Future Ballers
iShares
Love at First Taste
Knorr
Mere Mortals
San Francisco Ballet
The UK's most hated bank
First Direct
Eleanor T. Fitzsimmons
iShares ETFs
Soft and Strong
Tempo
Future Ballers
Brand challenge
As slower, long term investments, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) were the epitome of boring.
Consumer insight
Instead of investing long term, millions risked their life savings in exciting short term gambles like Memestocks.
Cultural insight
60% of NBA-players go bankrupt due to short-sighted investments, e.g., demanding their salary in unstable Crypto currencies.
Campaign strategy
Let's redefine what it means to invest like a Baller.
Creative Solution
We founded a new kind of team – the iShares Future Ballers. Five NBA rookies stood up against the bankruptcy odds in professional sports and pledged to play the long game with their finances.
Then they taught young investors too.
Through their shared love language: Basketball.
Creative Solution
+82% lift in awareness amongst young investors,
+1.1B Net New Business
2 Effie Awards and WARC Grand Prix
Love at First Taste
Brand challenge
Knorr was a stale packaged food brand for families, seen to have artificial taste enhancers - during a fresh food revolution.
Strategic Opportunity
Make the fact that great flavor brings foodies together relevant to a new generation.
Insight
78% of young foodies believe they will get on better with people who share their tastes.
Campaign strategy
Can your favorite flavors predict who you should date?
Creative Solution
We created an AI-powered Flavor Profiler, then put it to the test.
On real singles.
On a televised dinner date.
After watching, home chefs everywhere were able to take the flavor personality test, and received tailored recipes – made delicious by Knorr.
Results
1.6B Earned impressions
+13% Purchase intent
No1 most viewed ad on YouTube
4 Effies (US, Europe, UK), 2 APG Awards, WARC Grand Prix
Mere Mortals
Brand Challenge
Attending the arts is all about the stories you get to tell - but no one under 60 thought the ballet's stories were worth talking about.
Brand Strength
The Ballet's ancient stories have lasted this long because they contain eternal truths.
Strategic Flip
Turn SF ballet from a stuffy art form into the epicenter of social debate by applying its timeless lessons to modern contexts.
Cultural Insight
Pandora's Box myth was about to launch just as artists' protests warned that AI was threatening to unleash unknown evils onto humanity.
Creative Solution
We staged a series of attempts by AI to sabotage the Pandora’s Myth ballet ‘Mere Mortals’ – making SF Ballet the symbol of irreplaceable human artistry.
Results
Cultural FOMO exploded +85%
Broke 19-year revenue records with under-35s
Achieved with just 25% of industry marketing spend
The UK's most hated bank
(by other banks)
Brand Challenge
First Direct Bank wanted to announce they'd topped yet another financial service ranking.
Brand Strength
First Direct is the UK's most loved bank. In this case, this was bad news. People already knew this info. How could we get people to take notice?
Cultural Insight
Because bragging is unlikeable–when people want to brag on their socials, they humblebrag. It's supposed to be more subtle. But often it's so thinly veiled that people see right through it.
Strategic Flip
Turn corporate bragging into social currency by using thinly veiled humblebrags, making First Direct’s success look like an awkward accident. Instead of saying "we were voted the best bank" we publicly apologized to other banks for being their customers' favorite.
Creative Solution
Publicly announce that First Direct is the most hated bank – by other banks. And take out a full page in the newspaper for a public apology to the other banks for being their customers’ favorite.
The Results
Highest-testing financial campaign in Millward Brown’s history.
Eleanor T. Fitzsimmons
Brand challenge
ETFs were being dismissed as one-dimensional portfolio basics - just passive vehicles for diversification.
Strategic Flip
If people wrote off ETFs as one-trick ponies, we had to surprise them with just how many tricks they could actually do.
Creative Solution
Enter Eleanor T. Fitzsimmons (E.T.F.) - a precocious child prodigy who's good at just about anything - and who refused to be boxed in. Through her story, we transformed ETFs from simple diversification tools into versatile instruments for everything from Bonds to ESG investing.
Results
Let's redefine what it means to invest like a Baller.
Creative Solution
Shifted perception: ETFs from commodity to versatility play
Increased Consumer Consideration +120%
Persuaded 80% of Financial advisors to use iShares more.
Won B2B Effie
Soft and Strong
Soft and Strong Brand Challenge
How do you enter a category as a premium product when existing competitors have spent decades building brand memories around the key purchase driver of softness, conveyed by lovable puppies, koalas, bears and other mascots?
Brand Strength
Tempo had decades of experience in making the perfect quality facial tissues, just not toilet paper - yet.
Insight
When it comes to toilet paper, softness is nothing without strength.
Creative Solution
We found a creative way to convey the obligatory softness as well as introducing a factor completely ignored by the competition - strength.
And no need for puppies - we got Doc Martens to do the job.
Results
One of the most successful product launches of the year.
