I've had a total of 14 months experience working agency side - FCB Inferno, Recipe Advertising and Collective London with a wide range of clients including Avis, Hyundai, BMW, Audible, 888, Birds Eye and many others.
My most recent role was as a Junior Strategist for Collective London where I was involved in activities such as client pitches, interrogation of client briefs, focus groups, competitor auditing, market and category research, behavioural analysis, new-business brand workshops and writing creative briefs.
For client confidentiality reasons, I can’t demonstrate the exact work I've done for many of the clients that I have worked for. However, the projects below provide some insight into some of my strategic work as a student, and some of my general thinking.
Client Problem:
Lurpak's current campaign 'Game on Cooks' needed to be developed further via a second phase in order to increase sales.
Communications Brief:
Get people away from their screens and into the kitchen, turning passive viewers into active cooks.
The Lurpak brand is already associated with impressive-looking food, and aesthetically pleasing advertising. This is our brand truth.
But how can we get people to want to make beautiful food with Lurpak?
RESEARCH:
We conducted some in-depth interviews with a group of consumers who represented our target audience (home-owners aged 25+). Our main goal was to find out what would motivate them to cook beautiful food.
Several things stood out, mainly:
"I just want to be able to "wow" people with my cooking skills."
When asked about cooking for others vs cooking for themselves, it was found that the aim to achieve home-made meals of high quality was much stronger when cooking for others, than cooking for themselves.
A core motivation of cooking beautiful food is to impress others.
This is our emotional benefit. This is our human truth.
INSIGHT:
Few people get satisfaction from cooking for themselves. Usually, gratification is gained when cooking for people who highly approve of the food you’ve made.
(Cooking for others is much deeper than just showing off, it’s a way to express, delight and witness pleasure.)
But, what is it about Lurpak specifically that makes it so impressive? Well, in every Lurpak recipe, lactic cultures are added. These give the butter an added fresh and aromatic note, allowing for the creaminess to really burst through. This is what makes it taste so impressively great. This is our product truth.
Ultimately, this campaign is about getting people to associate Lurpak with the feelings of satisfaction gained when impressing others.
SINGLE MINDED PROPOSITION:
Lurpak is the essential premium ingredient which enables you to provide that premium experience for your friends.
ACTIVATION STRATEGY:
So how did we bring this idea to life?
'Come Dine with Lurpak' Special Series
The core component: A sponsorship with Come Dine with Me for a 'Come Dine with Lurpak' special series. N.B. This programme segment also includes an explainer about how Lurpak is differentiated from other butter products and is therefore a key ingredient in producing quality, taste-differentiated food.
Why?
- Come Dine with Me is a very popular UK TV show *with a broadly matching viewer demographic* based on people actively cooking high quality food in order to impress their guests (the core notion of our message and client objective).
- To support and re-inforce the existing association between Lurpak and quality food, providing the essential extension to actively using the product.
Dine with Lurpak Microsite
At the end of each programme, viewers were urged to upload photos and recipes of the meals they had cooked with Lurpak to the Lurpak website, incentivised by the fact that their photo might be chosen to appear at the end of the next episode of Come Dine with Lurpak.
Why?
- To influence people to cook. Not only cook, but cook quality food so that their food might get chosen.
- To provoke a 'herd mentality' - "if other people are cooking and posting their meals, maybe I should too".
- To bridge the gap from passive to active - getting people to take a personal active role in cooking - thereby fulfilling the client brief.
Google SEO Strategy
Paid Google-search key terms surrounding "recipes to cook for others" led to the Lurpak website appearing top on the search engine results.
Why?
- To take advantage of the position within the customer journey. These people are already willing to actively cook. Lurpak is there to provide recipe inspiration from other home-cooks. And again, the website was able to deliver the key brand benefits and differentiators.
Client Problem:
Eve (the mattress-in-a-box brand) was being challenged within a cluttered and commoditised mattress market.
Creative Challenge:
Create a concept, using a current consumer trend which will aim to build a solid distinguishable brand position for Eve.
RESEARCH:
Our extensive consumer trend analysis led us to our chosen consumer trend: 'Singledom'.
There are 24% more single people in the UK now than in the 1970's. (JWT Intelligence Trend Report 2019). This is our core human truth.
There was no indication that any of the competitors had adapted to this change in consumer lifestyle. This is a core market category truth.
Let's address the unaddressed. Let's address an unpopulated ground.
Q: Who sleeps solo most of the time? A: Single people.
But are there benefits to sleeping solo?
On average, 30 minutes more of important deep sleep (REM) is gained when sleeping alone.
INSIGHT: Sleeping solo is better for your health.
SINGLE-MINDED PROPOSITION:
Eve is the expert in sleep health.
We decided to re-position Eve as the expert in sleep health and to initially leverage the 'singledom' market opportunity to generate awareness of this proposition. This enabled us to elevate the brand beyond simply being a mattress manufacturer to being a sleep health solutions provider that enables consumers to lead happier and healthier lives.
IDEA: 'Sleep Well, Sleep Solo'
An OOH, guerilla and direct-mail campaign providing information on the best sleep positions for a healthier sleep.
Background:
Homeserve is a home emergency repairs business, offering low-cost home warranty and home repair options.
They have built and developed a new app: The Homeserve App.
This is a virtual catalogue of all home appliances.
Client Objective:
1. Get home-owners to start using the app
2. Convert app users into insurance customers
THE STRATEGIC THINKING (THIS IS MY PRACTISE STRATEGIC THINKING!!!)
Functional benefits of the app:
- Long-term benefits of time being saved
- The ability to solve problems when things go wrong (video tutorials and a help chat-bot on demand)
- All in one place
(These are our core product truths)
Emotional benefits of the app:
- The satisfying feeling of organisation within the home
TARGETING STRATEGY: But let’s take this further…
Well, we are getting people to download an app, firstly. But then to spend time actually entering their devices into this app.
So who has this available time, but also who might want to feel the satisfaction of feeling organised.
A human reality is that actually, many of us discount the cost of future pain-points in favour of an easier present life. We choose not to take action now to reduce the potential of future pain. It is human nature to have a bias to direct inaction.
So what is a big influencer of behaviour alteration?
Richard Shotton states that major life events can dramatically alter behaviour and habits:
Getting married, moving house, having a baby, COVID-19…
Focus on those who have recently under-gone a major life event:
The Organisational Mindset - someone who has recently moved house, and are already in the organisational mindset.
The Fill my time Mindset - people who have more time to themselves due to COVID-19 - office workers who now have that extra 2 hours a day instead of commuting.
SINGLE-MINDED PROPOSITION:
This app is for the already on-it home-makers, where time is saved now, for a lot of time later.
THE IDEA:
The Homeserve App. For household superheroes.
The Brief:
Bournemouth's Arts by the Sea Festival chose to focus on Mindfulness for this year's theme and needed to partner with a large-scale brand which assisted in promoting both the art festival and the mindfulness theme.
RESEARCH:
We started by researching mindfulness. We then researched lateral ways to practise mindfulness. We found that the act of 'divergent thinking' i.e. getting creative by using as many senses as possible, is highly effective in clearing the mind and providing distraction from stress. Yoga uses this principle.
We also found that behaviourally and developmentally, humans have a fundamental need to use their hands to build and fix. This is built into us at birth. This is our human truth.
With this insight, we decided to partner with LEGO. In simple terms, the LEGO product is building blocks. However, using LEGO enables mindfulness, by engaging both the body and the imagination to create new formations. For this campaign, this is our brand truth.
INSIGHT:
'Zen' isn't something you need to find, but something you can create yourself.
ACTIVATION STRATEGY:
Pre-festival activity:
In order to pre-promote this activity at the Art's Festival, we found creative ways to turn Bournemouth into a LEGO city in the months leading up to the Festival. Small teaser descriptions of the festival were found on each LEGO feature around Bournemouth.
In-festival activities:
LEGO wall
A large LEGO wall was placed in the centre of the Arts Festival which passers-by could interact with, including 'mindfulness mentors' who explained the benefits of using LEGO to de-stress - no matter your age.
LEGO Bournemouth model-city
The campaign also included an unfinished Bournemouth model-city, which festival-goers (the majority being Bournemouth residents) could help to complete.
Background:
'Let Toys Be Toys' is a cause campaign which aims to stop limiting children's interests by promoting some toys as only suitable for girls, and others only for boys.
Communications Challenge:
To assist the 'Let Toys Be Toys' cause by encouraging parents to consider bringing up their children gender-neutrally.
RESEARCH:
None of our agency team were parents yet. So what did we do? We went undercover and made ourselves a Mum's Net account.
We found that parents' beliefs in gender-neutral upbringing can be segmented into 3 groups: the 'I don't believers', the 'I do believers', and the 'I don't carers'.
We figured that the most effective segment to target directly were the "I do believers" - 48% of parents stated that they do believe in gender-neutral parenting on a Mum's Net Forum Survey.
HOWEVER
Although this segment stated that they do believe in gender-neutral upbringing, 71% of them admitted to not acting. It therefore appeared that there was an intention-action gap.
So what is stopping them from acting?
With too much parenting information out there, they're unsure of what is the best advice and exactly what they should do. We found that these parents were feeling overwhelmed. This is our human truth.
But why should they have to act? (This is the insight)
In fact, we discovered that parents were acting. They were encouraging gender stereotyping by defaulting to gender specific activites for their children and directing their children to gender-specific toys and games. In reality, what they needed was encouragement not to take these actions. Essentially, NOT to act.
Leaving children to play with different gender-attached toys aids in their life long development. Playing with building blocks develops motor skills. Playing with trucks and cars develops spatial awareness skills. And playing with dolls develops social, speech and language skills. So why act at all? Instead, shouldn't parents just let them play freely?
"A lot of parents will do anything for their kids, except let them be."
SINGLE-MINDED PROPOSITION:
Provide parents who already believe in gender-neutral upbringing with the confidence to do so, and the understanding of the importance to just let their child be.
TONE OF VOICE:
Gentle, authentic and encouraging.
ACTIVATION STRATEGY:
- A hero video campaign (used as pre-roll YouTube adverts for videos on YouTube, shown to users who are regular visitors to sites such as Mum's Net and Dad's Net)
- Digital Banner Adverts
- A partnership with Persil
Persil Partnership
Persil had already established a strong strategy via it's 'Dirt is Good' campaign. The message to parents being this: Let children play outside freely. Getting dirty is good because it allows children to experiment and develop important life skills. Let them be.
Persil's messaging strategy aligned perfectly with ours and by partnering with Persil, each campaign's message re-inforced the others. (Meaning Transfer - McCracken).
*this campaign was entered into the 2019 EDCOM competition for European Universities along with hundreds of European Universities.
The Brief:
Boozi Body Care, cocktail-inspired body care brand, needed to build a loyal following of 18-30 year olds via their Instagram in order to generate repeat purchase and new business.
RESEARCH:
The previous social media activity focused on pack-shots and product images and didn't communicate either functional or emotional benefits. But most importantly, the previous content didn't show any people. There was no association between product and person.
Secondly, social media content is often popular and particularly engaging when it provides a way to follow others' lives, or story.
IDEA: Nicky's Boozi Bodycare Takeover
As this was a short-term opportunity, working with the brand for just a month, I decided to demonstrate a more effective approach with a discrete, focussed campaign.
The campaign positioned Boozi Bodycare as an authentic but attainably inspirational brand. This campaign starred 'Nicky', a real girl, on her real holiday (for a month in the far-east and Australia), using and enjoying the benefits the products provide. I took over the Instagram account for a month and used appropriate content and copy to demonstrate the products being used and the benefits of each of them (hand lotion, body cream and lip balm).
RESULTS:
An increase of 3,000 Instagram followers over 1 month and an increase of over 50% in engagement with existing followers. This ultimately led to a significant and sustained uplift in sales whilst also providing inspiration for the brand enabling them to adopt more effective advertising approaches in the future.
'Wagamama's inspired' recipe film, created and edited using Final Cut Pro X.
Why?
- COVID-19; the UK are cooking delicious meals they miss from resturants, from home.
- Wagamama's decided to reveal some of their recipes online. But only in text form. This is the video cook along recipe...
This was a very hands-on project. I had the idea, created the story-boards, wrote the script (although it only consisted of one word...), became a costume stylist, scouted for locations, recruited an actress (my poor sister Nicky!), shot the film (in 4 takes...sorry Nicky), and edited the film.
It was an excellent experience and a lot of fun too (well for me anyway!)
*This video won 1st prize at The Southampton Shorts (A university Short Films Awards judged by a panel of experts)
CHALLENGE:
Build a new brand and create an integrated campaign including website design, TV advert and prints. See content for creative output.
