How tell stories around sensitive subjects without exploiting them

Sensitive subjects are a fact of life for any brand, this could be anything from breaking bad news to your team, admitting your screw ups to customers or simply creating brand building content around a difficult topic or event like Covid-19.

When emotions are involved the lines between sensitive and insensitive become blurred, here are some of our top tips to help you stay out of hot water, and if done right, will help your brand connect with people on a deeper level -

Put your audience first

When dealing with a sensitive subject this is more important than ever, chances are your audience aren’t a carbon copy of you, so who are they? What content do they consume and enjoy? What are their hopes and dreams? What are their fears and doubts? - Only once you REALLY know your audience can you talk to them in their own language to truly curate a message that resonates on a deeper level.

Don’t beat around the bush

Your audience is smarter than you give them credit for, don’t try and pull a fast one on them or you’ll suffer the consequences. Our advice is to exercise ‘radical candor’ (shout out to Kim Scott, give the book a read!). At Mattr we think self awareness is one of single greatest, yet most under-used attributes a brand can have. If you mess up - come clean. If you’re selling something - admit it.

Simply put yourself in the shoes of your audience and hit their concerns and doubts head on ESPECIALLY when dealing with tricky subjects, just trust us on this one, you’ll thank us.

Keep it human

It's all too easy for a brand to hide behind glitzy graphics, snazzy voiceovers and dramatic footage but ultimately people connect with people so when broaching a tough subject keep your message human and speak from the heart, even if that means being vulnerable in front of your audience.

To allay doubts consider having a spokesperson, or multiple spokespeople to allow your audience to connect with your brand and message on a personal level.

Keep it real

When dealing with sensitive subjects authenticity is key and the easiest way to achieve this is by tapping into real stories and putting real people front and centre of your content. Forget fancy abstract arty creatives and fictional stories with actors and instead involve your customers, staff and everyday heroes to create a ‘bottom up’ rather than a ‘top down’ approach to your comms. Word to the wise though… steer clear of shoehorning your brand and message into this type of content, unadulterated stories will always work best.

Don’t take, give

Finally and most importantly think outside of the box when it comes to your marketing objectives, we get it, you have sales targets to hit and customers to convert but at Mattr we are big believers in good karma. A brand that gives back and invests in its audience will win the heart of that audience… and in turn that audience will one day become customers - and loyal ones too! So think about how you can provide value, whether that be useful advice, pure entertainment, giveaways, charitable donations or simply positive vibes in a dark time… like we’re doing in this blog ;)

BONUS THOUGHT: Stay Silent

Before you finish reading this and rush off to get creating content, just pause for a minute... sometimes the best thing you can do is to do nothing at all. Lush took this to the extreme last year by quitting social media all together but our personal favourite example is the thoughtful marketing pledge from the lovely folk at Bloom and Wild who are campaigning for ‘opt out’ options for email marketing around calendar dates that some customers find sensitive: https://www.bloomandwild.com/thoughtful-marketing-pledge

We write our monthly roundups in order to inspire a conversation around creativity, brand purpose, and the positive impact we can have on society. 

In the event of covid-19, the global pandemic that’s affected our lives so unpredictably, it’s important to celebrate the incredible efforts by brands out there supporting our health services and communities, as well as helping us be entertained during our collective effort staying at home.

So behold our roundup of brands offering their purposes for good during covid-19: 

Help Hiyacar offer free rides NHS workers

With essential travel coming to a standstill across London and elsewhere in the country - the good eggs at Hiyacar are now offering free car hires to NHS workers* to help them get around to hospitals and home at the end of a shift. Let’s help them spread the word about this to offer to the NHS across socials!

*dependent on ID and insurance of course! 

Please do share and get in touch if we can help 🙏🏻 #NHS #NHSheroes #keyworkers 💓 pic.twitter.com/WbnSmwjxjs

— Graeme Risby (@Risby1) March 24, 2020

Guinness’s content for St Patrick’s Day

This Covid-19 situation is an opportunity for brands to re-think about the way they’re talking to their audiences right now. A great example we found of this was this film by Guinness to celebrate St Patrick’s Day this year. 

They’re encouraging their audience to celebrate as normal, and foster their incredible spirit but from the comfort of their homes. It’s a fantastic use of their platform for good karma right now :)
(we actually did a deep dive into how to create great content like this combining UGC, previous assets and great stock here)

Brewdog and their hand sanitiser initiative

Brewdog have offered their distillery in Aberdeen to assist in the production and distribution of Punk Sanitiser. They’re still making beer, but diverted the majority of their stock to produce hand sanitiser, and as of this week have now distributed 50,000 units to NHS hospitals and local charities across the UK.

Deliveries and stock are being handled by extra team members from some of Brewdog’s closed bars - because “united we stand for better beer!”

BREWDOG SANITISER UPDATE:
Over 50,000 units have now been donated to the NHS & local charities (in any container we can get our paws on).

We've also enlisted extra team members from our closed bars to help us pack even more 💪https://t.co/2Yn9dbh2Gv pic.twitter.com/OlT9CEh10J

— BrewDog (@BrewDog) March 30, 2020

The Royal Academy of Art and their #RAdailydoodle

Galleries across the world are closed (and yet a Van Gogh painting was stolen in Amsterdam?!) but the Royal Academy of Art wants to make sure art is still accessible to everyone at home. 

So they’ve set up a daily drawing competition on Twitter, giving a daily challenge of different household items to get people drawing and be more creative! It started with legs of ham, but they’ve gone on to wardrobes and even workspaces… it’s a great way to engage people far and wide to be artistic, plus there’s some fun and witty commentary from their social media team on the masterpieces submitted :)

how about baked/glazed ham? 😊

(of course with pineapple & maraschino cherries!) #popart pic.twitter.com/AXjUvotP5o

— Julinda (@JulindaMorrow) March 18, 2020

Chip’s new saving techniques to help us during this pandemic

With so much uncertainty in the air it’s expected that many people will now be turning to  their savings, or looking at how much they can save while the brands and business around us is getting used to a new normal. 

Chip saw a massive increase in usage from the first week in March as people turned to their accounts to check on their affairs. And after such a spike, they’ve now introduced new saving techniques to help us during covid-19.  They’ve raised their saving limit to £10K, and even introduced a new personal algorithm that can help increase saving according to your income level… just doing the most to help people where they can at the moment using the tech available.

First Mile offering their services to deliver crucial goods to hospitals

I think we might have mentioned this before but we’re huge fans/users of First Mile in this office, they’re a brand doing great things for our environment and our wastage. 

And for the duration of covid-19, they’re offering their extra drivers and fleet available to deliver leftover food and wellbeing items from closing offices around London to the doctors and nurses at the UCLH. 

So if you know of any closing offices, like co-working spaces or even private offices who have perishables, or even cleaning items/sanitary items - let them know and they’ll be delivered to our frontline NHS medical staff!

Glastonbury’s donation of festival supplies to hospitals in the South West

The iconic festival would have celebrated 50 years this year, but for good reasons and to protect everyone’s safety it’s putting off the entire celebration to next year - but we’re not here to have a moan about how hard it is to get tickets!

There’s plenty of tributes and the BBC is setting up an entire digital Glastonbury experience to make up for it, but we wanted to highlight how the Eavis family have donated their entire medical supplies including masks, gloves, sanitiser and more intended for use in June, plus dedicated food provisions already in place, to hospitals across the Somerset county and South West.  It’s awesome and will be a huge help to guaranteeing supplies across the South.

Nicely done, Glasto https://t.co/BvP2tM0Suq

— Evening Standard Arts (@thestandardarts) March 25, 2020

Huggg open up e-vouchers to schools to help feed families

And last but definitely not least, we wanted to highlight what e-voucher start-up Huggg is doing to help in this crisis. They’re usually used for gifting, or even as an HR perk rewarding employees, but mainly stayed in the B2B sector. 

Now they’re opening up their platform to be used by schools to send vouchers to parents and families who rely on free school meals - and these vouchers can be used in supermarkets to redeem the equivalent food necessary to keep kids fed. As of this week it’s also open to charities too - to enable people in isolation to send supermarket vouchers to volunteers to collect groceries.

Their CEO Paul Wickers told the team that "it's been such a privilege to be able to put our resources to work on this important problem. We have our first schools up and running and are happy to open it up to any other schools and trusts looking for a solution while a central one is fixed. We're waiving all platform fees, schools will simply pay for the vouchers that get used and claim it back from the DoE."

Good news!😃@GOVUK has announced a central solution for distributing vouchers as an alternative to #freeschoolmeals.😃

We are already feeding thousands of children and will continue to provide schools with access to our platform if they need it.

— huggg (@huggg_uk) March 31, 2020

If you’ve seen any brands who are doing great things to help us all get through this difficult time, then let us know!

In the words of the NHS: Stay Home and Save Lives. Stay safe everyone x

Our top 5 ways to create video content remotely

It’s fair to say when it comes to video, nothing beats being on a film set. But the reality is there are certain times where you can’t… whether that’s due to budgets, timings, or because the world is self isolating and you’re having to work remotely!

So, we thought it would be useful to share a few tips on how you can still create quality video content, even in the most extreme situations:

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1. Encourage more user-generated content

Asking your team or customers to contribute footage to the film you’re making can be awesome for creating something that feels really authentic.

When it comes to sourcing the best footage, start by asking people to share content they’ve already shot on their phones or search for hashtags online and reach out to those creators to see if you can use their content.

If you’re looking for more specific shots, put together some clear instructions with example references you can share with people just to ensure the footage that comes back is usable! We’d also recommend a webinar style briefing session with all participants just to make sure any questions they have can be answered in one go.

This is exactly what we did with Lovecrafts and our Paintbox campaign and it worked a treat.

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2. Use your assets

“Repurposing” for repurposing’s sake is not something we encourage, but if you are really struggling to create anything new, we always encourage clients to look back into the assets we’ve created on set together and figure out how we can create something new out of what’s already there.

Grants did this really well with our above the line TVC campaign, taking the opportunity to use the ad to create more social content to bring into the new year.

Give something worth remembering. The gift of together. #TripleWoodTripleGood #GrantsWhisky pic.twitter.com/r2HqhelEUp

— Grant's Whisky (@Grantswhisky) November 14, 2019

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3. Take Stock

The dreaded word for any self righteous filmmaker, but actually in today’s world, leveraging stock to tell a story can be really effective.

We’re big fans of this for start ups who can’t necessarily afford everything being shot live and once you add a decent soundtrack, voiceover and any other bells and whistles, it can come out looking great. The key is to ensure the stock matches the tone of the message…for simple educational films, use sites that have huge asset libraries and a subscription model…

We’d recommend: https://www.videoblocks.com/

For a project that needs shots that are of a high quality, you may need to pay a premium for specific shots so use sites like: www.filmsupply.com which hosts content shot by cinematographers around the world.

Or if you are creating something comedic or more forgiving, we’d say own the cheese (like we did with Hiyacar) and look for old school shots and cartoon imagery that can be found on most cost effective sites.

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4. Let’s get animated

Probably the most obvious way to avoid live action shooting is creating an animation. To keep budgets and timings in line, remember it’s a two stage process… a storyboard is created and then these “still” assets are animated.

So make sure you’re really clear what you’re getting at the storyboard stage and avoid having to make changes after the animation starts! On the positives though, this can all be managed remotely…and if you have a script, VoiceOver artists can easily record remotely now too.

Here’s an example of this kind of project in play with Cambridge Audio:

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5. Hangout with your audience and/or team

Whether it’s Zoom, Skype or Google Hangouts, you have an opportunity to create some epic content out the endless meetings in your calendar. There’s an even greater opportunity to involve your customers/staff/fans who are also stuck at home and get them to record a message.

The best thing to do is send them a list of simple questions to answer so you can edit them together to be used in various ways - whether that be to generate written thought-leadership pieces on some of your challenges or even creating bitesize cutdowns to be used further down the line.

Check out this film made a while ago which we think shows the power of digital UGC very well:

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BONUS TIP: A Moving Image

One of the things we’ve been thinking about recently is how to re-think what a film can be - getting creative is all about how you can expand on the resource you have!

So consider the other elements you have at your disposal right now, whether that be through using audio, photography, titles and still graphics, or even combining all of these elements.

A great example of this is from one of our extended Mattr family, Director Miles Langley. We loved this brilliant film he created for International Women’s Day, where due to restrictions with availability of the participants, he cleverly combined photos and simple animation with some really personal voice recordings.

There are lots of other tips and tricks but hope that gives you a little bit of inspiration on your quest to create epic content whilst working remotely! If you have any questions on what you’re planning, feel free to get in touch and we’ll happily give you our two cents…

Our (now famous!) guide on how to create killer video content

We’re absolutely thrilled to be featured in Startups Magazine’s ‘Advertising and Branding’ Issue, the first edition of 2020!

It’s an awesome opportunity for us to really dive into how we work with our clients to tell meaningful and impactful stories - and share some of our biggest learnings across the whole process.

Scroll through to read our entire feature here:

Have a brief you want to chat through or you need some desperate help building out your content for the rest of this year?

Email josh@mattr.media and we’ll be in touch!

The top things that mattered to us in February

We’re back with our take on what’s happened during Feb that we think matters, and there’s been a lot going on in the world of purpose-led brands.

1) Ecover’s Laundry Against Landfill campaign

We’ve seen a huge momentum towards the end of last year of brands producing more impactful rallying cries - like this one we covered by Friends of the Earth last month. 

This month the spotlight was shone firmly on the huge amounts of material waste in the fashion industry, by Ecover’s Laundry Against Landfill campaign. We loved how their awareness piece is simply non-preachy yet effective, and how they’ve scaled the campaign to be multi touch-point, providing supplementary ‘how to’ guides on how to properly take care of our clothes on their site. 

Sara Mendez, Marketing Director at Ecover explained that  “with this campaign, we wanted to raise awareness of the problem of fashion waste. But also show people ways they can lessen their impact by falling back in love with the clothes they already own, keeping them in use, and out of landfill”.

2) Cans for Equity by BrewDog

It’s always interesting to see brands explore the ways they can attract and engage their superfans.

Look no further than what Brewdog have launched during Feb, with their Cans for Equity campaign - with the result being you can recycle 50 cans to become an ‘equity punk’ in Brewdog. 

This is such a great way to not just encourage behaviour change in the short-term, but also to show they care about their product at all stages through partnerships with First Mile to give their cans a second life. 

This initiative has created a more intimate perk for their superfans by feeling truly part of the brand, and we applaud it.

3) Sanctus’s campaign for Children’s Mental Health Week

This particular campaign is proof of how a creative can really thrive in the long-term. Sanctus, a brand providing mental health coaching businesses and individuals, decided to flip the script and create a film a couple of years ago on their socials for Children’s Mental Health Week. 

It made a comeback during the past month, and we wanted to highlight how much making this tonal switch on such a sensitive topic matters… it’s so great to see this from a brand with a more corporate audience. 

We spoke to George Bell, the brand and marketing lead at Sanctus who agrees that the power of the film also lies in the script. It’s comedic but authoritative on a subject when “all too often mental health is associated with images of someone sitting in a dark room clutching their head - this is, of course, part of mental health but it's not the full spectrum.”

“Although it's a couple of years old now, we still re-use it and still have a great response every time, which shows that it still remains uncommon for people to see mental health presented in this way.”

4) NHS x Notes to Strangers 

#notestonhs with @imalilo

411 Likes, 1 Comments - Andy Leek (@notestostrangers) on Instagram: "#notestonhs with @imalilo"

We’ve all seen these notes pop up around London over the years and one of our team is a huge fan, so we had put this in our highlight. 

Notes for Strangers started as an Instagram account by ex-creative Andy Leek, writing random notes on telephone boxes and bollards, spreading positivity and kindness where he noticed it’s severely lacking. 

This month we saw the launch of a collab with Notes to Strangers and the NHS, creating posters and notes for hospitals UK-wide to show support for nurses under severe stress. 

Hospitals tend to be a pretty bleak place and these notes are intended to spread positive messages at a time where political conversations are taking up much of the discourse around their work - it’s just a lovely thing to see.

5) ‘Meet the New Joby’ by Joby 

And finally in our roundup we wanted to include this really simple but effective repositioning campaign by Joby. If you don’t know who Joby are - they’re a tech brand that sells tripods for all different devices. 

We love how instead of putting their product front and centre, they hero their creators interacting with their product, weaving in UGC to add a mixed media element. 

It’s great to see Joby are exploring a new creative angle, becoming more experience-focused - so we’re looking forward to seeing their creative progression down the line!

Like what you’re seeing and want to create content that matters?

Email josh@mattr.media and let’s see what we can do...

The top things that have mattered to us in January

We’re back with our monthly roundup of campaigns, content and activations that we feel are making a difference to our world…

1. Hiyacar’s back to life

Hiyacar are in an exciting position as a high-growth spearheading a new sector of the car sharing market. And up until this point, they’ve been having to subsidise the majority of peer to peer insurance costs for drivers as that’s the sector norm. But when their insurance provider came back in late December with further increases to pricing for their drivers and no further changes to the claim policy -  they took the decision to cease trading for a couple of months. 

They’re happy to announce that they fully restored their service as of this week, but we wanted to reflect on how awesome their customer service was during this period of closure. They went out of their way to speak to each driver and owner in their community to personally explain the issue - and to people who couldn’t rent during this period, they gave them 50% of the funds it would have cost to rent a replacement with competitors service providers. 

It couldn’t have been easy, but they went above and beyond for their community, proving their mettle as a company which is not prepared to ‘grow at all costs’. Rob Larmour, their COO & Co-founder told Team Mattr that “the response we received from our members and from other companies who saw not only what we did by making a stand but how we handled the aftermath for our drivers and owners, has been fantastic. Being open and allowing everyone to see what goes on behind the scenes showed that we won't compromise our values for growth.”

2. Friends of the Earth’s newest campaign tackling eco-anxiety 

Eco-anxiety is a bit of a hot topic right now and this brilliant film for Friends of the Earth created by Don’t Panic is an awesome way to bring the conversation to life. We’ve been hugely inspired by this approach to raising awareness.

By sensationalising the heroine’s chase to win her plastic bottle back, Friends of the Earth have figured out how to communicate and tackle the topic of doing your bit for the planet without being preachy. With so many stats flying about on how many years we’ve got left and how much work is still left to be done, it’s easy to get caught up -  but take a leaf from this ad and start doing your own bit to help.

3. First Direct ‘money wellness’ TTL campaign & social content series

We believe money is a wellness issue. Let's challenge how money makes us feel. #moneywellness

22 Likes, 1 Comments - first direct (@firstdirect) on Instagram: "We believe money is a wellness issue. Let's challenge how money makes us feel. #moneywellness"

We’ve seen some great ads over the years that focus on the difficulty of talking about money openly and confidently, like ‘The M Word’ by Lloyds Bank. Now First Direct have come out with their latest campaign looking at the concept of ‘money wellness’ in our everyday realities. 

To accompany their OOH billboard ads, they’ve also produced a new social video content series interviewing their existing customers and how they are trying to be more ‘money healthy’. 

It’s great to see the huge highstreet finance players take part in an unscripted conversation around financial pressure, a trend that has definitely not been appreciated before. We’re huge advocates for brands leaning on their real people to tell real stories, so adding new perspective to the ways in which we’re improving our health in our lives is incredibly impactful.

4. Hubbub’s coffee cup installation exposes just how much waste coffee cups produce

Hey London! It's your last chance to visit our brew-tiful coffee cup recycling installation on the riverwalk close to the Tate Modern (which means it's your last chance to get swallowed up in a incredible cave of geometrical cups). Will we see you there? It will be there until Sunday 2nd February in a major push to raise awareness around coffee cup waste (we go through 5,555 cups every minute in the UK!) and to signal the new bespoke recycling bins around town and the rest of the country. Coffee cups are lined with a sneaky plastic film, you see, and they need to be separated from other paper goods in order to be recycled correctly. See you at the installation and let's keep coffee cups #InTheLoop

339 Likes, 18 Comments - H U B B U B (@hellohubbub) on Instagram: "Hey London! It's your last chance to visit our brew-tiful coffee cup recycling installation on the..."

We’re all guilty of using coffee cups without realistically considering if they’re going to have a second life. To combat this behavioural habit, environmental charity Hubbub have created an installation to showcase the 5,555 cups used per minute in the UK - compared to the 222 of those that are actually recycled in the existing processes. 

Natasha Gammell, the project lead at Hubbub, told us that “at 3 metres tall and illuminated at night, the structure is unmissable, swallowing visitors up in thousands of geometrical cups. The installation has evolved into a fully interactive public artwork as the thousands of people who pass the installation each day write down their visions for a greener world on the cups.”

Hubbub and Starbucks have contributed over £300K to creating new recycling centres across different boroughs that will uniquely process coffee cups, exploring new ways of regenerating the used plastic. We loved the idea for such an aesthetic visual to raise awareness for such a widespread issue - and there’s immense possibilities to create new and impactful content around the outcome. Watch this space!

Liked what you’re reading and want to create content that matters?

Get in touch at josh@mattr.media

Looking back over our f**k-ups of 2019 - what a year..

Why is it when we get to the the holiday season, most companies only talk about the things that have gone well that year? The road to your success is paved in mistakes and failure, so in spite of some amazing things that have happened, this article wants to do something more real and raw, focusing on our 4 biggest f*ck ups of the year and what we’ve learnt from them.

Our hope? Whether you’re a brand marketer or agency partner, the below will encourage you to share your own failures from this year. It’s these things that have ultimately got us all to where we are today.

Learn to say no by coming back to your mission

2019 has been challenging for many reasons and I am not shamed to admit, we have had some real tough moments this year. When times are tough, it becomes difficult to say no to things you would usually ignore. But the trouble with this more reactive attitude is if were to fast forward 5 years, you may end up with a company that differs from the vision you had when you started it.

Of course any brand journey requires some level of flexibility, but if like us you believe in brand purpose it’s critical to recognise when you’re slipping down this road. That’s why we’ve spent a lot of time recently checking back in with our values to ensure they are at the core of all the decisions we make, from the customers we work with, the team we hire, to the value we provide people beyond our services. We even have our own criteria checklist for jobs that come in, to act as a guide so that if times get tough again we are consciously making a decision, not just doing so because we feel we need to.

Make sure stakeholders feel a part of your project, not just people who green light it.

There have been a couple of projects this year with really drastic last minute requests. On reflection, it’s been because of a combination of being rushed into delivering a project for tight deadlines or because certain stakeholders were not informed about the creative route we had agreed to, until they actually saw the end product.

Drastic last minute changes can be painful for all involved- for the client it can lead to lengthy delays on delivery times, additional fees or worse. If the changes are impossible to make, then you’re in dangerous waters of producing an under-par campaign or even canning the whole project. And for your agency partner this situation is also really tough: agencies always want clients to be thrilled with their work, but there’s only so much one can do once everything has been filmed.

There’s nothing worse than thinking “if only we knew this in the briefing stage”. So ultimately we’ve learnt it’s absolutely critical to ensure all stakeholders have not just signed off on ideas but are actively involved too...

When agreeing on responsibilities, ensure people really understand the tasks they’re taking on

The nice thing about working so collaboratively with clients is a shared sense of responsibility when it comes to getting a project done, none more-so than when budgets are tight and we are all looking for ways to make savings. Often a way to do this is for clients to take up the mantle of organising talent, finding locations or even supplying props and wardrobe on the day.

Most of the time this strategy has worked to aplomb, but sometimes clients haven’t quite understood the resource required to carry out the work they’ve taken on. A good example of this is when we are looking for user generated content as part of the narrative. It’s really important to factor in the necessary time to source this internally because it usually takes longer than you expect to get customers (or even staff) to do things for you.

So, have an honest and frank chat with your agency partners about what’s entailed in the work you’re committing to before doing it, work out what gives you the best chance of completing it without delay and sometimes if the conclusion is actually you don’t have the resource to do so, paying that little bit more goes a long way.

Try to speak the language of the person you’re talking to…particularly with email!

I sent an email earlier this year to a client of ours. It was sent with positive intentions, was tapping into a subject we thought we could help with and was framed as an opportunity that we thought could be really exciting. Yet it was only after we received their response- highlighting the negative impact it could have on them personally- that we realised we’d f*cked up an otherwise great idea.

The reality is, if we’d really considered the language we used, we’d be looking at a very different outcome. The matter was resolved swiftly, but naturally the opportunity was dead. To say we learnt a lot from that experience is an understatement. In emails, your tone can be misinterpreted, there is no context behind the words you are writing and once you’ve sent an email, it can’t be unsent…So whether it’s to a client, a supplier, colleague or boss, you should never send an important email without putting yourself in the shoes of the person receiving it. And better yet, maybe just have a call or meeting if it’s that important!

Thank you to everyone whose allowed us to fail emphatically this year. It’s allowed us to grow as content creators and human beings. As we look forward to 2020, I’m sure there will be even more lessons to learn. 

p.s. please feel free to share your biggest mistakes of 2019!

Top 4 things that have mattered to us this November

At Mattr we believe that in today’s world the best brands do so much more than sell products. Below are four of our fave examples over the last month:

1. In a world where men wear the tampons - Thinx

We’re all witness to the changing conversation around femcare - its inclusion in political manifestos, new product innovation, and now the latest advertising campaign by Thinx. 

Their new TV & social film depicts a hilarious world where men wear the tampons and deal with having their period. There are no corny sport skits or women wearing white - instead we’re privy to a son telling his dad he’s got his period for the first time, male colleagues handing out spare tampons, and a tampon string peeking out of a guy’s boxers. 

While we think this ad is awesome for its rebellious and hilarious nature, it actually matters because the heart of the narrative is helping normalise sensitive and everyday experiences. Creating impactful content in the femcare space (as we learned through our film with myFreda) is tough to nail but can be powerful when you do!

2. The Twitter community’s power for good - Football Beyond Borders

The girls are all kitted up for fixture evening 1! ⚽💪🏻

A team: Kiaira, Gracie, Maddison, Esme, Imogen, Daisy, Esmae

B Team:, Lisa, Willow, Kirah, Lottie, Maisy, Gracie, Carla.@BHA_TQ#remarkablelives #girlsfootball #womensfootball pic.twitter.com/VI72vEvVtd

— Barton Hill Academy Girls Football (@barton_girls) November 11, 2019

Campaign reported a story we loved this month about Barton Hill Academy, a primary school in Devon. Their girl’s football team had no kit of their own, with budget dedicated to the boy’s kit leaving the girls to wear the outgrown hand-me-downs. 

Their coach involved Football Beyond Borders, an education charity dedicated to helping disadvantaged kids get into sport, who took to Twitter’s biggest community to get support from athletes and sponsors  to raise funds for a new kit for the girls’ squad. Within 15 minutes new sponsorship and endorsement from Nike and West Ham Women’s Football squad had sorted free kit for all young ladies. 

When we talk about using your audience to help your brand live and celebrate its purpose, this is a great example to remember. It’s all about Listening to your community and acting on what mean the most to them.

3. Brewing for clean water - Brewgooder

TUESDAY CHALLENGE! Tag a brewer you want us to work with below 👇 ⠀ Yesterday, we launched the Brewgooder Global Gathering 🌍🍻 We're using the power of craft beer to unite 500 brewers around the world, to each create a one-off beer for World Water Day weekend in March 2020 💧 ⠀ This collaboration will help impact the lives of 100,000 people, and we already have 129 breweries signed up! Who else should we get involved? Tag them below! ⠀ To register, simply head to brewgooder.com/gathering 📲 #BGG2020

98 Likes, 15 Comments - Brewgooder (@brewgooder) on Instagram: "TUESDAY CHALLENGE! Tag a brewer you want us to work with below 👇 ⠀ Yesterday, we launched the..."

We found this next piece really intriguing - Glasgow based brewery Brewgooder has created a global initiative collaborating with hundreds of breweries to raise £250K for World Water Day in 2020. 

It’s awesome to hear that breweries are able to harness their global and passionate craft beer community to support sustainable growth. It’s a clever initiative that works two-fold; limited edition products are bought by loyal customers to boost the brewer’s profile internationally. 

At Mattr we’re all about partnerships and working for the longer-term, so it’s great to see breweries break down the barriers of competition and get together to help solve a monster challenge as an industry. We’re excited to see the content that comes out the back of such an initiative, and maybe to even see it as an annual event?

4. Acknowledging your environmental footprint - Hovis

With everyone jumping on the bandwagon, it’s becoming incredibly hard to see news online about a brand doing good for the environment and thinking it’s committing some form of greenwashing. And whilst admitting to your eco-vulnerability as a brand has never been more important, the key lesson to learn is how you communicate that properly. 

Just take EasyJet, who in spite of announcing their plans to offset their carbon emissions from its 329 aircraft by planting trees, still came into trouble by people claiming they could be doing more. There are many arguments to support both sides of the announcement - perhaps one could look at their execution and wording in their statement as a reason for the backlash, or even that because of the statement, it served no greater purpose than to cover up the real issue at hand.

A great example of a brand getting this kind of messaging right is Hovis and their new OOH eco advertising about their new electric delivery fleet. We laughed at the way Hovis made a jab at businesses claiming to be ‘100% green’ by claiming to be 100% yellow (how on brand for Mattr.. Luckily it’s not our pantone code). This matters because it’s authentic and effective - we love it when sarcasm hits the streets…

There is no definitive answer of what to do to be loved in today’s world, but the best you can do as a brand is to be honest and authentic when you don’t have everything in place. It will earn your brand more respect from your audience instead of creating tone-deaf content that doesn’t truly reflect what you stand for.

Marketing Alcohol – Stand up and Stand out (or give up!)

Picture this, you’re in the booze aisle at your local supermarket looking for a tipple… what do you see? A wall of generic bottles, confusing taste notes, copycat branding and often a race to the bottom on price. Yet with the rise of the ‘conscious consumer’ (people craving something more than the labels they buy) alcohol brands need to stand up and stand out if they are going to survive.

Just take a look at the beer market. Despite declining sales, one group is bucking the trend and growing rapidly - craft beer. Once a niche player, craft beer now makes up a whopping 24% of the total beer market in the US (Source: USA Today). Why? Because they offer consumers what they crave: depth, story and a purpose beyond the brand.

Need some inspiration? Look no further than BrewDog who skyrocketed to fame (and fortune) by ripping up the rule book when it comes to the alcohol sector. Brewdog’s branding, marketing, PR, staff culture and even core business model all reek of a brand that stands for more than their product.

(a snapshot of the weird and wonderful universe of BrewDog)

So how can you future proof your booze brand?

Step 1: Stand Up

Insights from the 2018 William Grant & Sons Market Report heralded the rise of a new consumer type ‘The Activ-ist’. These consumers are actively considering, caring and conscious about their purchases, how they consume them and their effect on the wider world. 

With alcohol in the past typically sold with snazzy campaigns and celebrity endorsements, now focus is shifting to the experience around the drink. To connect to consumers on a deeper level think beyond the liquid, what’s the environment, the atmosphere, the occasion, and the people you share it with.

You can see evidence of this shift with the rise of brand activations, experiential events, distillery tours and bar take-overs, all great ways to tap into the ‘Experience Economy’ but brands must think beyond one-off PR stunts to survive.

For example, take Grey Goose’s recent repositioning, starting from the ground up they have shifting their entire comms strategy away from the bottle to the experience around it, thus connecting with audiences on a much deeper level. Chief Marketing Officer at Grey Goose, Lee Applbaum said this: "'Good enough' has become a norm in the category, which has been dumbed down through price compression and clever, but often misleading marketing. Consumers are having a hard time connecting emotionally with Grey Goose. So, our energy with the brand is focussed on reconnecting with the consumers.”

(59 seconds of experiences, 1 second of product)

Step Two: Stand Out

With such heavy competition in the alcohol sector, how do you create cut through? Simple, switch the script, do the unexpected and stand out against the noise of your category.

When we began working with Grant’s Whisky our task was simple; punch above our weight and take on the Goliaths of the Whisky world by unlocking a new youth market.

Mattr’s first step was to conduct a series of market research sessions with this youth audience. We discovered whisky was often referred to as ‘the drink my father would choose’ and ‘not for me’. Another common theme we discovered in the sector was that of ‘personal progress’, a narrative pushed heavily by big players such as Johnnie Walker. As a result, our target audience negatively perceived Whisky as less sociable, a drink just for home or even alone.

We took our learnings from our market research and flipped the script … No more ‘drink of my father’ more ‘drink with my mates’ no more ‘personal progress’ - more ‘collective success’. The outcome? A TTL campaign that celebrated groups of friends starting an epic party. The result? A campaign which felt unexpected for its category yet tapped into what youth consumers craved, an experience beyond the product.

And one last thing… having a killer narrative is great but shouldn’t stop there; Alcohol brands have got to embrace a strong and consistent visual identity too. Your brand could have the greatest positioning in the world but if a consumer can’t remember your brand at the point of purchase you’ve failed - misattribution in advertising is killer. To avoid this in our Grant’s campaigns, we used consistent visual brand queues throughout (threes, triangles, colour pallets etc.) even a hand symbol synonymous with the bottle shape itself. The result was a campaign that felt unmistakably ‘Grant’s’ narratively AND visually.

(who wants to join the party?)

Mattr’s top 5 take-aways:

1.      Build brand depth, stand for something more than your product.

2.      Embrace the experience beyond the taste.

3.      Listen to your audience, what are their preconceptions of your category.

4.      Do the unexpected for your category.

5.      Be memorable keep it consistent and project a strong visual identity.

If you enjoyed reading this don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter (see below) for more articles and exclusive invites to events where we talk about how to make marketing that ‘Mattr’s’. If you work in the alcohol sector and this struck a chord with you drop us a line and lets meet for a coffee… or something a little harder ;)

Lets chat: Mrhine@mattr.media - Head of Creative (also likes a drink)

The 6 steps you need to follow to create a killer crowdfunding video

Like many start-ups raising investment through crowdfunding, fintech brand Chip knew their investment video was crucial. With only 2 weeks till the raise, they were worried the traditional ‘talking head’ interview with their founder they had produced just didn’t do their mission justice. They needed help…and fast!

Enter Mattr Media, who helped create one of the fastest ever campaigns to reach £1m (eventually raising over £3.5m+ with a 380% oversubscription rate) and a video shortlisted for Crowdcube’s Video and Campaign of the Year.

So, how did we do it? And how do we continue to achieve record-breaking results for our other crowdfunding clients? Well, the below are 6 key steps we take with all our crowdfunding projects…

RULE 1: DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR VIDEO

Unlike pitching to traditional investors, you aren’t going to necessarily meet crowdfunding investors face to face and they aren’t just looking for a 10x return.

Dan Hardy, Head of Business Development at Crowdcube, summed up perfectly why that means your video is so important: “video is the dominant media format online and since Crowdcube is primarily an online investment platform... (so) your pitch video is the best chance you have for investors to learn about you and your business…”

So doing one and doing it well is crucial.

RULE 2: TELL A STORY

So how do you do that? Well, don’t forget on crowdfunding platforms, most of the people watching your film are not as financially savvy as traditional investors. So whilst top-level metrics are important, it’s just as crucial to answer deeper introspective questions that your audience will connect with. Things like “why did we start this in the first place? What’s the problem we’re trying to solve? How can we show we’re a big deal (PR/Awards/Team etc.)? What does the future hold?”

It’s also important to not get lost in explaining the “features” of your product. As Hardy explains, “the objective here is to get people to invest in your business, not to buy your product. That's a big difference… You need to strike the right balance.”

Overall, keep the message simple and save the detail for additional supportive content.

RULE 3: BE DISTINCTIVE 

Depending on how much time you’ve spent defining your brand tone of voice, this will make life easier or more challenging for you. But if you haven’t the foggiest, this is where a creative partner like us can help.

In order to make this video feel distinctly “you”, it’s helpful to consider questions like-

• If we were a brand from a different sector, which would we choose to be?

• If we had 3 words to describe how we want people to feel after watching this, what should they be?

• If we had 3 words to describe our product, what would they be?

• If we imagined our brand as a celebrity, who would they be? And why?

It’s exactly these kinds of questions that led us to creating such a fun and quirky fundraiser for Chip.

RULE 4: PUT YOUR AUDIENCE FIRST

The rise in popularity of crowdfunding has been born out of a desire for consumers to feel more connected with the brands they buy from. And that’s why so many successful crowdfunding campaigns are community focused - just look at Monzo and their amazing £20m crowdfund, or Brewdog and their 2000% overfund to total £10m. 

Alex Latham, Chip’s CMO says “It’s really imperative that our staff and customers feel a part of our mission, particularly for crowdfunding. There was no better way of doing this than when Mattr recommended we champion these guys in our films. I would say a lot of our Crowdcube success has been because of this attitude. ”

You should not underestimate the value of people being your advocates, helping spread the word for you and hopefully investing too.

RULE 5: CREATE VALUE BEYOND THE HERO FILM

For some investors, watching your main film may not be enough to sway them to part with their money. So think about what content you can create to support their final decision. 

Supportive “product explainer” films are great for the nitty-gritty you haven’t spoken about in the main film and of course, there’s the pitch deck for the financials. However, if budget can stretch, we also encourage films about the staff.

It surprises us that not too many companies create update films on how the raise is going  after the campaign goes live, a useful tool to stay top of mind.

RULE 6: CHOOSE THE RIGHT PARTNER

Most video agencies have fixed “packages” (as do we) for crowdfunding campaigns and many of us have proven experience, so how do you choose the right partner?

A big component of that will be whether you believe your chosen agency is not just doing this to get paid, but ultimately because they believe in your business.

You can gage part of this from initial conversations and the value they provide. But whether they “walk the walk” is tough. That’s why at Mattr we developed two further offerings to the standard package, which aligns us even further to you in your quest for a successful raise:

1. A part fixed fee part success fee package 

2. A pure success fee package (i.e. absolutely no up front fee to do so)

Finally…

You’re at an exciting stage in your company’s journey, but we know your video will be a crucial piece in the success of your campaign. If you’re interested in learning more, do contact Chief Shmoozer Josh at josh@mattr.media

5 brands who prove every business can matter in 2019 👊🧠❤️

As we approach the half way point to the year (and the next Build A Brand Movement event), we’ve been reflecting on the number of times we hear people say “we don’t really stand for something” or “we’re just a commodity, not a brand”.

So, we thought it would be nice to shine a light on 5 totally different companies who are absolutely smashing it when it comes to building brands that matter. If it’s anything to takeaway, it’s that no matter how big or small your company is and no matter what you sell, you can build a company your audience cares about.

1. You can stand for something, no matter what you sell: Velux

If Velux can do it, you can to.

On the face of it, this is a company that sells windows. However, for more than 75 years, Velux has been dedicated to improving people’s quality of life by helping to ensure homes and workplaces can get enough light and fresh air through their skylights. Nothing highlights this better than their most recent campaign “The Indoor Generation” in which Velux created a platform to raise awareness of the fact we spend 90% of our time indoors, yet a lack of sunlight and fresh air can have  a serious impact on ones wellbeing. What we love about the platform is how useful it is, with lots of information to explain the dangers of being indoors for too long and ultimately what everyday things we can all do to improve this issue. So for those businesses out there who just think they sell a boring product, if Velux can do stand for something, you can too! 

2. You should provide value in everything you do: Patch Plants

Patch think about how to provide value at every stage of your journey with them.

Patch are on a mission to bring the restorative powers of plants to a new generation, selling plants to a younger audience who know little about the world of gardening, but are interested in bringing plants into their homes and offices for the first time. What we love most of all about these guys is how much care they have taken to ensure the customer experience is as close to their mission as possible. From creating easy to understand how-to video tutorials, ensuring the quality of your delivery matches that of the plants (they’re known for how friendly their delivery drivers are!) and even having Plant Doctors on tap to answer all your questions once you get your plant, they have really taken the time to consider how they can be as useful as possible to their customers.

3. Purpose led advertising isn’t just about changing the world: Brewdog

Brewdog is one of the fastest growing craft beer brands in the country and want to make people as passionate about great craft beer as they are. So how do they combat the fact that only 14% of the country have discovered craft beer? Well, they believe “radical transparency” is one of the ways to do so. Whether that’s giving away the recipes for all their 300 beers, ensuring accounts are fully transparent or future plans are made publicly available. However, their latest campaign is AMAZING! In an industry where a "tsunami of mass-produced, industrial lager brands monopolise advertising space”, they came up with this ingenious number to disrupt your newsfeeds…self aware, completely honest and frankly one of the best ways to showcase your values kudos to their whole team on this one!

4. Make your shopfront stand for something: The Body Shop

Use all the touchpoints you have to connect with your audience.

For those of you who were there in 2018 at our Build A Brand Movement event, we heard first hand from Maeve Atkins all about how The Body Shop have been standing for more than the products they sell since their inception. However, since being acquired by Natura, they’ve been able to reassess how they fuse their brand purpose more seamlessly into the entire user experience. Which is why they are now using their stores more like hubs for their campaigning and lobbying. They’re also up-skilling teams to run local activism projects. What we love here is how this isn’t just a smart marketing strategy, it makes total business sense- essentially empowering staff and turning a traditional point of purchase shops into an experiential hub to encourage brand loyalty and drive new sales in the process.

5. Leverage your expertise for good: Sky

Sky use their global reach and audience attention for good.

I have to admit, it was only when we learnt about the work Sky does behind the scenes, that we started appreciating how much the brand is trying to make an impact by leveraging their power for good. The campaign that highlights this the most is Sky Ocean Rescue- Sky’s aim to use it’s mass market reach to shine a spotlight on the issues affecting ocean health, find innovative solutions to the problem of ocean plastics, and inspire people to make small everyday changes that collectively make a huge difference. And before I hear you say “that’s just corporate PR bullsh*t”, Sky actually have a strong history of using their reach to take the lead on environmental issues. Ten years ago, they became the world’s first carbon neutral media company and with Sky Rainforest Rescue, they raised more than £9million to save the rainforests, helping to keep 1 billion trees standing in Acre, Brazil.

Finally…

Hope that’s given you some inspiration for what’s in store for your brand this year. If you want to learn more about how to create the brand your audience will love, check out whether there are still tickets to our next Build A Brand Movement and hope to see you there.

Purpose is more than a statement: How brands need to act in 2018.

For so long now, advertising agencies’ solution to selling brands has been to create a one sided communication with a heavy media spend behind it and expect that a customer will buy into the brand. But according to the results of the Havas’s 2017 meaningful brand report, over half of the world’s brands aren’t trusted and customers claim they wouldn't care if 74% of their brands disappeared completely. Scary right?

But don't panic just yet. Our evaluation is, you need to lead with purpose. Yes, I’m sure it’s not the first time you’ve heard that buzzword being throw about but the truth is to stay relevant and trusted in today’s world brands need to start walking the walk as well as talking the talk. 

Brands need to find a way to live and breathe their values and integrate that into their both internal culture and through their customer journey. Every touch point you have with your audience should be an opportunity to communicate why your existence matters and enable them to actively participate with your brand. Brands that fail to do so run the risk of falling behind or worse still burning out. 

The Cultural Shift

Brands are failing to emotionally engage: The statistics from the Havas report highlight just how disposable brands are becoming and with the combination of businesses not having a clear mission or fulfilling their promises there’s no surprise we’re seeing such alarming results. In the Drum’s brand engagement research last year they found that 78% of people feel brands never emotionally connect with them. It appears to rush to create quantity over quality content, has led to brands failing to focus on their true values which has consequently led to failure to connect. And with Facebook and Google now changing their algorithms to favour “valuable content” there has never been a more important a time to communicate why your brand is irreplaceable.

We’re living through a movement era: Whether it was down to Trump, leaving the EU or the rise in sexual harassment complaints, the consumer mindset has never been so passionate about change. In fact, Fast Company released research that showed for 61% of millennials, it’s their goal to make change in the world. Change of course doesn’t have to be socially or politically driven, brands that provide an opportunity for customers to participate in something bigger than themselves will be the brands that form long standing communities.

It’s not just external purpose, it’s internal too: It doesn't stop with customers, employment expectations continue to show that your staff want more than money, they want a purpose. According to Kin&Co’s latest report How to avoid fucking up purpose their research showed that over two-thirds of workers said having a purpose that was properly embedded into their culture would have a positive impact on their work; including being more productive, more efficient and more likely to contribute to the company culture. And unsurprisingly 72% said they’d be more likely to stay at their company if they were more emotionally connected to their work. So not only is there a want for businesses to reflect the values of their staff, but there are results to show it does actually improve work place productivity.  As Simon Sinek states, businesses who live and breathe their vision will be the ones that don't just give employees something to work on but something to work towards. 

The early adopters

It’s started with 'Think Different….'

Don’t worry, I’m not going to create a case study article about the success of Apple because lets face it you’d have to be hidden under a rock to have missed that empire evolve. But the one thing we will highlight is there has never been a minute of doubt of what they stand for. Their consistent reinforcement of 'Think Different' has always been apparent in everything they do, making it both unavoidable and a definitive staple of Apple’s brand. From their emotive TV communications right through to their in-store Apple geeks, their beliefs have remained true throughout their evolution and is a case study to purpose led brand success.

Brands that we see echoing this are Dove with their Real Beauty mission, AirBnB’s Belong Everywhere and newer brands like Toms and Karma Cola who integrate their purpose into all areas of the business. Take the Toms 'One for One' movement, their mission to help people in need didn't just depend on customer purchasing and barefoot selfies, it was embedded in their internal culture too. As part of their Tomorrows Project program, every month employees are invited to submit ideas for a charitable project that inspires them. The company then votes and the person with the winning idea receives $10,000 and two days off work to make it happen. Pretty amazing right? The program encapsulates both what the brand stands for and what they are working towards.

And it’s not just B2C brands that have establishing discovered their purpose leads business success, B2B brands like E&Y have put a strong focus on “building a better working world” by providing industry leading research, thought leadership events and tailored training to improve workplace performances. Whilst instant messaging software Slack is a testament that when you define your brand as an enabler to bringing a workforce together, you can turn a tool that has been available for years and that sits in a heavily saturated market into a multi-billion pound company and an everyday essential to all industries. 

All examples have very different agendas but their passion for achieving their vision is consistent and more importantly accessible. Creating a strong product is key to all of these brands, but the difference in components these days, is providing an opportunity for people to take part in the brand passed purchase. The ability to identify and tap into the values and beliefs of an unformed movement is where brands will see the biggest opportunities in the future. 

Late bloomers

Even legacy brands with years of heritage need to find a way to stay relevant in today’s world. Take Hellmanns for example, despite being a market leader and having 100 years under their belt, their concern of being considered as the fatty condiment in the cupboard is what drove them to rediscover their purpose. Recognising their magic formula was real, simple ingredients they begun their “Real Food” movement - Hellmann’s commitment to helping Canadians discover the pleasure that comes from eating real food with simple ingredients. To do this, they created an Urban Gardens program to give Canadians a place to grow their own real food, developed the Real Food Grants program that helped fund over 40 real food initiatives across the country and used influencers to foster Hellmann’s brand advocacy inside the real food conversation. Through a mixture of education and interactive experiences the brand continues to champion real food initiatives across the country and change a longstanding perception of the brand. 

Proof it works

Does it work I hear you ask? Of course it does. According to Unilever, purpose driven brands are the driving force behind it’s success, reporting that its Sustainable Living brands grew over 50% faster than the rest of the business. And when Hellmann’s reviewed the success of its purpose-driven efforts, in addition to shifting consumer perception around mayonnaise, they saw a substantial and direct impact on sales of Hellmann’s in Canada. 

With research confirming that meaningful brands are outperforming the stock market by 206% over a ten-year period, it’s no surprise we’re seeing industry leaders like McVities and Cadbury reassessing their current positioning for a more purpose led perspective to re-engage with its audience in new times.

The time is now for brands to find what they truly stand for and focus more on how they can involve the customer along the way. 

What’s next? 

The most important thing to remember is purpose is more than a statement. It’s something you genuinely believe in, identify with and action upon. 

So what do you need to do next? First things first, you go back to the drawing board and remind yourself, why you started. When you’ve identified this internally, you need to ensure that your purpose is going to resonate with your new or existing customers, there’s nothing worse than getting it terribly wrong (cue that Pepsi ad). Then, and arguably the most important part to the process you need plan the best way to communicate your vision to be relevant and authentic. 

And don’t just take our word for it we’re hosting our “Build a Brand Movement” event on the 7th of March at Camden Work.Life where we will be hearing first hand from Bacardi Global Brand Director Zeenah Vilcassim, Virgin Money Creative Director Tim Arthur and Founder of MyFreda Affi Parvizi-Wayne who are building brands with purpose. Book your free ticket here.

Stefanie Sword Williams, Senior Content Producer at Mattr.Media.

Have we lost the true meaning of Christmas in TV advertising?

With Christmas just under a week away, it’s safe to say the festive season is well and truly upon us. Gingerbread lattes in every commuters hands, mince pies on every supermarket shelf and of course the sub zero temperatures sending us into Saturday night hibernation. But when it comes to Christmas, nothing quite gets you in the mood like the “Holidays are coming” jingle or the beloved John Lewis 60 second spot. 

And whilst we can always rely on the big brands to pull out the stops and captivate us with a heartwarming visual masterpiece, it’s hard not to pose the question, have we lost the true meaning of Christmas in TV advertising? I ask because my understanding is that Christmas is all about giving. So if we’re going to take one calendar event in the year to focus on making our marketing budget work the hardest and “giving back” surely it would be Christmas? Particularly in an era where we crave authenticity and have much higher expectations of what a brand should say and do. Yet year on year we huge amounts of money being thrown at fictional concepts that have no deeper purpose than to drive sales. The question we as both marketers and creative thinkers need to ask is, could we be spending an £8bn budget on a real concept that could change lives? Could we make Christmas the “goodvertising” time of the year?

Last month the ASA forecasted that brands will be spending a record of £6bn on Christmas advertising in 2017, mainly driven by the intense market competition, particularly in the retail sector. It was commented by Craig Mawdsley at AMVVBDO that brands have to participate if not for their own growth to offset the growth of others (BBC 2017). So surely if your aim is to offset the growth of competitors, your creative ideas should be especially disruptive? But when you review the selection of this year’s adverts there seems to be a consistent of pattern of fictional stories, both animated and moving image with a very expected Christmas storyline. Now you can't argue that the production and the sentiment behind the adverts from John Lewis, the BBC, Vodafone and McDonalds aren’t all of high quality but my biggest frustration is the lack of differentiation. How are these brands going to offset the growth of each other if they are just regurgitating the same type of solution? 

More and more we see meaningful brands and communications outperforming the big dogs because they recognise the value on focussing on the bigger picture. A Christmas campaign that we loved last year was the Gift of Beauty from Boots, the TV advert saw 45 real women who work in a range of professions from paramedics to midwives to police officers and carers, being treated to a day of pampering in order to recognise all the hard work they put in during the festive period. Why did we love this? Because Boots found an insight that celebrated real people and wasn’t solely about getting people in stores, it was about giving back whilst still creating that warm fuzzy feeling we know our viewers love. 

So what if, next year brands pushed their advertising agencies to think deeper about the spirit of Christmas, and they demanded ideas that really disrupted. Now I don’t mean a two headed Cyclops in a war zone pretending to be Santa, I mean an advert that when you’re sitting through the X-factor ad break you feel genuinely taken back by what’s in front of your eyes. In Alex Lewis and Bridget Angear’s book Revolt (which anyone who wants to start a revolution needs to read!) they explore the importance of maximising your ROI (Revolution on Investment) with the example of helping people with sight loss. They highlight that in Ethiopia alone, there are 1 million people who could be treated for trachoma induced blindness by an operation of £15. 

So imagine you’re an eyewear brand and instead of showing a bunch of hipster Santa Clauses wearing your collection you decide to spend a fraction of your Christmas marketing budget on a cause like this. Surely that would be a magical Christmas moment to capture? That would be a TV spot to make the hairs on your arms stand up for all the right reasons. One that would undoubtably build brand awareness, attract new customers and showcase the benefits of your brand on wider scale, which lets face it if done well, would ultimately lead to sales growth. 

Wouldn’t that be better than just nice?

Back in September we had the privilege of listening to Dave Trott speak about risk taking, one thing that he highlighted was that as advertisers, it’s our job to communicate a message and to do it differently. So before you even begin concepting for next year, why not think about that Christmas ad break and what else will be in it, what themes and patterns can you predict and how can you go against the grain? This message goes out to the Brand Managers writing the briefs and the Creative teams responding, when it comes to the ideation process for next year’s Christmas TV spot, how can you think about the bigger picture you could support, celebrate and give back to? In our industry we have a huge amount of power to influence and inform, so lets start pushing concepts to a point where we see a benefit in society not just our trophy cabinet. 

Let’s start making it matter. 

Written by Stefanie Sword-Williams, Senior Account Manager at Mattr.Media.