One of the best advertisements of the holiday season is out. What makes it remarkable is that it doesn’t just sell a brand, it sells a cause. That cause is the gift of giving oneself in a different way. And it comes from a brand that Americans have likely never heard of.
Britain’s John Lewis department store has built a reputation in recent years for memorable, emotional, and strategic holiday advertisements that lead the viewer on a journey to giving. This year that journey leads viewers on more than a path of finding the perfect gift within a John Lewis store.
The brilliance and formula of Lewis’ ad agency adam&eveDDB is that it consistency makes us see Christmas through the innocent eyes of children. This year that child is a girl named Lily whose inquisitive eyes peer into the heavens in search of the stars but becomes moon struck instead. Her man on the moon discovery becomes not just a metaphor for giving, but for discovering the elderly living in their own vacuums of space and loneliness.
The ad is strategically created to use the power of emotion to not just change beliefs and attitudes, but to contribute to Age UK, an agency that works and advocates for the elderly. (Figure 1)
Figure 1 – Donation page to Age UK
Cleverly, John Lewis takes it a step further. It created a mobile phone app that allows people game against other users and look up more information on the moon. By encouraging those users to engage with the app, it creates a new community to interact with the brand.
It takes a strong and brave brand to shift focus from itself and invest valuable marketing dollars to promote social awareness. We’ve seen some admirable examples in recent years. One of my favorites is Chevy’s recent Super Bowl commercial promoting the Purple Roads campaign for cancer survivors.
Intel also spent a considerable amount of brand equity to convince apathetic viewers that girls can and should change the world.
Likewise, there’s Coca-Cola. Coke’s brand has always been about sharing happiness. After all, it taught the world to sing. It also recently taught us to share random acts of kindness.
They’re all brave examples of promoting social awareness. And for John Lewis, it’s especially fitting to choose the holidays as a time to spread the love and search for the men on the moons hidden right in front of us all.
Exemplary advertising always leads the consumer on a journey. Often times that journey leads to the decision to buy a product. In 2014, some of the best ads created journeys to affect attitudes and beliefs about brands and causes. Their messages didn’t just aim for our heads, they also aimed for our hearts.
I’ve compiled a short list of six video advertisements that represent some of the most strategic brand messaging of 2014. There are other lists of the most viewed, most shared, and most popular, this is simply a compilation of transformational messaging that used narrative storytelling to achieve a specific brand objective.
First on the list is a commercial from a brand American’s have never heard of, in a language they can’t speak, yet its message is universal. DATC is an Indonesian telecom company trying to position itself in a hyper-competitive market. Instead of creating a western-style campaign staking a claim on price, network coverage, or reliability, DATC’s agency Y&R instead crafted a narrative to lead the viewer on a smart, emotional journey called “The Power of Love.”
The ad shows how technology can’t replace love, but it can uniquely connect people in moments of love. The desired action DATC wants consumers to make is to use their phones and network to never miss a loving moment.
Chevrolet’s Silverado pickup truck this year made an equally brave and powerful ad. It leveraged its considerable brand equity to make a statement about cancer–without speaking a word.
The silent schema of a solemn ride down a country road forces the viewer to think deeply about what is, and what is not happening. The three most powerful cues: the shaved head, the teary eye, and the embraced hands. Together they force the viewer to create their own story, form a new attitude and create the belief that they can take action by supporting the American Cancer Society. The underlying message is not about the truck, but the journey of strength the truck allows one to take.
SaveTheChildren had a daunting task in 2014. It had to find a way to make the world care about a war that western leaders want no part of. In this case, they constructed a narrative that could be about the day in the life of any child in any country. But this not any country, it’s Syria.
Its powerful schema leads the viewer on a second-by-second journey of conversion from comfort to conflict. It uses Appraisal Theory to force one to see the child as if it were their own daughter. The goal of the ad is to elicit an emotional response that confronts our own beliefs and attitudes about the Syrian War.
John Lewis is a British department store that has become as well known for its holiday commercials as Macy’s has for its Thanksgiving Day parade. Once again, John Lewis did not disappoint.
The brilliance of this year’s ad uses a little boy’s imaginary penguin named Monty to become the human metaphor of love and sharing. Think Calvin & Hobbs. The result is a touching narrative about the power of imagination in giving–and the department store that can make it happen.
The World Cup soccer games produced the year’s most viral advertisements, but the one that I will argue created the most power came from the Bank of Chile.
Chile’s soccer team was placed in the same World Cup division as top-seeded teams Netherlands and Spain. Soccer fans called it the “death group” because no other teams survived. In this case, no men were better suited carry the Chilean flag than the trapped Chilean miners who stared down death and won. The salient message from the Bank of Chile is that it is the bank which can build impossible dreams.
Figure 1 – Means-Ends Model
Finally, the 2014 Winter Olympics crowned a new series of world-class athletes, but the BBC created gold of its own for a cognitively powerful advertisement promoting its broadcast coverage of the games.
Both the BBC and the American network NBC used a means-end model in how they promoted their Olympics coverage. (Figure 1) NBC appealed to humanity where the BBC used mythology. Its man vs. nature promotional approach set up its coverage to beckon the viewer to witness immortality in the making–becoming one with the Gods. That’s powerful.
We’ve come a long way from the great recession when risk averse consumer messaging was all about boosting immediate sales. In the past two years brands once again feel free to think strategically about positioning themselves along the consumer’s emotional curve to create relationships and sharable moments to last beyond the next quarterly report. The result is advertising that’s not just gutsy, but smart, and yes, fun!
The big game is over. More than 96 million viewers watched Denver and GoDaddy embarrass themselves. At the same time Seattle re-wrote the rules on what it takes to be champions, and in between some of the world’s most powerful brands helped reshape our attitudes and beliefs on what it means to be Americans. We are a country that builds great cars, embodies diversity, welcomes home our troops, and yes, swoons over puppies.
General Mills’ Super Bowl ad “Gracie.”
This was the year when several brands and their agencies appeared to turn a creative corner. The bondage of uninspired play-it-safe advertising brought on by the Great Recession has loosened its grip. Yes, there were still moments where it appeared the messaging was written by 13 years old boys (I’m looking at you, Butterfinger), but there were many more examples of creative bravery, among them Cheerios’ “Gracie.”
There are a multitude of post-game rankings sizing up the Super Bowl XLVIII ads, this one is merely an analysis of three that exemplified creative and strategic brand communication, and one that excelled in extending viewer engagement beyond the TV screen.
Part of the mark of a confident and strong brand is consistency. We clearly saw that in two exceptional ads from Chrysler and Coca-Cola. Since the easing of the Great Recession, Chrysler has positioned itself as America’s “comeback kid.” It’s given us Eminem, Paul Harvey, and Clint Eastwood who proclaimed it “Halftime in America.” This year Chrysler gave us Bob Dylan, another American original to say, “You can’t import originality.”
The Bob Dylan ad strikes at an important business insight and a critical strategic value proposition: Nobody builds cars better than America, and nobody in America builds cars better than Chrysler. Using Dylan as the human metaphor for originality and legacy makes the proposition especially salient.
Another original American brand reminded us that what makes us original is our differences. Coca-Cola hit the mark with its ad called “It’s Beautiful.” As one of the world’s most recognized brands with assets in virtually every country, Coca-Cola embodies diversity. What Coke is selling here is acceptance, empowerment and the happiness that comes when you embrace shared moments—and a Coke—with others. Its ad by Wieden + Kenney is a powerful brand extension that bravely comes from one the few brands strong enough to pull it off.
Brave communication was not just cornered by Coca-Cola. Chevy Silverado leveraged a lot of its own brand equity to say something about cancer—without speaking a word.
The silent schema of a solemn ride down a country road in a Silverado pickup forces the viewer to cognitively elaborate about what is and what is not happening. The three most powerful cues: the shaved head, the teary eye, and the embraced hands. Together they force the viewer to create their own story, form their own attitude, and create the belief that they can take action by supporting the American Cancer Society’s Purple Roads campaign. The underlying message is not about the truck, but the journey of strength the truck allows one to take. It’s emotional, powerful, and strategic.
Finally, Toyota’s Super Bowl campaign is notable for not what it did on the TV screen, but what it did on other screens.
Picture 1 – Swedish Chef telling fellow Muppets they’re heading to the “Sferndy Boom.” (Super Bowl)
Toyota’s agency Saachi & Saachi employed the Muppets for a campaign to promote the all-new Highlander SUV targeted strategically at upwardly mobile parents with chaotic families. And who better to symbolize a loveable, dysfunctional American family than the Muppets? The unique selling proposition of the campaign is that the Highlander has room for everything inside but boring.
To prove their point, Toyota branched out on three separate channels to engage viewers in its “No Room for Boring” campaign. It started with a YouTube video announcing a road trip to the Super Bowl that of course, went terribly wrong. (Picture 1)
The Muppets also took to Twitter taking over the Toyota page to actively engage with Super Bowl viewers during the game. (Figure 1)
Figure 1 – Interactive Tweets with Pepe and the Muppets on @Toyota
Finally, the Muppets used Vine to send several short videos of Pepe trying to watch the game from the back of the Highlander.
Picture 2 – Blotz family Tweeting during Super Bowl.
The strategic insight in all of this is that the Super Bowl is no longer a TV-only event. It’s a multi-screen interactive social village where viewers share and exchange the experience on Twitter, Facebook and other social channels. It happened even in my own house by evidence of the Instagram picture shared by my wife with her caption, “Remember when people WATCHED the @SuperBowl?” Guilty as charged. (Picture 2) During the broadcast, Twitter reported 24.9 million Tweets, that’s 800,000 more than Super Bowl XVLII.
As the price for Super Bowl ads continues to climb, Toyota’s foray into interactive space is the model more brands are likely to copy. Not only does it create for a more entertaining and meaningful brand experience, it’s also relatively free.
Four brands, four distinct messages. Unlike Denver, they brought their A-game.
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For more expert analysis of the Super Bowl ads, I invite you to follow John Eighmey’s The Psychology of Advertising.
Communication insights and analysis from a multiple Emmy and Edward R. Murrow Award winning journalist and former communications advisor. Master's degree in strategic communication from the University of Minnesota.
One of the best advertisements of the holiday season is out. What makes it remarkable is that it doesn’t just sell a brand, it sells a cause. That cause is the gift of giving oneself in a different way. And it comes from a brand that Americans have likely never heard of.
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