There is so much inspiration to be taken from seeing the best creative ideas living in digital channels.
The Cyber Lion award winners were announced recently in Cannes. Here are three simple things that bubbled up from those winning case studies that could help guide CMOs to digital marketing success.
1. Insist on custom video executions for online pre-roll advertising – running your TV ad is not the best investment
It has been common knowledge for several years now that pre-roll ads need to be short and quickly grab attention within seconds, or brands run the risk of consumers simply skipping past them.
The ‘Unskippable’ ad campaign from Geico was funny, attention grabbing and memorable. The ad itself is over in four seconds and appears to freeze frame, but if you keep watching, entertainment ensues almost like a hidden track on a vinyl album. The ad ticks all the boxes of digital advertising and gets people talking about the brand.
While the Geico ads are short and attention grabbing, the clever, award-winning ads from Honda use well-crafted interactive videos to tell a story about the performance heritage of its vehicles.
Consumers can toggle between two stories where the same man is collecting his son from school or racing his Honda through the dark city streets. I enjoyed the exploration of video platform technology with this work and if the user is engaged in the video, it’s a powerful longer form piece of content.
One thing to watch out for is that this ad requires participation from the user to be fully appreciated. However, the payoff for the consumer doesn’t offer much more than a fun toggling between screens.
2. Don’t rely on participation – or if you do, keep it simple
Few Gold Lion winners this year relied on active consumer participation. Those that did provided the industry with a gold standard in how to harness consumers’ online participation to change behaviour.
A campaign for Under Armour sportswear, the winner of the top prize in the Cyber category, was a powerful example of harnessing social chatter and responding to it. Negative online comments about Giselle Bundchen, the new female face of the brand, were curated and creatively exploded as a bold statement of the idea that you’re tough enough to overcome anything: “I will what I want”.
The Ice Bucket Challenge won a standing ovation as well as a Gold Lion in the category of User Generated Content and was the most memorable, global social campaigns of the year. It had a unique but simple ask of consumers to raise money for ALS: Pour a bucket of ice over your head and ask others to do the same, then donate.
3. Combine technology expertise with a strong brand idea
Nike’s House of Mamba is a great example of how specialist technology expertise can be combined with a creative brand idea.
The agency developed a responsive, LED basketball court. Lighting directs players in training drills or responds to their movement on court, making the spectator experience a rich, engaging one. This is an exceptional example of technology with creativity and give consumers a strong sense of the Nike brand purpose within an explosive brand experience.
Another outstanding demonstration of technology supporting ideas was the L’Oreal Make-Up Genius app, a virtual make-up mirror. The app, which took 18 months to develop, uses augmented reality technology to enable a user to select a make-up from the L’Oreal range and see it on their face.
Whether eye liner, lipstick or eye shadow, the execution appears flawless – the user really can see what they would look like with the make-up applied as if looking in the mirror. Driving thousands of new consumers to try L’Oreal products, this activity is one of the best examples of mobile marketing I’ve seen this year.
It’s clear the marriage of technology and brand ideas unlocks powerful entertainment and utility for brands to build connections with consumers. Every CMO should be asking their agencies and marketing teams to keep close to the changing technology landscape to input to making creative ideas that grow their business.
- Josie Brown is the APAC director of digital for J. Walter Thompson.
In the third and final episode of our 3-part CMO50 video series exploring modern marketing and why it’s become a matter of trust, we’re delighted to be joined by Telstra’s former CMO and now digital services and sales executive, Jeremy Nicholas, and Adobe VP Marketing Asia-Pacific and Japan, Duncan Egan.
Flash back to the classic film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Television-obsessed Mike insists on becoming the first person to be ‘sent by Wonkavision’, dematerialising on one end, pixel by pixel, and materialising in another space. His cinematic dreams are realised thanks to rash decisions as he is shrunken down to fit the digital universe, followed by a trip to the taffy puller to return to normal size.
Why is it there is no shortage of leadership development materials, yet outstanding leadership is so rare? Despite having access to so many leadership principles, tools, systems and processes, why is it so hard to develop and improve as a leader?
As a nation united by sport, brands are beginning to learn money alone won’t talk without aligned values and action. If recent events with major leagues and their players have shown us anything, it’s the next generation of athletes are standing by what they believe in – and they won’t let their values be superseded by money.
Enterprisetalk
Mark
CMO's top 10 martech stories for the week - 9 June
Great e-commerce article!
Vadim Frost
CMO’s State of CX Leadership 2022 report finds the CX striving to align to business outcomes
Are you searching something related to Lottery and Lottery App then Agnito Technologies can be a help for you Agnito comes out as a true ...
jackson13
The Lottery Office CEO details journey into next-gen cross-channel campaign orchestration
Thorough testing and quality assurance are required for a bug-free Lottery Platform. I'm looking forward to dependability.
Ella Hall
The Lottery Office CEO details journey into next-gen cross-channel campaign orchestration
Great Sharing thoughts.It is really helps to define marketing strategies. After all good digital marketing plan leads to brand awareness...
Paul F
Driving digital marketing effectiveness