When Carlos Ghosn, Nissan President and CEO, unveiled the Nissan Leaf last year he heralded it as “the unveiling of a real-world car that has zero – not simply reduced — emissions. It’s the first step in what is sure to be an exciting journey — for people all over the world, for Nissan and for the industry.
It was a significant entry into the carbon emissions reduction arena with what was sure to have a major impact on the conversation. A conversation, which at that time lacked a common thread for people to follow and rally around.
The immediate opportunity for Nissan was to own the global conversation around mobility. Not simply from a new product standpoint, but from the standpoint of a new mobility lifestyle — a lifestyle preparing the world for a new kind of car.
The TBWA\Digital Arts Team, led by Colleen DeCourcy, was asked to cultivate this conversation and give it a place to live online. The teams generated thinking around celebrating zero emissions mobility, the coming of the electric vehicle revolution and how this can be a central part of a common journey to a sustainable future. In response, they created, ‘Journey to Zero.’
Under the watchful tutelage of Richard Saul Wurman, global thought leader, TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference founder, author and the planet’s premier information architect, journeytozero.com became a platform for this ongoing conversation.
The Digital Artists started by partnering with Wade Davis, noted anthropologist, ethno-botanist, best-selling author and National Geographic Explorer documenting his conversations, observations and experiences at COP15 – the United Nations 2009 Climate Change Conference. Using the above, the team pushed content to consumers in real time starting a global conversation around change.
Constant Communications was the mechanic employed to reach consumers through social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Posterous, and on journeytozero.com. Almost immediately after starting the conversation, it grew in bounds. Not only did the program gain great momentum with the consumer audience, but zero emissions and green leaders and influencers also engaged in perpetuating and growing the conversation.
The initiative was not created to sell the Nissan LEAF directly; however, one can imagine that there will be a residual effect now that so many consumers were engaged in the program and have a new mindset around zero emissions and mobility. It is a journey Nissan initiated, and one that is so important to the future of mobility.
In the words of Wade Davis, “The very existence of alternative ways of thinking and doing are what will save us — hence being aware of diversity and new ways are what will drive the future of sustainability.”
Jean-Marie Dru is the Chairman of TBWA Worldwide He writes a memo to all his colleagues at TBWA every week. Sometimes, he shares them with us:
In 2008, TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles was tasked to reignite the spark both in the Gatorade brand and in those who drink it. Because of the brand’s tremendous growth over the years, it was starting to lose its core sports relevance as consumers forgot Gatorade’s fundamental reason for being – superior sports hydration that fuels athletic performance. The brand was losing its meaning and in danger of becoming more akin to soda pop than sports drink.
In talking with athletes of all ages, the team found that whatever they do, wherever they go, the best athletes always take their attitude, swagger and passion with them. They may lose a step here or there, gain a few pounds as they age, but the one thing that doesn’t change is their competitive desire and will to win.
They tool inspiration from the fact that rivalries have fueled athletes throughout the history of sport and asked, what if Gatorade used a sporting rivalry as a catalyst to give one-time athletes a second chance?
Two U.S. high schools, Easton High School in Pennsylvania and Phillipsburg High School in New Jersey, have a 100-year-old rivalry and, in 1993, were named by Sports Illustrated as the best high school football rivalry in the country. However, the 1993 meeting between the two teams ended in the worst possible way, a 7-7 deadlock. No true rivalry should ever end in a tie.
Here was the brand’s opportunity. Fuel a grudge match. Provide the original players a second chance to play the ‘93 game and settle the score once and for all…15 years later: Gatorade “REPLAY” was born.
Gatorade REPLAY originated as a five-part online documentary. Cameras captured every part of the 90-day journey, from the physical workouts to the deeply emotional moments and the relationships built on and off the field. Gatorade’s expertise in coaching, hydration and sports performance supported the men as they re-evaluated their health, got back in shape and fine-tuned their skills. Then came the REPLAY.
On Sunday, April 26, 2009, 15,000 fans jammed Fisher Field. Tickets for the REPLAY game sold out in 90 minutes, putting the 15,000-seat stadium at maximum capacity. Demand for the game spilled over into the eBay grey market, with some auctions fetching up to six times the ticket’s face value. Even NFL Gatorade athletes Peyton and Eli Manning took part as assistant coaches for the event. The entire Easton and Phillipsburg towns became participants – and in addition to the teams, the original ’93 cheerleaders and marching band members came out of retirement. Suddenly whole towns were transformed into fans, helping fuel the rivalry and cheer on the teams. The game was broadcast live to local markets with the rest of the country joining in online on www.gatorade.com.
The REPLAY winners were Phillipsburg, but it hardly mattered. Gatorade had made their mark and proved their role as a catalyst for athletic achievement.
Further testament to the size and power of the idea, in November 2009 REPLAY became a documentary television series with a one-hour primetime pilot airing nationally on Fox Sports Net during Thanksgiving weekend. We have received requests to turn the documentary into a feature film from all the major studios and we are currently filming Season II in Detroit, to be broadcast on Fox Sports Net.
Today Indy Saha, Head of Strategy TBWA\London group and Agency.com (twitter: @indysaha) shares with us some interesting thoughts on the recent Facebook announcements:
From a social and cultural point of view, THEY ARE THE BIG DEAL. They will change the way you interact with social networks and how you surf the internet forever, how brands can target consumers and will challenge the dominance of Google as being the most powerful company online. In fact in year from now any website which has not incorporated these changes, will look very archaic.
WHY IT WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU INTERACT WITH THE WEB AND SOCIAL NETWORKS
Social networking will no longer happen just in social networks it will happen on every site of the internet. Imagine being on any website and being able to “like” that site by simply clicking a button, whether that is an article, a band, a song. You will be able to leave comments on that site, see what your friends have done on that site, what they think of the content on that site and you will even be able to see which of your friends are currently on that site, and connect with them on that site.
But then imagine going onto another site, and because your likes and activities have been remembered, the site becomes personalised to your tastes or to your friends tastes, or it even suggests stuff that people who liked similar things to you also like (this is the beginning of the “semantic web”), so if you have “liked” various artists/ bands across various sites – by the time you get to a music streaming site like Pandora, it will generate a playlist automatically of songs you might like.
When you do go onto Facebook itself, it will suggest communities you should join of people who also like the same things as you and let you connect with them and share ideas and interests.
Facebook have also introduced their own currency called “Facebook Credits” which allows one payment system across all app. So you will not need to have separate accounts for payment across Farmville or 1-800 Flowers, but a seamless centralised payment system like ITunes, a seamlessness which will make commerce take off on Facebook in a big way. [I can see print publications developing Facebook editions which will be powered by these micro-payments.]
WHY IT WILL CHANGE THE WAY BRANDS TARGET CONSUMERS
We will probably see a shift in branded experiences taking place on proprietary microsites and no longer having to be in social networks.
A brand will now know how popular parts of their site experience are, which bit of content are the most relevant. Not only this they will know the demographics and maybe even the locations of audiences engaging with their site, as well as how they are engaging. This will open up developing more attitude based advertising. Wherever consumers go on the web, they will carry their preferences, behaviours and friends with them.
And this is WHY FACEBOOK WILL CHALLENGE THE DOMINANCE OF GOOGLE
Google has a massive advertising and search platform based on keywords. Facebook is creating an advertising and search platform which is based on behaviors, attitudes, preferences and social connections [what your friends like and do etc], this allows the creation of more powerfully targetted relevant advertising and experiences.
These for me were the big out takes as people who work in marketing. For more information you can watch the keynote in full here.
Do you know why some companies are performing better in the crisis than others? And do you know why those same companies will emerge from the crisis in an even healthier position than before? It’s because they have strong cultures.
It is about having a vision, a belief system, an attitude and a worldview that is shared by the entire company. More than a simple guideline, it is a set of values. When a company has a strong culture, everyone in that organization not only supports decisions made by the CEO – but could have made the same decision in his or her place. In our digitalised, open-sourced society the culture is the brand. You cannot fake it.
Some of our clients have the strongest cultures of all. I have to mention Apple, because it’s such a great example. Thanks to the vision of Steve Jobs, Apple has a culture of creativity and innovation. ‘Think different’ was far more than an advertising slogan. It went to the heart of a way of thinking that has transformed the company. By thinking different, Apple shrugged off the notion that it was a mere computer maker and embraced the idea that it was a provider of tools for creative people. The result, of course, was iTunes, the iPod – and later the iPhone. These were radical new departures for Apple, but they were perfectly in tune with its culture.
Apple is well known for the loyalty it engenders among consumers. Needless to say, its employees are equally evangelical. When you go to an Apple store, you can tell the staff love working there. Why? Because a strong culture attracts the best employees. And when the economy crumbles, you want those people by your side.
So how do you build a strong company culture? For one thing, it takes time. You can’t just bolt it on. When you start a company, the culture is already taking root. In fact, very often, company cultures are created by strong leaders. The system may stay in place long after that person has left, but usually it can be traced back to a single inspiring figure.
At TBWA our culture is based on Disruption, which is all about questioning conventions in order to find a new path towards a larger share of the future. But when we organise Disruption exercises (we call them ‘Disruption Days’) for our clients, we do not ask them to change their cultures. In fact, we ask them to look deep within their cultures and identify their key points of difference, a vision and belief-system that sets them apart, makes them likeable or creates a campfire. In this way, we can unlock untapped potential. Companies often tell us that they have ‘found themselves’ after going through the Disruption process. It’s a liberating experience for them.
Take Kraft, who we recently invited to attend a Disruption Day when the company was reviewing the strategy for its Tassimo hot beverage maker. We transformed our Berlin office into an apartment, with a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, a kid’s room. Read more…
Roustam Tariko, now a famous Russian billionaire, started out as a distributor of imported premium alcohol brands, including Martini and Johnnie Walker.
As the company grew, he realized that the Russian vodka market – despite its long heritage and the large number of brands on offer – lacked a genuine premium vodka brand with Russian origin. So decided to launch his own product, and in 1998 the result was the first Russian premium vodka brand: Russian Standard.
Because vodka advertising was highly restricted and banned from TV, Tariko came up with a smart trick by creating generic copy for his Russian Standard brand. The following year, 1999, Tariko opened a retail bank, as this was also very young and profitable sector. The bank was also named Russian Standard and Tariko’s company became the Russian Standard Group.
All communication activities, had no direct link to either vodka or banking, instead focusing on the idea of “Making the Impossible.” Only at the very end, in tiny print under the logo, was the bank mentioned. The copy’s main aim was to build awareness of the name and the logo and link them with a premium lifestyle image – which was successfully achieved.
Recently, both the bank and the vodka have followed a more conventional marketing approach. Yet the original trick was so smart and successful that other companies tried to emulate it – such as a brand of mineral water and even chocolate candies with a vodka brand name. That’s one way you can be sure that you’re an innovator: you attract imitators. But only innovators that do not fall into the trap of convention will be able to build sustainable results.
Donald Gunn asked Jean-Marie Dru to contribute an essay to the latest edition of the Gunn Report, the only independent report on creativity for the advertising world. Enjoy Jean-Marie Dru’s thoughts on mad-blog.com:
The economic crisis on the one hand, the digital revolution on the other…
Our profession has never been so shaken. These two circumstances create multiple effects. And we are all wondering what tomorrow will look like.
Concerning digital, communications groups are developing varied, often opposing strategies. Some, through a series of acquisitions, attempt to create a technological barrier between them and their competitors. Others, like our Agency, are putting digital at the very center of their conventional activities. Neither strategy is, by definition, the winner. There are different ways to succeed. What makes a strategy effective is the quality of its implementation, and the commitment to it.
To ensure that everything starts with digital, the 180 agency in Amsterdam totally reinvented itself. The result of their actions was even more radical than they had imagined, and the price they paid was heavy, with no fewer than 55 out of their total 120 staff changing. This is a dramatic illustration of the size of the task. The path ahead is narrow, and it is difficult.
Too often, we are more comfortable talking about digital ideas than making the inherent changes that are necessary to provoke the right solutions in the digital world. As Colleen DeCourcy, our Chief Digital Officer, said to me recently: “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.”
In an industry faced with such challenges, the relevance of award shows, and even The Gunn Report itself, comes under scrutiny. It is a recurring subject. I remember back in the ‘70s, industry colleagues who announced the imminent demise of the Cannes Festival. We know what it has since become. Its turnover increased tenfold, because today more than ever, the celebration of creativity is essential despite of the difficult environment in which we are operating, or rather, because of it. And it’s why, although they avoided awards shows for over 50 years, the world’s leading advertisers now participate actively in them, and celebrate when their own campaigns are recognized.
In a speech I gave in Cannes last year, I underlined that “Big can be beautiful too.” In 2007, both Procter & Gamble and Unilever were awarded a Grand Prix at this festival. Today, a lot of great work comes from large companies. They have internalized the fact that audiences are not captive anymore. If you don’t entertain and engage people, they will simply ignore you. “Safe advertising“ is becoming invisible. At last.
There’s no getting away from that fact that, today, creativity is no longer optional. It is vital to every product category and to every communications discipline.
In fact, there are two factors that are contributing to put creativity in the center. On the one hand, the imminent demise of repetitive advertising, and on the other, the understanding that each and every touchpoint between a brand and its audiences must be creative.
Advertising is part of how brands behave, but brands are judged on everything they do, not just how they appear in advertising.
We need to embrace all the ways to tell a brand’s story: its packaging, its retail presence, the content of its website, its PR programs, the products themselves. And to ensure that everything is creative. This is why, even when an agency is not directly in charge of one of these elements, it must nevertheless feel a sense of responsibility. There can be no room for compromise or mediocrity if you have the ambition to be a brand leader. Advertising agencies will rediscover their original reason for being; they will again become true generalists.
But contrary to the past, they will only achieve this if they learn how to change rhythm. The problem is no longer just to ensure the coherence between the different elements of a brand’s communication, which some continue to refer to as 360°. But rather, to feed a constant conversation with our audiences, 365 days a year. From 360 to 365…it is the very rhythm of communications that digital has shaken up. Agencies need to move from a quarterly to a daily cadence.
We have to organize ourselves to deliver constant communications. A fleet of small initiatives coming together to create an ongoing communication program, generating more frequent conversation points. We need to own these conversations, not just the creative work.
This is one of the coolest examples of todays brand behavior: The Pepsi Refresh Everything Project. See, what they say about themselves: “We’re looking for people, businesses, and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact. Look around your community and think about how you want to change it.” and check it out. Simply click HERE for all the necessary information.
FYI: The Pepsi Refresh Project Round 1 Voting and Round 2 Submissions are NOW OPEN! It’s time to start campaigning for the ideas you like, voting for the ideas that will make the world better, and submitting your ideas for Round 2!
If you have any comments or suggestions please email Rob Schwartz.
On their website the California based company method describe themselves as “people against dirty”, they look at the world through bright-green colored glasses. The two founders Adam and and Eric have put together a humanifesto for method that basically gives direction to everything the brand does. In their most recent e-mail they invited the world to join a great movement and said the following: “if you’re like us, you’re feeling excited about the UN Climate Change Conference that’s happening in Copenhagen in a few weeks. excited, because it’s putting environmental legislation on a highly visible, global stage, where it belongs. so, like us, we hope you’ll join the Hopenhagen community and sign the Climate Petition before Dec. 7th. your signature will show world leaders that when all of us get behind something, there really is hope.”
That’s exactly how a brand like method must behave. Chapeau.
When Carlos Ghosn, Nissan President and CEO, unveiled the Nissan Leaf last year he heralded it as “the unveiling of a real-world car that has zero – not simply reduced — emissions. It’s the first step in what is sure to be an exciting journey — for people all over the world, for Nissan and for the industry.
At TBWA our culture is based on Disruption, which is all about questioning conventions in order to find a new path towards a larger share of the future. But when we organise Disruption exercises (we call them ‘Disruption Days’) for our clients, we do not ask them to change their cultures. In fact, we ask them to look deep within their cultures and identify their key points of difference, a vision and belief-system that sets them apart, makes them likeable or creates a campfire. In this way, we can unlock untapped potential. Companies often tell us that they have ‘found themselves’ after going through the Disruption process. It’s a 
