Lecture for CM 417 on Ideas that Do vs Messages that Say

1. 4/28
Fundamentals of
Creative Development

4. Ideas that do.

5. What are the ways in which an ad can be participatory,
meaning there is a role for the consumer besides watching?
Dodge Dart: user plays role, shares, and others join.
Old Spice Twitter: users engage with ideas for spots and then pass them around.
Coke Chase: you play, vote, come back to see the results and socialize.

6. The real value is if the idea does one or all of the following:
a. becomes a part of your every day life: Nike Plus, AMEX on Foursquare
b. gives you some form of utility that you use at least occasionally (Sit or Squat and dozens
of others)
c. gets you to take some kind of action -- Jet Blue Election Protection, where you are
involved not just watching.
d. makes you WANT to share it because it is either cool and you want to turn your friends on
to it. Or there is some incentive to do so. Or because you are inviting more participation that
benefits you, i.e. the Kickstarter inspired Dodge Dart idea or Art of the Trench.

7. Quick Recap
Why we advertise
Role of creativity
What makes an ad creative when it’s a message

8. Ads that earn your attention, but rely on
paid media.

9. ‘
fag.got (fag t) 1. there was
e
a time when the word “faggot”
meant a bundle of sticks. but
then people started using it
in an insulting, offensive way
and things changed. so when
you say things like “homo,”
“dyke” and “that’s so gay” try-
ing to be funny, remember,
you may actually be hurting
someone. 2. so please, knock
it off. 3. get more information
at ThinkB4YouSpeak.com

10. Original
Unexpected
Invite you in
Entertain first
Provoke
Avoid cliche
Visually arresting
Fun

11. Who creates these ads?

12. Writer and art directors.

13. What are the shortcomings of ads and
campaigns like these?

14. They work. But...they are expensive, they
are temporary, they are mostly passive.

15. They are not going away. But they derive
from an era when we (brands and
marketers) owned the media and could
“broadcast” our sales pitches.

16. Today we live in an age of social media
and participation.

17. Consumers no longer want to play a passive role. Nor do they have to.
At a minimum, they want to choose what they engage with and when
they engage.
More likely they want a chance to comment and share. Ideally, if an
idea is good enough, they’ll actually participate -- sometimes before the
fact, sometimes after -- in the process creating more content that
spreads across the web, attracting attention to the original idea, liking
the brand or the product for allowing them to be part of the experience.
What does a brand have to do or create to achieve such a level of
participation?

18. Participatory
Interactive
User generated
Shareable
Useful
Enduring
Platforms

19. Think about your own use of technology, media, content.
Consider how you find out about brands and products. Identify the
problems, frustrations, needs you have that brands could solve with
marketing as utility?
Factor in context. Where are you? What are you doing? What
makes sense at that moment?
Ask what a brand has to do to get you to pay attention, engage,
and more importantly, stay involved.

21. 180 + original videos
5.9 million views
22,500 comments

27. One off events:
Campaigns:
Experiences:
Apps:
Platforms:

28. How can you demo Ford’s new
Park-Assist feature?

30. Pinball Park Assist
Who: Ford
What: To promote the Active Park Assist feature on the new Ford Focus, Ogilvy of Paris “turned the
quest to find a parking spot in Paris into a giant life-size game of pinball.”
Drivers come across one tiny parallel parking space. “Above the cars stands a giant pinball billboard
that displays each driver’s score as they play the full-size parking game. Sensors in the surrounding
cars’ bumpers register a ‘hit’ anytime they are touched at all. The driver’s score is tallied on the giant
board for everyone to see.”
The “winner” – or worse parker – received a free Ford Focus with the Active Park Assist feature to park
in the space without a single ding.
Why: Leveraged the notoriously difficult parking situations in Paris to highlight the Active Park Assist
feature’s relevance to anyone who drives in the city.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DAM_HLj1QOo#!

31. How can you encourage trial in a way
that involves users to create content?

33. National Honesty Index
Who: Honest Tea
What: Honest Tea set up its own social experiment this summer with unmanned pop-up stores around
30 cities that asked people to pay $1 when they took a bottle of tea. Unknown to all passersby, Honest
Tea also set up hidden cameras to find out who actually followed the honor system. They then compiled
the data from their videos to create the National Honesty Index, a website that features interactive
infographics about who is honest ... and who is not.
Why: Spreads and builds the brand’s core values in a way is fun, interactive, and shareable for anyone
involved – from those who took tea at the pop-ups to those who check out the infographics
Link: http://thenationalhonestyindex.com/

34. How can you sell more airline tickets?

40. Election Protection
Who: Jet Blue
What: We’ve all heard someone say, “If my candidate doesn’t win, then I’m leaving the country.” That’s
why we created something called Election Protection for JetBlue. Here, we tapped into the largest
discussion in America, the current presidential election, and said if your candidate doesn’t win, don’t
worry, JetBlue will give a free one-way ticket out of here.
The site experience, the mobile and social extensions and the on-the-ground campaigning all came
together seamlessly. The story was picked up by almost every major news provider. And the results were
through the roof.
Why: Taps into cultural relevance, aligns product offerings with current events, leverages news coverage
for the election, fun and participatory.
Results: 346,114 unique visits; 51 million impressions (most of which were earned); 103,559 votes. All on
a limited budget and a regional presence only.
Link: http://thenationalhonestyindex.com/

41. How do you get people to drink more of
your beer?

43. Bud Clock
Who: Budweiser
What: Budweiser created a “Bud Clock” that counts down to the end of the Happy Hour. Every
Budweiser you buy at the bar gets you a QR-coded coaster that, when scanned by the Bud Clock, adds 1
minute to the Happy Hour countdown.
Why: Provides a direct incentive for partygoers to purchase more Budweisers at the exact point of
purchase
Link: http://adsoftheworld.com/media/ambient/budweiser_budclock

44. Can Charmin’ redeem itself for years of
heinous advertising?

46. Charmin’ Sit or Squat
Who: Charmin
What: An app to help people identify clean, nearby public restrooms from their phone.
Using basic mobile technology and location based services, users can simply open the app and find a
restroom.
More importantly, they can contribute by uploading locations that they identify with a few simply entries.
And, if they are so inclined, they can join, which, of course, gives the brand data about who they are and
where they go.
Why: Provide utility, marketing as service, capture data, hope that doing something for customers
translates into loyalty or trial.
Link: https://www.sitorsquat.com/

47. When do your customers need you?

49. Tide’s “Stain Brain”
Who: Tide
What: A free app that gives consumers step-by-step instructions from
both experts at Tide and other users who can submit their own tips
on how to remove/treat specific stains.
Why: To further cement Tide as an “authority” in stain removal, and to
increase sales on certain Tide products, such as the “Tide To Go”
stain remover pen.

50. How do you turn your physical machines
into a medium to generate viral content?

52. Who creates these ideas?

54. What is the shortcoming of efforts
like these?

55. Hard to scale, can’t guarantee size of
audience or reach, slower build.

56. Need a combination of everything.
Driving brand idea.
Advertising for awareness.
Social for engagement.
Experiential to connect in context.
Mobile to be ever-present.
Shareable ideas to be viral.
Platforms to be lasting vs temporary.

57. So now what are the fundamentals of
creative development?

58. Art and copy

59. But also, an understanding of media,
technology, consumer behavior, social,
mobile, experiences.

60. But what does every one of these
examples have behind it?

61. A relevant, on strategy, creative idea.

62. Hey, what if we....
--write on the roads of the Tour de France with a robot
--fly people out of the country if their candidate loses
--test people’s honesty with a public display
--crowdsource clean restrooms
--enable customers to extend Happy Hour

63. Got ideas?