Here’s a delicious TVC, that’s content to some, from the MLA to encourage the Australian people to throw some lamb on the barbie this Australian Day.
Recently my colleagues and I have completed a new campaign for Bayer; EverGol Xtend – Don’t Let them go Hungry.
Evergol Xtend is a seed treatment that protects pasture from soil fungal diseases such as rhizoctonia and fusarium. These diseases have been known to reduce crop yields by 50% (Wallmark 2000) costing 77 million in lost production (Roget 2006).
We needed to inform farmers that Bayer has a solution to this problem. How do we do this?
By far the most fruitful is putting in the hard yards at the beginning by devising an elastic campaign concept.
Campaigns that don’t have elasticity are what we call ‘one offs’. There’s nothing wrong with these if they’re done correctly. There’s been some fantastic one off concepts over the years.
However, without elasticity in these types of communications you do miss out on an opportunity to further build on a product or brand message.
A story that can be told many different ways and links back to the core thought is a good foundation to have.
For example; take the Lynx Effect campaign, or Axe Effect in some countries. Lynx have hammered this campaign thought for years. Not because they’re lazy marketers that can’t be bothered to devise a new strategy, totally the opposite.
They’ve discovered the fertile ground, which allows them to deliver their message many different ways over many years. This keeps them relevant and fresh in their audience’s eyes and helps to boost their brand presence and sales every time they launch a new piece of quality communication that ties back to that well thought out communication… The Lynx Effect.
Here’s one of my favourites from the campaign over the years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRB0i9-AUQs
In the new campaign we created for Bayer seen below, EverGol Xtend – Don’t Let them go Hungry, we see a sheep and a cow resorting to other sources of food as a result of not enough pasture for them to eat, due to EverGol Xtend not being used and rhizoctonia and fusarium taking over.
These visuals are all then wrapped up with the Evergol Xtend – Don’t let them go hungry campaign line. This gives us that elasticity in the idea to execute visuals such as these. We could go on forever.
In the radio spot we hear a famished dairy cow attempting to call a pizza store due to not having enough pasture to feed on. These are all ways of dramatising the problem to highlight the solution in a way that stands out from other products playing in the same area.
Have a go yourself; see what other ways you can come up with to dramatise our new Evergol Xtend – Don’t let them go hungry campaign.
An elastic idea is nothing new in marketing communications (commonly known as a campaignable idea). The trick is being able to do it well.
Finally the conversation on brands online and social media is coming to ahead.
There’s been a lot of talk about digital killing off advertising, but is it?
Digital is not killing our industry. Just like in the 50’s television didn’t kill radio.
Digital adds to the options we have to deliver our message effectively. And I’m not talking about banner clicks that lead to next to f-all sales.
I’m talking about real results. Communications people love to share and act upon because they’ve experienced a piece of communication that has struck a cord and inspired them to check it out and purchase.
What’s hurting the industry is bad marketing on both, client and agency side. Selling and creating rubbish that they kid themselves, and each other, in believing people are interested in viewing.
The smart ones know how to create communications that excite and motivate people to share and talk about a brand or product positively.
They know that only GREAT WORK delivers real results, which can achieve significant increases in sales and awareness whist bringing a smile to many faces, or stop people dead to think about a topic differently enough they act on it.
And, they know how to deliver that GREAT WORK with all, one, two, three or none of the channels we’ve mentioned above.
The smart ones know without solid thinking behind every communication you’re serving up missed opportunities.
Digital unfortunately has opened up more opportunities for charlatans without the ability to create worthy communications, but have a knack for churning out crap and spouting worthless stats which appear impressive on the surface. They then use this to pull the wool over people’s eyes that they understand the art of advertising.
Here are more interesting articles then mine on the topic.
http://ddbmelbourne.com/2014/11/23/the-age-of-stuff/
The Big Sieve 