Starting a cultural movement
It’s one thing to create a piece of work that people talk about. It’s another for your campaign to infiltrate culture and take on a life of its own.
It’s not easy for brands to enter the zeitgeist. Last year Sport England’s This Girl Can and Always’ Like A Girl joined a feminist movement that continues to have ongoing influence over how brands talk to women. They became part of an existing societal conversation, using their influence to help propel the subject into the mainstream.
Last year at the festival when asked ‘How do you measure success?’ it was Will.i.am who said “adoption, that’s when you know you have penetrated.”
To achieve adoption requires a level of bravery. Brands can give customers the tools to spread their message, but it’s not always possible to steer the conversation. Quite often relinquishing control will bring a new perspective and level of creativity, inspiring imitations and cultural memes you may never have thought of.
That’s not to say brands shouldn’t plan. We wrote about Burger King’s McWhopper campaign in last month’s BITE. When Y&R New Zealand proposed writing an open letter of truce to McDonald’s for Peace One Day, they planned a response to every outcome in order to sell in the idea. However, it was not possible to predict the response of the public. Did they ever think it would spark a global trend for making burgers in the name of world peace?
While cultural movements are unpredictable, brands can give customers the tools to join in bigger societal conversations.
Read on for examples…
REI’s brand purpose is to get people outside. So on Black Friday, America’s biggest shopping day, they took the brave decision to close all their stores and pay employees to spend time outdoors.
Their OptOutside hashtag instantly started trending and took on a life of its own. Social media impressions rose 7,000% with 2.7 billion PR impressions in 24 hours.
The brand gave people all the tools they needed to get outdoors. Even the tradition of Thanksgiving leftovers was brought to the trail with specially designed REI #OPTOUTSIDE packaging.
Then something unexpected happened. More retailers decided to join REI and close for Black Friday. In total 170 organisations shut their doors, and hundreds of parks were inspired to open their gates for free.
Agency: Venables Bell & Partners, San Francisco & North Kingdom , Stockholm
To launch the new series of House of Cards, BBH New York put together a clever integrated strategy that kicked off by hijacking a real life political debate. The mock campaign ad for fictional presidential candidate Frank Underwood was perfectly timed to capture the attention of the TV audience. The tone of the film integrated the brand seamlessly into an existing conversation and started a social media frenzy. A website, merchandise and campaign rally propelled the brand further into the real presidential conversation.
Agency: BBH, New York & North Kingdom , Stockholm
To promote the release of Straight Outta Compton, star of the film Dr Dre and Beats headphones used a ‘meme generator' attracting 4 million fans. The online tool enabled users to fill in the blank on the “Straight Outta…” and attach a photo to share with followers on Facebook and Twitter. The world took over, celebrities and other brands got involved. The UN harnessed the campaign's power for good, and even President Obama created his own Straight Outta hashtag meme. This became Beats' biggest campaign ever and the biggest social campaign of 20.
Agency: R/GA Hustle, Los Angeles & North Kingdom , Stockholm
Women’s nipples are censored on many social channels, even for films showing how to perform self examination against breast cancer. To encourage women to check their breasts properly, charity MACMA found boobs that aren’t censored - manboobs. The manboobs examination film went global, reaching 48 million views in one week and 193 million impressions on social media. The hashtag ManboobsForBoobs started trending and went on to spark a debate around censorship policies on social media.
Agency: David, Buenos Aires
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