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- [00:00]
A
So welcome to this week's episode. Before we get started, I wanted to update you on our live tour schedule. We're gonna be back on the road this fall. We're starting in Dallas, Texas at the Richards group on Thursday, September 18th at 6pm Our theme or our topic is Ideas Born in Texas. And the reason we're doing that is because I don't think, and I think a lot of people in Texas don't think that enough of us in the industry understand exactly what's coming out of the great state of Tex as it relates to advertising. Now, many of you may be familiar with agencies like the Richards Group, you might be familiar with GSD and M BDO west, but there's also a bunch of other great shops. Lerma in the last few years has been doing some great work. Also Preacher, McGarra, Jesse and other great shops, indies and networks that are doing great work. We're going to go down there and showcase it at the Richards Group, which is now known as trg. You can get tickets to this show Again, September, Thursday, September 18th, we're gonna be down there. You can get tickets on our website under the live tour tab. And then from Dallas, we are going to be going to New York City. We're going to be at Mischief, their brand new beautiful offices in Brooklyn on Thursday, September 25th. And we're gonna be talking about change and an alternative view on change that is more evidenced through the work. Now. I think a lot of us seem to be constantly talking about change and it seems to be the chatter everywhere. It's all over. LinkedIn, it's all over everywhere. It's kind of coming from those in the bleachers. But for those of us on the field, the question is really, is change going to change what we do? And we're going to look at that through the lens of creative work, great creative work from today, great creative work from the past and talk about this sort of alternative view of change. So do come and join us. It's Thursday, September 20, 20, 25th at Mischief. You can get tickets again on our website@onstrategyshowcase.com and under the Live tour tab. And then lastly, we're gonna go on from New York. I think we're gonna be in LA on October 2nd. We're then gonna be going to mother in London November 13th. We're back in Chicago for our holiday ad special on December 4th. So it's a great tour. I hope to see everybody there. I always love meeting folks on the road. It's a who for the show. So it's kind of cool. Anyway, back to today's episode. This is this month's on the Spot. Enjoy. So we're back again for our August session with the Misfits. This is on the Spot. It is where we talk about campaigns we've never worked on, which is never going to be weird, but it leads to opinions. And opinions aren't always right. So we're not saying we're right. So once again, if anybody thinks we're wrong, you can respectfully reach out to us or to me@hellonstrategyshowcase.com and tell us why we're wrong. And if we're wrong, we'll update it on the next episode. But we, we are pretty damn right generally. So we're going to, going to work off of that premise. This month's guests, we have Caleb Smith, who is global communication strategy director on McDonald's, works along tests, looks alongside Testostopoulos and the crew and Wyden and Kennedy in New York. Caleb, welcome.
- [03:40]
B
Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
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A
And we have Rachel Stats returning global strategy director Mullenlo in London. She works on the brilliant Dirt Is Good initiative, that brand platform for Persil and Unilever. And it's great to have you back, Rachel.
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C
Happy to be here.
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A
And you are still at the lake, it looks like for people watching on YouTube.
- [04:04]
C
Yeah. I've now migrated back down to southern Minnesota, so we have the, the plains of Minnesota behind me today.
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A
Oh, interesting, interesting. You're generally out of London, so you've just come over for some family.
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C
I'm back home for my sister's wedding, so.
- [04:20]
A
Nice. And we have the returning misfits. Vanessa Chin is SVP Marketing for System 1. Vanessa is here in Chicago. Good to see you again as always.
- [04:30]
D
Love to be here.
- [04:31]
A
And it is Matt Herbert. He is co founder of Tracksuit. He is in London and he has just returned from his honeymoon in Columbus, Ohio. I think it was Matt, where was it that you were.
- [04:44]
E
We are back. And we are back from Tahiti. What a spectacular place. I think we're talking a bit about tourism today and, oh, I'll vouch for French Polynesia. Absolutely special. But we're back. Happy to be here. Good to see you all.
- [04:57]
A
We are going to be talking about two great brands today that came out of sort of a summer theme. When we talk about summertime, we're supposed to put our phones down and we're supposed to travel. So this month our theme is two T's of tourism and Telco. Now, the telco thing came to me out of this brilliant conversation I had with one of the best CMOs in the world, in my opinion is Brent Smarts. And he is the CMO at Telstra, which is a telco brand in Australia. And we were recently down in Australia for the show, and this sort of got on my radar. The work to me for Telstra, and he's a former agency guy and he worked at Colenso bbdo. He was the CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi New York. He's done some brilliant work with some brilliant creative talents down there. And one of the things that struck me out of that interview was he said a couple of things. He said, and it's a simple thought, but I think a powerful thought, that if you want people to feel differently about your brand, make the brand feel different. And I know that sounds like what a simple thing to say, but it's not a commonly executed belief. And he has done a phenomenal job of executing on that. And he also recognized the fact that he had to be different. He runs one of the largest, I think, the largest telco in Australia. Is that fair to say? Matt, do you know, I mean, at.
- [06:31]
E
80% unaided awareness, they are definitely by far the category leader.
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A
And he was saying that he has to be different and he has to be different because he is looking for growth and he has to be distinct in order to get people to think differently about him. And that led me back to what we kind of see here in the US Guys, which is a kind of a similar thing with big players. And my thing is, I wonder if any of those big players really feel the same way he feels, or whether they're conscious of that, but they can't afford or don't feel they need to be very distinct in order to grow. For example, if I look at Verizon, the data shows that Verizon has about 146 million customers in the U.S. t Mobile in the U.S. has 132 million at and T Mobile, 118 million. So there are three very big brands working in the U.S. and so the question is, are they on offense or are they on defense? Rachel, how do you kind of think about these brands? They're huge, they're big, but are they really trying to be aggressive marketers?
- [07:51]
C
Yeah, so I did my time on Verizon at RGA New York, so I'm a little bit familiar with the telco category. Not in Australia, but certainly in the US And I think the thing that's interesting about Verizon, for example, which may have some similarities to Telstra, is that it is one of the big, I think depending on how you're measuring things these days, one of the biggest networks and certainly one of the best connected networks in the US But I think what's different about between, you know, a Verizon and Telstra is I've seen every funnel in terms of unaided awareness to consideration all of these kind of functional ways, which obviously Matt can speak more to specifically. And I think that they understand some of the things that they need to deliver on functionally, like they might be looking for growth still, right? They still want to, you know, be taking from your t mobiles, your AT&T and that type of thing. But I think that there's a tendency to be a bit more functional in the way that they do it. So to what you were saying, Fergus, about, you know, making it feel different, I feel like there's a little bit more parity in terms of how people communicate in the US around Telco. They all are trying to kind of say similar things and some of them might deliver on it better than others, but there isn't as much, I feel like differentiation in the category in terms of how they're doing it. And particularly I think from an emotional standpoint, it's not something that they trade on as much, which I think is a miss. And why I love the Telstra work so much is that I think that it is distinctive and standout but also is breaking from a lot of the tropes of the category.
- [09:35]
A
I suppose with Brent, what he was thinking of Caleb is the idea that he is a big major brand but he, and he can't acquire himself to growth. So for him, in his mind, I can be uniquely different without alienating my base. He feels that he can still be both. And I think maybe in the US the concern is if we evolve too much or if we do something that's truly distinctive in Telco, that it might disrupt our base. I mean, how do you look at it?
- [10:09]
B
I mean, I, I, I think about it from you have these large corporate monoliths, right? And I think they're often driven and I think in the States we are too by these huge econometric models, right? We have these big M mns that know if I put in X amount of money, I'm going to get X amount of subscribers. And as long as that base is flat or growing in some aspect across a certain part of the country or however you want to slice the data Then I know I'm doing a good job because we're, we're talking about I probably between the three of them like billions of, of dollars spent on marketing.
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A
Right.
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B
And I think what's so interesting about the Telstra work is this idea of like the, and this is like, this is kind of the crux of what we do at Wieden, right. It's like what's true, right. We find that truth. So if you look at all the, the work that I thought was so interesting is when they talk about Bernie is better on a mobile network, right. You're talking about that really specific part of that community or something that's a reflection of that community that has a wider, more mass appeal. And I think so let's explain what.
- [11:12]
A
That is to your point in the better and a better network work for Telstra. Because geographically Australia is such a wide large space in terms of landscape and territory, they decided to do individual executions that are relevant to specific towns or cities or regions. So it was very sort of range, regionalized work, right?
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B
Yeah, it's super regionalized work. But it has like mass, you know, scale or, or like national scale.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And everyone can, yeah, everyone can see, can see why that works. I think what, what, what you have in the States is something we're, we're just working in tonnage too and not to, to slag off like major holding companies but you know, we're, we're moving like this amount of money to this amount of eyeballs. Right. And we're dealing in scale. And if again back to my earlier point, if we're like adjusting the dial here on like below the line paid digital, right. And I know that I have a click through rate of 0.15% to now 0.16% that might yield me X amount of dollars in return. Again, that's hyperbolic. But I do think like we are so moved by what's.
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A
Does it work though? It seems to. Is your contention that it actually works or it works against them?
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B
I think it works. It's a, it feels like short termism I guess is what I would say. So you can point to it and say like yeah, we're working right now, but what is it actually doing for the brand in the long run? And does that actually yield like, like higher affinity or, or people having like. We were just talking about like a larger emotional appeal from the brand, like that kind of thing.
- [12:51]
A
Right.
- [12:52]
C
I think to Caleb to that point and I guess Fergus, what you were saying about alienating your base, I think the other thing about the Telstra work, I was talking to one of my Australian friends about this and one of the things I think is interesting and you guys can, can correct me if I'm wrong, but telstra is obviously so massive and it is once in some of these areas of Australia, it's one of the only networks that reaches to some of these far off regions because I think it also used to be government, government owned, which is a whole other thing in terms of how it's embedded in the Australian psyche. So I, I feel one of the things that I found interesting is in some ways there's not necessarily a financial incentive or any pressure to be representing some of these areas. Right. Because they're already there. Like in some, in some instances the consumers don't have any choice but to be with Telstra, which I think actually makes it even more interesting because I think there's 26 spots in total that they kind of said we are representing this diversity of this, of this country. But it isn't necessarily like, oh, because we're down in this market necessarily in some of them they might be for sure. But I don't think the major cities are acknowledged at all. And I don't know as much about the ins and outs of their business model. But to me it makes it even more interesting that they're representing people and cultures that they don't necessarily have to, if that makes sense from a business standpoint.
- [14:18]
A
So, Vanessa, how does the Telstra work test and what's your thought on the work itself?
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D
Yeah, I wanted this org to score off the charts because I really, really, really like it. It's not performing at average even yet.
- [14:40]
A
Tell me about that. And this is with an Australian audience?
- [14:43]
D
Yes, this is with an. We tested it with an Australian audience and you know, the telco category is not high scoring in general. The averages is around like low, low twos and this performed in like the 1.5 and I think for a couple reasons. So this is a very distinct use of humor. You know, a little dry, a little offbeat. You know, you've got, with each spot you're introducing new animal characters. And so there's an element of the response to the work was I don't recognize the work, I don't know who it's for. The humor's a little bit silly, a little bit random. I'm not sure what this is. By the end of each spot, everyone knows it's for Telstra. They recognize the logo, they know who it's for. But when you look at the recognition in the fast fluency, like how many seconds in, it's taking the customer base at least 50% of the time to understand who it's for based on initial exposure.
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A
Right?
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D
Yes. Yeah, yeah. So with that, I think they obviously should stick with this campaign. It's got a lot of merit to it, it's really fun work, but I think that over time they're going to, if they have some consistency with the characters and with the animals, they'll recognize it. They'll recognize the look and feel, it'll become less silly and random and it will become Telstra. So when you're using something that's this distinctive, give it a minute and allow your audience to instantly recognize this as it's yours. And you're trying to obviously communicate the better network.
- [16:18]
E
There are. In Australia, there are two major telco businesses, one being Telstra, the other being Optus. And so it's kind of similar to the U.S. in a sense, as you've got this kind of top two or three that are really fighting it out. What we look at from a. From Tracksuit and tracking the Telco and Telstra and a bunch of the brands is what's the holistic movement that we're seeing? And if we compare the last six months compared to the six months beforehand, so kind of pre and post this campaign in the Olympic spots, Telstra, on the face of it, awareness, consideration, preference, usage, the standard brand metrics, they're all remaining stable. Okay, great big brands, hard to move. Those remaining stable, that's a pretty good job. But there's a nuance in here and there's a nuance being perceptions for Telstra around reliability and trust are significantly increasing. And so Telstra is continuing to move people through the funnel from consideration to preference, winning the hearts and minds against the two pieces that are most important to consideration and preference. That's reliability and that's trust. And the better on a better network was focused specifically on reliability.
- [17:34]
A
I look at the big three, which is AT&T Verizon and T Mobile in the US and for me it's difficult to see distinctions, significant distinctions between them. And I'm curious, from a widening Kennedy, from a Kayla point of view, do you look at those three big brands and see strong distinctions? Do you see things that are weaknesses? Do you wish there were things that you could get them to do better?
- [18:03]
B
I mean, it's, it's really interesting because in some ways telco in the United States now, in the past few years, probably last decade, just feels ubiquitous, right? Like all three of these, these brands, I think you could argue like their biggest competitor might be one another, but also their like their own ubiquity. Like it now feels like a lot of wallpapering because I think to where we are from an infrastructure standpoint and even just thinking about it economically, what's more affordable and what's reliable. Right. And I think that's where folks are trying to make more of a, you know, distinguish themselves. I am curious like if you've even noticed some of the ATT work. It's shifted from connection is everything to connection means something which I think is actually an interesting wrinkle. I agree.
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A
Yeah. So here's a spot from the latest AT&T campaign. The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout. Can you feel our network? You can feel the pride. Yeah, I'm a little bit nervous. You're gonna do great.
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B
Thanks, bro.
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A
You can feel the love. You may not be able to see how much we've invested building the nation's largest wireless and fiber network. The 290 million million Americans.
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C
Feel it every day. Connecting changes everything.
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B
A brand like that trying to find some sort of like emotional connection or hook into a consumer is maybe the way to go because again, it does feel like there's like red, there's blue and then there's pink and it's like it almost feels commoditized. I think even compared to the 90s when T Mobile was, you had, you had John CMO, he wore pink everywhere. Like there was more of a personality I think behind the brands in a way that probably doesn't exist today. And I think that might have to just do again with scale and tonnage.
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A
Doesn't System One love the, the T Mobile work? Vanessa, am I remembering that right in terms of it rates really highly in your system?
- [20:04]
D
Oh, gosh, yeah. Well, some of the super bowl like Zach Braff work did score well. It's really hit or miss. So there's a lot of celebrity usage in telecom and that really is going to get you like an emotionally intense reaction, but not necessarily always a really strong positive one. So carriers, you're getting a lot of attention. You're getting really, really high branding. Again, the color usage, it's still happening like massive logos. Red, pink, you know, red, pink, blue. So you get that. But in terms of who in the category is really getting strong love, it's more on the device, you know, manufacturing side. You know, the Apple, Samsung, they're really doing the strong storytelling. They're making you feel love and commitment towards the brand itself, that they're really doing a good job of winning hearts and minds.
- [21:00]
C
I think it's interesting that Matt said that the Telstra work is testing and moving, like, moving the dial on trust and reliability. Because the number of times that I heard that from Verizon is like, we need to move trust, we need to move reliability. They're all saying the exact same thing. And a lot of the ways that they are achieving that is basically by saying the words trust and reliability connection over and over and over and over again, as if that's the thing that will then make them trusted versus actually doing something that makes you feel like you trust them. And to what Vanessa was saying, a shortcut for that is oftentimes like a celebrity or something like that, like some kind of establishment of responsibility. I. I've always just wanted the telco category. I think AT and T is starting to go in the right direction. I'm not as familiar with all of. All of the work, but, like, the culture around the telco category, like, how people connect, is fascinating. WhatsApp's doing a bit of this actually in the UK really well, of understanding the humanity that exists around what those connections mean. So one example that I always said to Verizon was like, for example, the way that people FaceTime just in the world is insane. Like, I'm on a bus and someone FaceTiming their cousin, like, in another country, that is crazy. There's so much interest and, like, richness and texture and the human behavior around what your product fundamentally delivers or which. I think the Telstra, like, work is kind of doing that right, because it's saying the same thing over and over and over again of, like, it's better on a better network, but it's giving an indication that we understand who our audience is. We understand, you know, you know, theirs is a little bit more top level of just kind of like cultural, you know, a cultural kind of sensitivity and understanding. I just think so much of the telco work, but a lot of the work in this, like, it just starts.
- [22:44]
D
To feel a bit flat.
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C
Like everything starts to feel kind of similar. And yeah, there's the differentiation of just the colors, but it all just feels like we're saying the same thing in a different font, basically.
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D
I mean, part of. I think this. I also worked on Telco. I think everyone touched it in some way. I used to work on Sprint, but the merger between Sprint and T Mobile is significant and that really gave T Mobile an opportunity to overtake Verizon. And as a business, Verizon is suffering from that and they're grasping at new tools. They did the Effie winning Beyonce break the Internet work and that was really a significant effort on their part to make up for what T Mobile is taking from them. So I really think it's a battle of the titans at this point between T Mobile and Verizon.
- [23:33]
A
Is this what happens with big mature categories and big, big mature brands where the ideas aren't going to be as original anymore, they don't matter as much anymore. And then you look at that QSR and what they've done, McDonald's has done Caleb, with you guys where upended things, right? And it created a whole new Runway of growth.
- [23:57]
B
Well, I think it, this is what the Telstra work kind of sparked in me was I saw the association. I mean you've heard us talk about fan truths a lot over the past five years and it's this idea that there's like a really specific shared truth and then that then in and of itself becomes universal. And I think these big boys in telco in the United States at least are now starting to see a little bit of some of the cracks in the system. Because you can buy reach, anybody can buy reach, right? I can. If I have a billion dollars, I can go buy every ad spot. But the Beyonce execution is a great example of like having to think outside of what an ad is because you need to make sure that you're building for, for resonance and impact because those are the things that a consumer are going to take with them. And then when it comes to salience, refer back to your brand versus another one. You know, in the long term.
- [24:49]
C
I also find it interesting how they use Beyonce like as an absolutely out and out Beyonce die hard. The way that she creates the way, I mean seriously, that's a whole separate podcast. Incredible brand building and evolution. Okay, that's a separate one. Fergus, write me down. But the way that she creates worlds and creates rabbit holes. Taylor Swift does the same thing, right? Of like for her fans. The way that Veronica Verizon used her just infuriated me so much. I like, I understood, I knew exactly why they were doing it the way that they were doing it. But like it was the most like expected. You could have typed into chat GPT how should we use Beyonce in our next Verizon campaign? And it was, it would just spit that right out. And it was so difficult for me because I just feel like they just took the most, the top line view of how you can use Beyonce which is a really well known name who's a really talented artist. Yeah. Break the Internet is like kind of a thing. But I was like there's so much depth and she understands people and culture and community in so much way. But they used her in the most. Absolutely top line expected. Telecom drove me for my friends at Verizon. It drove me insane.
- [25:59]
D
I think she launched a new Levi's thing today. So please, Levi, please let us know.
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C
If you know, you know Levi's. They are bang on the way that they're using Beyonce.
- [26:10]
A
Okay, we'll be right back. Want Always on Brand metrics that Deliver Value to Stakeholders this episode is brought to you by Tracksuit, a beautiful, affordable and always on brand tracking tool that helps consumer marketers and agencies answer the question. Is what we're doing working? A not so secret fact is that companies pay $100,000 or more for brand tracking, which is out of the question for many modern brands whose budgets are under pressure. Tracksuit provides enterprise level brand tracking without the big price tag. Their in house research experts do the heavy lifting using best in class practices to craft and launch your survey and get you results fast. Tracksuit is fast becoming the common language for marketers and agencies to measure and communicate the value of brand building. Check it out@gotracksuit.com that's gotracksuit. Are celebrities the secret sauce to Add Effectiveness? What about music or brand characters? You can predict and improve advertising's commercial impact with System 1's test yout add Platform. Test yout Ad is the creative effectiveness platform that measures consumers emotional responses, predicting the sales and growth impacts of advertising. You can test creative for linear and connected tv, digital, outdoor, audio and print channels from early concepts through to finished film plus access. System One's Test yout Ad Premium platform with more than 150,000 ads in the database, you get the most accurate view of your category with results and rankings updated daily. So create with confidence. To learn more, visit systemonegroup.com that's system1group.com now back to the show. All right, let's go to our next one. Let's go to tourism because I think there's a lot of similar activity that's happened in tourism over the years. There used to be this sort of a sense that tourism ads had to be sort of aspirational. They had to be these beautiful idealized messages and imagery that everything had to focus on the place and the traditions and the usual sort of tropes and that everything had to be sort of perfect. That was Sort of the way tourism advertising has been in the past. Now, what I love, and there's a couple of examples I sent to you guys, the Icelandic tourism work from SS&K out of New York and the Oslo, the city of Oslo work, Oslo, Norway, their campaign is it even a City? Are phenomenal examples of how it seems tourism advertising is going. So it's going sort of away from perfection and away from sort of aspirational and more towards sort of authentic and playful, a lot more towards personality. And I thought those two campaigns were perfect examples of that. What do you guys think of that new work and do you think there's some truth in this evolution?
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C
I think what's interesting about the tourism, the stuff for both Iceland and Oslo, is that it's self aware just as much as what it is as what it is not. So I think what's interesting about it is that it's kind of pushing against something. You know, they might not be kind of the top places obviously that people would typically go, but they aren't kind of shying away from that. And actually the way that they're kind of drawing attention to themselves is leaning in to just as much of what they're not as what they are in a, in a way that has a bit of a wink and a nod and pushes against, you know, potential cultural tropes are obviously with Iceland. They're pushing against things like the metaverse and tech.
- [30:07]
A
So here's a spot from the Icelandic tourism campaign that parodies that video that Zuckerberg did about the metaverse. And they have a guy that looks exactly like him. So if you're not watching this on this episode on YouTube, check it out on our website and you can see the actual spot. Hi and welcome to this very natural setting. Today I want to talk about a revolutionary approach on how to connect our world without being super weird. Some said it's not possible, some said it's out of reach. To them, we say it's already here. Seriously, look, it's right here. And what do we call this not so new chapter in human connectivity? The Iceland worse enhanced actual reality without silly looking headsets. You know, there's certainly, there's markets like Oslo, like Iceland, who are adopting this quirky personality. But I kind of wonder if it's also bleeding into other destination marketing. It's not that they're outliers. I think there's almost a fundamental change in how people think and look to places. And I think it's probably fueled by social media. That's where people are discovering so much content.
- [31:31]
D
Of course, like I planned all of these things to say, but now all I can think about is nothing beats a jet to holiday in terms of the work that you sent us. On the flip side, outside of fluency, I really liked the Iceland work because what I saw in terms of an emotional reaction was a mix that you never really see. A mix of sensory pleasure from the beautiful scenery, uplifted and humor and amused. That triple threat is something that's very rare. And the Iceland work did. And I think it's very distinctive. And it was, it scored over a four star. It was really, really well liked. So it was still plagued by some of the fluency issues. But I think some of those key things that they talked about, the northern lights, you know, things like that, I think some of that stuff is sticky, but it just wasn't something that could easily say. It was like, visit Iceland.
- [32:29]
B
I also add too that like, yes, they've made like brilliant films and they're very funny, but a lot of the other actions that they've taken as a brand have also been like really clever. Like even like I think during COVID like you could scream into the Icelandic wilderness. Like that's the kind of stuff that like sticks to your brain. Like, yes, the spot is great, it's really, really funny. But only a certain amount of people are going to see that. Especially if like you're primarily running it across social media or on YouTube. I think all these other brand actions that they do to that larger point about no dead ends is what makes that work really intriguing to me because like I was, I was looking up a horse that I would want to write email for me earlier this morning. You know what I mean? That's the kind of stuff that starts pinging around.
- [33:14]
A
So let's explain that Caleb. Because to what. What he's referring to, Caleb's referring to is during lockdown, when everybody was locked down, high stress, a lot of tension, being in your own apartment or in your own home, you were looking for outlets. So what Iceland did is they said that you can actually call in to the specific number and you can scream out your stress and literally scream into the phone. And then what they did is they actually had speakers set up in the wilderness of Iceland and they played everybody's screams. So you were able to vent into this beautiful wilderness.
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C
Oh yes.
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A
And the second thing that you brought up was these sort of the, the outhorse your email. This is their message around work, life, balance. And it was fucking brilliant. And what it is, you And I'll put these spots in the show for YouTube people and you can see it on our site. But what you're doing is you're getting in a. You're getting this because they have wild horses in Iceland. Very, very beautiful horses. They just run wild. And what they did is they brought this massive keyboard in and they allowed wild horses and you could pick whichever one you wanted to walk across this live keyboard. And that would become your out of office email that would go to anybody that was trying to reach you. And it allowed you to spend time off of email. Nothing ruins your vacation like work. Thankfully, Iceland has created the perfect solution. Outhorse your email, a revolutionary service where Icelandic horses write real out of office replies so you can relax. They are trained in corporate buzzwords. Your boss will never know the difference. Outhorse your inbox and free up your vacation. So they had this. They have real quirky personality stuff. And we'll drop more of the spots in, but it is very, very much personality driven. Caleb.
- [35:55]
B
Yeah, they're thinking outside of like, it's. It's. What's the platform? Like, what's the campaign versus what's the ad? What's the spot like? I'm sure. I'm hoping that there's not that they. That their art director and copywriter aren't like, here's our film. Because the film isn't the idea. Right. The idea is the idea. And it's this way of like they're bringing. Especially during COVID they were bringing like this. This beautiful travel experience to people who couldn't do it. And it's like enabling travel and an experience of the place until you actually get there in a multitude of different facets through this really clever, funny filter.
- [36:31]
C
Yeah. It feels like they're very. Like their brand behavior is speaking for them. Like, it's a less traditional way to build a brand, potentially. Even if we look at it compared to like. Even though is obviously like a traditional film. I think Sweden has also done. There's something going on with the Scandies, basically. I think Sweden did something similar with like the number that you could call and things like that. But I think it's. It's an interesting way you could actually.
- [36:56]
A
Call a real Swedish person.
- [36:58]
C
Yeah, that's what it was. Yeah. And they've done a few things since then as well. And I think the. The brand behaviors, to Caleb's point, they feel like they ladder up to like a consistent point of view, like a cultural point of view that Iceland kind of has on the world. So it's drawing you to Iceland. But I also think each one of their things, there are red threads that kind of connect them. This kind of, like, push against kind of tech. It is a critique on what kind of experiences are we valuing and glorifying in society and Iceland as kind of the antidote to that, which I think a lot of people are actually craving. It's interesting, Vanessa, you said that the kind of. The enjoyment of kind of the nature, you can kind of feel like in the Metaverse example as well, the Icelandverse, where they kind of talk about like, this is 100% real, like, and kind of like playing with that, whatever. It's not just parody and humor for the sake of it. There is actually something that's sitting underneath it in terms of what they bring and the value of their experiences and what they can bring to other people that's hopefully going to draw those people to them that are. Are tired of maybe some of these, you know, the mundane, the. The mundane of everyday life and tech and this kind of flatness that you feel.
- [38:07]
A
How does the tourism category sort of score in general, the average for the category of Vanessa? Is it. Does it do well or is it suffering from much like the telco is a pretty bad rep?
- [38:19]
D
Yeah, it's one of the better performing categories. It's, I mean, nowhere near, you know, the chocolate category. You know, that stuff always performs really, really well. But the average is about 3, which is actually really, really good on average. And that's just because there's a lot of, you know, beautiful scenery and people feel really good about it. But in order to break average, it's. It's difficult. And I think where we see brands break from the average is really good storytelling. I would even say Best Western. They. Their work is. What they're doing is they're breaking down what it's really like. They're breaking down perfection. What is it really like for a family, like, you know, bringing all of your, like, armfuls of stuff to the beach? It's. It's heartwarming, but at the same time kind of funny and kind of real. So telling those real human stories and you don't have to be perfect or you can be funny and you don't have to be that serious. That's where we're actually seeing brands break out of average when they're telling those kind of stories.
- [39:19]
A
Wait, Come back. Wait. Come back.
- [39:23]
C
I need more help.
- [39:24]
A
Take a love outfit. Take a love.
- [39:30]
C
Today we went to the beach and.
- [39:32]
A
It was.
- [39:38]
D
Totally worth it.
- [39:42]
A
Life's a trip make the most of it at fast Western. Let's talk about Oslo. So Oslo, man. I mean, it's impossible not to watch the Oslo work. And it's called. One of the spots is called. Well, we'll label it as. Is it even a city? So in this spot, what you're looking at, in essence is it's almost a mockumentary. It's almost like. It's almost Spinal Tap. Like this sort of Larry David, young type of a Larry David style character. Complete cynic protagonist. He's walking around the city. He's talking about the things that bother him about the city, which are actually, with this reverse psychology. It's actually turning out to be the reason you would want to go to the city. Come here. To be honest, Oslo is just not. I mean, is it even a city? You know what I mean?
- [40:41]
E
Everything is just so available.
- [40:45]
A
You know, there's no exclusiveness. I grew up here and I temporarily live here, unfortunately. I don't understand why people go swimming in the middle of the city. It's disgusting. Ever been to Istanbul?
- [41:09]
E
Also feels more like a village, maybe.
- [41:13]
A
I mean, you walk around a corner and it's like, oh, there's the prime minister. And you walk around the next corner, it's like, oh, there's the king. And you could just move, walk from one side of town to the other in like 30 minutes. Try that in New York or Paris.
- [41:30]
C
This spot probably wouldn't be for everyone. Just like Oslo isn't for anyone. And there's a certain level of, like, comfort that sits in. In this that I think is like. There's a quiet kind of confidence with it. But to what. To what Caleb was saying before about the writing with Iceland. I think the writing on this one is spectacular, like, and the way that it's delivered the craft on it is so good. In terms of what he's saying, how he's saying that juxtaposed against the kind of feeling of. It is so specific. So I don't know if Vanessa can tell us more of how people interacted with it, but I would imagine a lot of people probably reacted like you did, Fergus, of a little bit of what am I watching?
- [42:08]
A
And why can I not stop watching this?
- [42:12]
C
Yeah.
- [42:12]
A
Which is a good thing. Again, they've got to stand out. And I think that Vanessa, ultimately, they've got to get people to watch and to stay engaged with it and for sort of, you know, increased more frequent exposure to the message. I think it becomes clearer what it was because I was completely puzzled when I first Saw it. Maybe this is the way my brain works. I was like, this is like, I don't go to Oslo.
- [42:39]
C
It's like an anti city ad.
- [42:41]
A
Yeah.
- [42:42]
D
With this kind of humor, it going to be funny to some. And that dry kind of offbeat humor isn't necessarily for everybody and it will turn some people off. So I'm pretty sure when I looked at the results, it was a bit mixed, kind of netting out kind of in that average area.
- [43:00]
A
I guess this is what the new quirkiness is when you're looking at the evolution from perfect beautiful scenery to creating more personality and uniqueness to a place to go. This, this is today's prescription for doing that. And I think, I think Caleb, I mean, can you imagine Wyden and Kennedy doing this spot?
- [43:21]
B
Yeah, I can. It's because it's real. Right. It's like a reflection of truth. There's, there's, there's something to it. I mean, I was going to say, like when we shoot our burgers, like, it's this idea of flossom. So it, it's not picture perfect, it's not perfectly staged. There's, there's a, a way in which a consumer can see themselves in it. To us, that's, that's relevance. Right. It's not mirror marketing or saying, don't you love this perfect hyperbolic depiction of a cheeseburger? It's more of like, you see the cheese melting off the burger or you pick the cheese off of the wrapper. Like that's a thing a human being does. And I think when you can see a bit of reality and in a spot, regardless of whether or not I've been to Oslo, I can still see a bit of myself there, especially as living in New York. You are, oh, that looks so lovely and nice and quite.
- [44:14]
E
Across all categories. We track at tracksuit and we look at what drives consideration for a brand or preference for a brand. Often what comes out on top is relevance. Is this brand for people like me? Hey, let's just say that can I see myself? Can I see my friends? Is this something that I connect with? And so there's the relevancy which these campaigns are driving. And there's also this move to creativity and taste. I mean, there's a whole lot of marketers and people out there working and banging their head against the wall. Why can't we get this, you know, these campaigns or concepts across the line, but you also need to have exact level buy in. It needs to be in the fabric of the business about how you show up whether you want to take risks, whether creativity's in there, whether there's this long term thinking. And so we look at, you know, Oslo, there's someone in, at Oslo that said, actually let's have a crack at this. But not many businesses out there are willing to even take that risk.
- [45:07]
A
I know it's exactly. And that's the reason why we have data coming out of both System 1, out of tracksuit and out of others that are talking about the fact that 65% of what we do is just dull. And it in many ways is not in many ways it just is. It's a waste, an absolute waste of money. So and then the other point you brought up, Matt, which is long term and I know everybody talks about having a long term view, but I don't know where Oslo goes in terms of where this platform rolls out over time. But when you look back at the Iceland work, they have this really interesting platform that they label it as enhanced actual reality, which is actually kind of brilliant. Enhanced actual reality for a world where we're all looking for virtual ways of experiencing things. Theirs is enhanced reality, real thing, and it's there in all of its glory. So I think they're two great examples. We'd love to hear from anybody who has examples of other campaigns that are similar to these are sort of maybe are reflective of the next evolution of, of tourism marketing. But I think when we look at both of these, it's like how are, you know, in from my closing thoughts and I'll go to each of you as we go around here. You know, I think what you see with both of these brands, it's like a very mature category for Telco, where in many ways being aggressive creatively isn't probably the goal that the goal is stability and incrementality. Only 12% of the US population shifts their wireless account each year. So those are the ones in play. That doesn't include people who are coming into the category, of course, but when you've got three brands that are almost neck and neck in market share, it's not about risk, it's about sort of, I think, holding where you are steadily and building slight incremental growth over time or growing through acquisition. So big opportunity for Challenger brands that can nitpick on that, like Mint Mobile and others. And now you've got the guys from Smartless Podcast have come out with a mobile offering. You've got the Trump guys now are coming out with Trump Mobile. They can build pretty major significant businesses just by peeling away One or two share points in a market like the US So I don't know, is there great creative opportunity among the mature brands in Telco in the us? I don't know that it's necessary. I think the creative opportunity is for those challengers who can come away and pick away at the bottom and build really successful businesses. Then the same in tourism. You've got the idea that in order to be a challenger, you have just got to do great work, no other way about it, to get noticed. And you've got to be reflective of culture and the way people want to experience that, which is not the way it used to be in the past. So there's my. There's my preamble to. To add to you guys. Can I go to Vanessa for some closing thoughts? Just wanted to put you on the spot.
- [48:06]
D
And I did phone a friend. The Oslo work was modest, but I. I think across both of the categories that we talked about today, one thing that I. I felt across all of the work is that there's a lot of talking at the camera and at the customer, and that does actually create a little bit of coldness. And where you elicit a really strong emotional connection is see real, you know, real people or real stories play out and the connection between humans and all of that. So I'd like to see a breather from being talked at and being able to see and experience something, you know, wonderful.
- [48:43]
A
Oh, you mean like the characters? Like in the Iceland.
- [48:46]
D
Everyone's talking at you.
- [48:48]
A
Okay. Rather than seeing human interaction, and you feel that that builds a greater, greater emotional connection with people.
- [48:55]
D
It does. In all of our studies, we've seen that interaction between people or getting to know a character a little bit more intimately rather than being talked at does elicit a stronger, positive emotional connection.
- [49:08]
A
Interesting. That's kind of like the Ireland. Irish tourism work is doing a pretty good job of that. Cool. How about Rachel?
- [49:14]
C
I think all of the work we've discussed today is really culturally led and culturally resonant in different ways. And I think what's interesting is because people throw around that C word a lot. Culture. And culture can be something big in mass, like a brat summer or Beyonce or something like that, but it can also be specific and under the skin and local or regional. And I think that that's where obviously a lot of this work sits. But even the way that it's doing that, it's getting to a bit of the texture and the context around a category, which is what makes it powerful. And I think to the conversations we've been having around short term versus long term. My, my hypothesis would be that these are the types of things that really make a brand feel like they understand people, they understand culture. They have a point of view, like we talked about just as much of, you know, what they are, is what they're, what they are not and what they're not for. And I think in the long term that's something that will, it's going to be probably more of a slow burn than slapping Beyonce into an ad, for example. But I think that there's something really powerful in it and certainly something that's, that, that stand out and noticeable and actually makes people feel connected. Well, just feel, period. But then also feel connected to the brands.
- [50:27]
A
How about you, Caleb?
- [50:29]
B
I mean, to me is it always comes down to like, is it true and is it interesting? I mean, not to, to, to. I'm going to butcher this quote by Dan Wyden, but it's like the best dad is a conversation over, like that you overhear between two people. Right. Like there's, there's relevancy in both of these. I can see myself in both of these without having to be, be necessarily in Australia or, you know, traveling anytime sooner in Oslo. Like, I, I do think that there is something to be said about having a point of view which this, all of this work has. And I think often we don't. And, and that's because we're, you know, what's the machine? We're turning it out, we're doing it. What's next? What's next? What's next? Versus like, well, let's stop and think. Like, like, do we like this work? You know, and I, and I, like, not that might sound reductive or an oversimplification, but sometimes I, I think we can overthink it a bit. And to me, these are both really honest, real reflections of, of clever work. That's true. And, and I can find a human truth in all of it.
- [51:35]
A
Yeah. And then finally, Matt, I mean, when.
- [51:39]
E
You watch these and you just have a bit of a laugh there, you know, they, it's. You have a laugh, it sticks in our memories. We're talking about it now. And it shows that in big categories like telco and tourism, they're some of the biggest categories in the world, that there's still an opportunity to lean into creative, have good taste, what's relevant for the brands, what's relevant for the audience that you're trying to speak to and make it throughout the buzzword here as authentic to what they, you know, know who they are.
- [52:09]
A
Right.
- [52:09]
E
Authenticity. Everybody tries to, everybody talks about it. It's like culture. But I think here are, here are two examples of, of Telstra, Iceland and Oslo who are truly doing this. And, and, and I think one to leave on this is I've just seen that Mark Ritson's done a bit of an analysis on Tourism Australia have just recently, maybe even, maybe even today or, or yesterday. Tourism Australia have just evolved after three years, the second iteration of their creative platform and their new campaigns going out. So a bit of movement happening in Tourism Telco right now.
- [52:45]
D
Very high performing. Tourism Australia is very, very strong work in our database. Some of the best.
- [52:50]
A
Has the new work come out? Has the new work been tested yet? It's a slight evolution, but it strays a little. It still includes the character and that's a Come say Good Day theme. But yeah, it's been around for three or four years. It's good stuff. All right, thank you so much to everybody for joining us. Caleb Smith, global comms strategy director at Widen and Kennedy on the McDonald's business. Rachel Staats, global strategy director, Mullen Lowe in London on Purcell's Dirt is Good. We've got an episode coming out on that real soon too for a second episode. And if you want to see an episode or listen to an episode on Icelandic tourism, there's one on our website from a couple of years back. It's on this on the first phase of that campaign, which was great. And thank you to our misfits. Matt Herbert, co founder of Tracksuit, and Vanessa Chen, SVP marketing for System One. She is here in Chicago. Have a great week, everybody.
- [53:44]
D
Thanks. Thanks, Fergus.
- [53:45]
E
Thanks, Tame.
- [53:46]
A
See you next time. All right, bye now, everybody.