesteigert werden. Darüber hinaus wurde PR im Wert von 3 Mio. $ generiert. Aber das wichtigste Ergebnis ist mit Sicherheit die 97 Menschen, die mit dieser App gerettet werden konnten. Sicherlich klingt die Zahl erst einmal nicht hoch, aber ich bin mir sicher, dass die App für jeden dieser Menschen einen unmessbaren Wert hat. Die dadurch entstandene Markenbindung (oder in diesem Fall Organisation), bekommt einen umso höheren Stellenwert, wenn man sich die Ergebnisse der “Meaningful Brands 2013″-Studie von Havas anschaut. Laut dieser würde die Mehrheit der Menschen kein Vermissenserlebnis haben und es bereuen, wenn 73% aller Marken morgen verschwinden würden!

Mit dieser Zahl im Kopf, sollten wir uns vielleicht öfter folgende Frage stellen: Wann hat sich die Marke, die wir beraten/betreuen sich zuletzt “nützlich” gemacht?

The debate about creativity and business impact is not a new one. However, despite growing evidence that creatively awarded campaigns do a better job at building a brand’s business, many agencies still find it very hard to sell creative work and convince clients that persuasion and/or recall are not the most important metrics when deciding what the best ideas are.

I won’t go through the long list of papers that build a case for creativity, since this would blow off this post. Instead I’ll share some recent findings from the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising)  and Millward Brown, which demonstrate with hard facts why agencies and clients alike should be pushing for more creative work.

Last year the IPA in collaboration with thinkbox published a paper called Creativity and Effectiveness report. The paper is really worth a read and here are the most strinking findings:

1. Creatively awarded campaigns are more effective at growing share than non-awarded campaigns:

The graph below clearly demonstrates the efficiency advantage of creatively awarded campaigns. On average creatively awarded campaigns generate 5,7% of market share growth for every 10 points of ESOV (ESOV stands for Excess Share of Voice and is defined as Share of Voice minus Share of Market). This is 11 times more than non-awarded campaigns:

The “confidence effect” is the second key advantage of creatively awarded campaigns. The study showed that awarded campaigns deliver a “confidence” level of 99,9% on the business impact vs. 87% for non-awarded campaigns. Being able to predict the positive impact of a campaign with a significant higher degree of confidence is another essential argument for CMOs facing times of high uncertainty and increased ROI pressure.

2. The more “creative” a creative campaign gets, the better it is for the business:

The IPA paper also tested the following hypothesis “if creative campaigns drive market share then greater creativity should drive share even more”. Indeed the comparison between the campaigns that scored highest in the Gunn Report (the Gunn Report is a global index a creative excellence in advertising) and those which scored lowest showed that the highest scoring campaigns also had the biggest business impact:

Dominic Twose and Polly Wyn Jones from Millward Brown recently published a paper about “Creative effectiveness”. Building on the IPA paper mentioned above, Dominic and Polly took a closer look at the winners of IPA (1996 to 2010), Effies (2007 to 2010) and Cannes (2002 to 2011) for which Millward Brown had conducted the Link pretest.

The interesting conclusion is that the most creative and effective campaigns benefit more from their capacity to involve and engage people than from persuading them. It would be obvioulsy wrong to say that because of these findings “persuasion” should not be considered anymore. Indeed Dominic and Polly acknowledge that “persuasive” ads can have substantial sales effect in the short term. However “persuasion” alone is not enough for the campaign to have a long term sales impact. So marketeers who are in for the long run should encourage campaigns that are enjoyable to watch , which people find involving and resonate emotionally. Last but not least, the authors also underline the importance of branding as a driver of effectiveness: “it is all very well for an ad to leave vibrant memories, but do these memories link to your brand uniquely?”. Importantly “branding” should not be understood as showing your logo or pack as of frame 2 and leaving it there until the end of the commercial. Instead “branding” should be about “making the brand the centre of, and the reason for, the creative idea”.

I think the Walkers “Sandwich” campaign that won one of the Cannes Effectiveness Awards (the attached post is in German) is a good example of how “branding” should be understood:

Jeremy Bullmore is a member of the WPP Advisory Board and once wrote a very interesting article about “why good insights are like a refrigerator”. For those who do not have the time to read his article I’ll jump to his conclusion: “Good insights are like refrigerators because when you look into it, a light comes on” (foto source: Flickr.com by wboland).

To me that’s a great and sticky formulation of what an insight should do to any person who is involved in a creative process. Simon Law (Executive Planning Director at True Worldwide in London) shares that view when he writes in his blog: “an insight is like a revelation”.

What I really like about both Jeremy’s and Simon’s “definitions” are their stickyness and also the fact that they capture, what’s for me, the core of a great insight: the ability to shed light on a human truth regarding the role of a product/brand in people’s lives (link to german blogpost).

There are countless definitions of what insights are or aren’t. So instead of playing the game of listing a few of those definitions and debating about which ones we think are best, I’d rather share with you some campaigns that contain insights which in my view work like refrigerators.

Snickers: You’re not you when you’re hungry

“You’re not you when you’re hungry” is not just the claim of Snickers actual campaign, but is also a great example for a universal human truth that not only resonates deeply with people but also brilliantly fits the brand. We all know someone whose behavior or mood changes when he/she gets hungry. And Snickers was best positioned to solve that issue since the brand alwasy stood for  “hunger satisfaction”. The use of celebrities not only helped accelerate the fame of the campaign, but more importantly the celebrities were used as metaphors for hunger “signals” like irritability or diva-like crankiness.

The campaign won a “creative effectiveness” lion in Cannes (link to german blogpost) this year.

Febreze: The Breathe Happy Experiment

Febreze is a brand that’s known for its efficacy in eliminating odors and leaving your home with a nice, fresh smell. However, consumers were becoming more and more sceptical about the brand’s superiority message and the way it was being conveyed through traditional advertising. What was needed was a new approach that would let people experience that Febreze truly lets you breathe happy no matter what. The insight behind the campaign emerged during a consumer group where one lady told us “you can close your eyes but you can never shut of your nose”.

Not only did the campaign win in Cannes, but for the first time in the brand’s history, the “Breathe Happy Eyperiment” has given people a reason to interact with the brand online.

British Heart Foundation: “Yoobot”

A third of children in UK are overweight and so the British Heart Foundation asked GREY to find a way to make kids aged 11 to 13 take greater responsibility for their own health. But how do you that when “health” certainly isn’t on their priority list. What was needed, wasn’t another campaign telling them what good food is, but rather a tool that would help them make good food choices in a playful and engaging way.  The insight: kids feel “invincible”, so no matter what you preach, they end up eating what they want unless you show them the future relevance of the problem on their terms, i.e. with impact and play value.

Click here to see the case: YOOBOT j williams ok

Land Rover: “you stop lying when you feel safe”

Here is one last example of an actual Rover campaign that I really like. Everyone knows that people feel safe when driving SUVs. However, this is a fact not an insight and without having seen the briefing behind this campaign, I would feel pretty comfortable saying that the insight must have been formulated around the lines of “when you feel safe, you stop saying lies to protect yourself.”

And if I’m right with my guess than I would certainly say that this insight passes the simple test Simon Law suggests in his presentation: “write it on a piece of paper – on its own and make sure that it is large type in the middle of lots of white space.
 Then judge it – can it stand the test of brevity? is is still interesting with no support?…. Do you still feel proud?”