How can marketers achieve more recognition, more impact, more returns - for individuals, for brands and for our region as a whole - without actually spending more, but rather using more of the above brand assets we already have?
In 2021 the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity introduced a new award category, Creative B2B, a line extension if you will, to the section which includes Creative Data Lions, Direct Lions, PR Lions and Media Lions awards.
For South African marketers what more would need to happen for us to enter more and shine in these categories? And why shouldn’t we?
With regard to Creative Data for example, we have been gathering data for decades. Twenty five years ago, when we had only recently laid eyes on the wonders of the Nokia 3310 (a.k.a brick), Ogilvy’s client Pfizer had sent a brief to the creative department to come up with a branded gift for doctors, as pharmaceutical companies are wont to do, to encourage doctors to prescribe their products to their patients. In this case it was the newly launched cholesterol inhibitor Lipitor. To impress the doctors, these gifts often had a substantial budget allocation. Various offerings in the past, so went the brief, had included glass vases, wall clocks, desk sets and objets d’art various.
As the creative team pondered the solution to the brief, a lightbulb idea emerged. What if they gave the doctors a cellphone as a gift? They were so new then, that most people didn’t even have one yet. In selling the concept internally and to the client, the creative team realised that having a cellphone in their pocket would allow the client to send doctors important information about clinical trials, patient information, dosages and other relevant information, directly via phones, that weren’t even smart yet.
The fact that these gifts were eventually produced in impressive transparent casings that lit up when they rang, did contribute to their uptake. But the point here is that even the low tech of the day could directly connect client with their audience, with a 100% relevant message and medium, which ensured the new drug had a 100% uptake with the target market.
The above case study shows that the right content allows brands to be not just the passive purveyors of packaged goods, ‘spam or sell’, but can deliver more consumer expectations, be part of more real solutions.
With these endgames in mind, what more thinking can be done in the boardrooms of SA brand marketers? Perhaps brand stakeholders can prioritise identifying real societal needs out there, that their brands could deliver on - Math literacy, environmental or agri-health, child development, SMMe, family planning - who would need this information and how would it be received?
Fun as they are, global fast-food brands need no longer only come up with cheeky campaigns to sell more chicken or beef. If new consumer expectations are for brands to be more part of societal solutions, then new thinking, new media and new data can invite participation, for example to clean up public spaces. Such initiatives would communicate that the brand had identified that they are part of the problem and are being seen as part of solutions - environmental, job creation, public participation and so on.
These are the kind of initiatives that might be worthy of entries into new Creative Data or Creative B2B awards - areas where the brands of SA could play their part to ensure our region is seen to be standing up and being noticed in the world, with solutions-based ideas that tick those all-important societal impact goals.
Many brands have audiences comparable to mass media, so with more will, there are more opportunities for marketing thinkers to influence more, educate more, inform more and participate more in societal outcomes, with more returns on marketing activity and increased company and brand investment value as a knock-on effect!
We are already seeing the value of influencers, but what more societal outcomes could they be influencing?
Marketers and brands often cultivate considerable influence. We are already seeing the value of influencers, but what more societal societal outcomes could they be influencing? Where influencers meet channels are infinite opportunities to influence. Perhaps reminding us of the single-most benefit that the digital media offers marketers, is not only the possibility of the 5,9 million followers of Boity’s booty, but how could we really be levering these to connect more and #DoMore
The Creative B2B Lions and other local and global awards categories now allow brands to get recognition for connecting more, thinking more, doing more...
As the biggest and most dynamic marketing community in Africa and South Africa, we get to share these powerful B2B stories every day. As 2023 momentum picks up, we look forward to driving more recognition for your thinking more, caring more, connecting more, sharing more and winning more strategies, using the digital assets we already have for more impact, for more customers and for our region as a whole.
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On Thursday, 20 April, at 14h00 we invite you to spend an hour with our team to discuss how you can do more with a Press Office newsroom on Biz.
