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...

BBB tips: The marketing tools marketers can't live without, how to cultivate a learning culture and choosing your external partner properly

It’s no secret, we love sharing the key insights from our breakfast roundtables. Here are the challenges shared from our last one:

Live by the 5 Why’s

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One person spoke about the importance of using the 5 why’s - an often forgotten exercise that is really useful when planning your content strategy. 

Why? 

Because it gets us to really question why someone would care about the content we are planning to produce.

Why?  

Because you’ll find insights and quirks that will help your content become more authentic and more ‘on-brand’

Why? 

Because this will help directly solve some of your comms challenges you’re facing with your audience

Why? 

Because you’ll stop creating content for content’s sake, or worse, content that isn’t achieving the results you want.

Why?

By implementing this process into every part of your marketing strategy you’ll be able to truly understand the core human motivation for the purpose of your content and why your audience is going to engage with it. 

You know what we mean?!

Test and learn, but don’t forget to give time to learning

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It’s great to see more companies integrate a “growth mindset” culture into their ways of working, and nowhere is this more prevalent than in the content you produce. 

But one of our brand marketers confessed that while they test plenty and have weekly meetings to figure out what they’re trying next, they don’t truly allow for time to apply their learnings to it. It’s resulted in a cycle where things end up constantly being revised and sometimes making the same mistakes… 

One tip that was shared was to physically document your learnings all in one place and make it available for the whole team to access, essentially creating a publicly available wash-up deck (we’re huge fans of this and do this with each of our clients). But don’t write them just to forget about them the next day, re-visit them before you embark on a new project to remember what particular decisions might not always be wise. 

Another more collaborative and emotive version of this pitched to the table was to sit down with every team member involved (including your juniors!) and give each a voice on how they think the project fared.

Showcasing who your company is isn’t a crime

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A particular challenge that one marketer confessed is that while they may be good at talking about their products and services, they’re just not good at talking about themselves as a brand. 

As a result, some talk about their 1000 person company as if they’re ‘4 guys in a basement’. 

To truly solve this challenge, we discussed creating content that gives your stakeholders a voice, showcasing your team and champions your business for its practices not just its products. Of course there should be a balance but it’s no crime to show pride in the company you are a part of.

How to choose your external partners properly

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Of course we’ve all got horror stories about working with the wrong people and projects falling flat, so another topic that was discussed round our table (and a very interesting one as the only agency in the room!) was how marketing teams choose their external partners. 

A big tip was to trust your gut on whether the agency/partner you’re seeing would be a good cultural fit. Question their working process and especially quiz their buzzwords like “collaboration”  to find out what it tangibly looks like in reality.

Another marketer spoke about preferring partners who were honest and realistic about managing expectations as opposed to just being “yes men”. Understanding what can be achieved in given parameters is really important especially if you don’t have as much knowledge about the subject as the agency.  Having a partner interrogating your brief from an outsider’s perspective is healthy, as long as they can show they can provide plausible solutions…  

Dogs always win 

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And if all else fails, just shove a dog into your content… (in joke for those in attendance sorry all!)

Like what you’re reading and want to have your slice of the pie? Book a ticket to the next Brand, Bitch & Brekkie on March 11th. Only a couple of tickets left so book quick to eat a great breakfast and chat through everything going on right now.

Or, you can book yourself in for our new BONUS edition looking at the ins and outs of creating impactful video content on March 17th… 

Email sunnii@mattr.media if you’ve got any questions!

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!