Brands have as small as 8 minutes with customers until they shed their attention.
You can see why — while Netflix says it considers sleep is its main competitor – anyone who has lost a weekend to back episodes of Mindhunter and Dark understands our attention is always diverted by a continuous stream of push notifications from social stations, messaging apps and emails.
This means I will have to fight hard to keep you reading this piece, but, in 2017, the very best brands showed how to win this battle for attention; I feel the very best have been in a position to combine science and art to create a killer campaign. Innovative and ingenuity uses of technologies power the best efforts. They can demonstrate best in class and invention in both thoughts and their implementation. And, more often than not, they could work compensated, owned and got media stations.
The Best have been able to combine art and science to make a killer campaign
As well as holding it and capturing attention, this season saw campaigns territory with true, and, importantly, measurable, impact. Data that could show the effect has become essential for success in awards considerations for competitions like Cannes Lions, however, has also expectations among marketers.
Now, every campaign demands strong measurement justify the investment and to communicate the value.
Consequently, if you’re still with me, I want to demonstrate some campaigns that are top showed impact in 2017, and the trends and best practices that resonated in the last 12 months.
Interactive devices for real world participation
Brands used interactive apparatus to attract audiences and went far. A very best in class example of participating crowds was Marmite, which leveraged its ‘love it or hate it’ brand identity by means of a campaign that sought to discover whether belonging in both of the options is right down to genetics.
A hater or a born fan gene test was an interactive strategy that earned Marmite fans, enormous media coverage and among the very campaigns in 2017.
Another great example is Nikon Lenswear Vision Food Truck in which the food menu was used as an eye evaluation to check for vision issues. Both of these examples emphasise the value of audience engagement and articles for delivering the newest messages clear and loud.
Taking a stand on inequality
As among the UN’s Global Sustainable Development Goals, reducing inequality was embraced by some brands as a cause which best benefits their purpose, workers and customers. Virgin Holidays ran one highly successful effort emphasizing that only five per cent of LGBT+ couples feel at ease showing affection on holiday, compared to 84 percent of straight couples, with a call to action to make holiday experiences more inclusive for everyone.
AncestryDNA on the other hand tackled preconceived notions about Britishness by looking into the DNA of a typical British village to show the diverse and global origins of a little community. Both of these campaigns fostered discussion around inclusivity and approval, each of which were very applicable.
A fresh strategy to cause led campaigns
Emotion was among the creative industry buzzwords of 2017, and nowhere was it even better realised compared to when brands stood behind causes that are important, in campaigns. Among the most impactful, with almost 900 pieces of online coverage, was Meet Graham from the Transport Accident Commission Victoria.
Strong and visually challenging, he increased awareness of safe driving by reflecting the “only person designed to survive on the roads”. By means of augmented reality and impactful visuals, this Grand Prix Cannes Lion effort emphasised another significant element of 2017 new communications — technology’s use in captivating and immersing audiences.
New uses of technology
Low tech and high tech both emerged as crucial to a successful campaign in 2017.
Easy and creative thoughts, brought to life in the physical world through low tech activations as well as to the masses online. In the united kingdom, Cancer Research UK came up with an interactive way to draw attention to the impact of smoking by requesting people to blow into a bus shelter whilst revealing the message depending on how long their breath holds out.
This engaging campaign that is bodily proves that audiences are more likely to participate with content that brings them in and offers an interactive ‘discovery’ of this campaign message.
Tostitos did something similar in the Superbowl, too around safe driving, with alcohol-detecting crisp packets that turned reddish and generated $10 Uber coupon codes. Another brand participation campaign coming from the streets of London is Lucozade Energy bottles. Tech served this campaign exceptionally well in the kind of easy RFID tags, as bottles doubled as contactless passes for the London Underground network.
Hijacking Christmas
Without acknowledging the season, we can not speak.
As an American living in the UK for less than a year, I see that the UK has a similarly intense Christmas culture into the US where folks look forward to seeing exactly what brands come up with, specifically, from firms like John Lewis that has produced the unveiling of its Christmas ad a ritual, media moment.
What has made 2017 different was that several other brands hijacked some campaigns.
This year Greenpeace was able to ditch one of the greatest dates for Coca-Cola’s brand communication with a launch of an alternative variant of Coca-Cola’s iconic Christmas commercial by indicating the amount of waste it the bottles produce. Besides this tactic being very bold, it’s very much related to the awareness and trigger trends that are mentioned.
What to expect in 2018?
Still studying? Good. If that’s the case, I hope you also agree with me, with these points in mind, the campaigns use a mix of real world and adventures. They could reach people – offline and online.
Inconsistent and unwieldy practices for ‘quantifying’ earned media are still utilized
One of the key advantages of this is information. Amid the vast potential and continuing questions about how collected data is handled to put customer preferences, privacy and safety first, info on social media coverage has the biggest question mark for me.
While we’ve metrics for paid, shared and owned media, unwieldy and inconsistent practices for ‘measuring’ earned media are employed for the vast majority of campaigns. I think that’ll change in 2018.
Next year, we’ll observe brands seeking out ways to measure every aspect of effort success to prove their value to add interpersonal media. If manufacturers measure and report in precisely the same manner they do clicks to purchase from Facebook ads, we’d see CEOs and CMOs prioritising investment.
If the year is anything 2017, then we’ll be operating at a different landscape in 12 weeks’ time. I can’t wait to find out what improvements the next season brings.
