Winner Spotlight: Ulster Bank & Ogilvy Dublin, “A Mortgage You Can Live With”
December 15, 2016
Images courtesy of Ulster Bank & Ogilvy Dublin.
Following the economic crisis in Ireland, Ulster Bank needed to rebuild trust with consumers. Wariness of all banks was pervasive, and mortgage lending was particularly controversial, as the media had pointed to it as a major cause of the crash that brought financial hardship for many. Furthermore, there wasn’t enough perceived difference between Ulster Bank and its competitors, leaving consumers confused when it came to choosing a mortgage provider.
Thus, in 2015, Ulster Bank and agency partner, Ogilvy Dublin, launched a campaign to set the bank apart. “A Mortgage You Can Live With” ran across a variety of touchpoints, including TV, outdoor, radio, digital, and branch displays. While the campaign helped communicate Ulster Bank’s rational benefits, the creative was lighthearted and evoked an emotional response.
“A Mortgage You Can Live With” ultimately met or exceeded all targets, growing sales at almost double the market rate. The campaign achieved an ROI of €2.46 for every euro invested in the first year alone. Ulster Bank and Ogilvy Dublin earned two trophies for the work at the 2016 Euro Effie Awards Gala, including a Bronze in the Services and Small Budgets categories, respectively.
We asked Maeve McMahon, Director of Customer Experience and Products at Ulster Bank, and Diarmuid McSweeney, Senior Strategic Planner at Ogilvy Dublin, to share their perspective on the campaign. Read on to learn how the team uncovered the insight, and why ‘consideration’ was the key target metric that drove the work.
Tell us a bit about your Effie-winning effort, “A Mortgage You Can Live With.” What was the insight that led to the big idea? How did your team arrive at that insight?
MM: We believed that there was a unique opportunity for Ulster Bank to break free from the functional, commodity advertising of the mortgage market by making a more meaningful connection with homebuyers. Research confirmed that consumers still needed assurance on availability and affordability of lending. Yet there was no longer any meaningful difference between providers on these criteria.
Using brandcepts in research to stimulate a deeper dive into behaviours and motivations, one consistent theme was revealed across all groups. Most consumers had friends and family who felt “trapped” or “constrained” by unsustainable mortgage payments and new customers were fearful of finding themselves in a similar position. Consumers were considering their mortgage repayments in the context of their longer term financial position and ultimately how it may impact their quality of life.
There was an acknowledgement that life changes, and what matters today (approval, low rates, cash back), might not be what matters tomorrow (flexibility, loyalty, fairness).
As mortgage customers were already thinking beyond availability and affordability and focused on the longer term; we felt that one of the tenets of our brand positioning around fairness uniquely positioned us to respond to this consumer need. This led to the development of the proposition ‘A mortgage you can live with’, which was less functional and short-term and designed to respond to consumers’ desire to have a fairer longer term relationship.
DM: Everything that Maeve says is true. When we put the “A Mortgage You Can Live With” proposition in front of consumers it was a clear winner because it was distinctive. All the other providers were still in “transactional” mode; this clearly put us into a more “relational” space by recognising that a mortgage is a long-term commitment, with long-term considerations and consequences.
Of course we were lucky to have a client that totally committed to the proposition. One of our key proof-points was the bank’s Fair Rate Promise, which assured fixed-rate customers that, at the end of their fixed-rate period, they would be offered the same rate options available to new customers.
On one level the introduction of this “fixed today and fair tomorrow” promise was a functional rate enhancement; but it had a big emotional impact. Even amongst those who preferred a variable rate option (and for whom you might expect the proposition had less appeal), there was a positive response with most reporting it suggested a provider that could be trusted now and in the future.
How did you bring the idea to life?
MM: Our consumer communications strategy was devised to match the customer journey from consideration through to drawdown of the mortgage and was comprised of four communication tasks: Engage, Rationalise, Activate and Nurture. In partnership with our agency MediaVest, we developed a channel plan to ensure that each task was supported by bespoke media.
To engage we developed an emotional 40 second TV ad to position Ulster Bank as approachable and warm, which was supplemented by large format outdoor. In addition, we used Video on Demand, in-branch merchandising, digital display and on-street activation.
To nudge mortgage customers through the journey to drawdown, we knew that we would have to promote the functional proof-points explicitly. Radio, digital display and branch display were used to activate this element of the campaign highlighting key availability, affordability and fairness features.
A key role for advertising was to activate prospects into making initial contact with our sales teams and we did this by developing a suite of radio ads to promote late evenings and Saturday opening in selected branches nationwide. To demonstrate always-on availability, an always-on digital approach was adopted with premium display used to promote proof-points and to direct prospects to the mortgage application section of our website.
Finally, our branch teams were instrumental in assisting customers who had applied to ensure the process to drawdown was as smooth as possible.
What was the biggest challenge that you faced bringing the idea to life? How were you able to overcome that challenge?
DM: One of the biggest challenges was finding a single proposition that worked equally well in the two markets: Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland. Given our very sensible budget constraints, we knew one size would have to fit all but it’s easier said than done. Although geographically close, the two markets operate under very different regulations and have very different housing, consumer and competitor environments. Quite rightly, both markets had to be treated equally, so a lot of effort went in to identifying and finessing the final product and marketing proposition.
What is the biggest learning you’ve taken away from this effort?
MM: Isolate the one key area where you can intervene to make the most impact. In this campaign we identified “Consideration” as our key target metric. We knew that, if we could increase consideration, we could make a difference to the business. Throughout the process of developing the proposition, we frequently returned to the same question: “why will that trigger consideration”? It was an often frustrating, frequently inconvenient, but always useful question.
Is there anything else we should know about “A Mortgage You Can Live With?”
DM: Reading our submission, you might think that the strategic, creative and activation process was simple, logical and linear. But the truth is more complex. We encountered many strategic blind alleys and creative cul-de-sacs along the way. However, we regrouped and refined regularly until we were confident that “A Mortgage You Can Live With” was a campaign we could be proud of.
Winner Spotlight: Kenco & J. Walter Thompson London, “Coffee vs. Gangs”
December 17, 2015
Over the past decade, Kenco, a Mondelēz brand, has built a strong reputation for ethical, sustainable coffee production and distribution. Still, as these values became increasingly important to consumers, the number of competitors taking the same brand position continued to rise. Kenco needed to reaffirm its commitment to ethical and sustainable processes.
The brand, along with agency partner, J. Walter Thompson London, introduced Coffee vs Gangs, an ambitious social initiative that gave young people in Honduras the opportunity to build a brighter future for themselves.
The campaign featured TV ads that dramatized Kenco’s efforts in Honduras, and also drove traffic to a dedicated website that allowed people to track the progress of Coffee vs Gangs participants throughout the year-long program.
“Coffee vs. Gangs” by J. Walter Thompson London and Kenco (Mondelēz) won a Silver Effie in the Brand Revitalization category at the 2015 Euro Effie Awards Gala.
Read on to hear from Paul Kirkley, Global Partner at J. Walter Thompson London, as he explains the insight behind “Coffee vs. Gangs,” and shares advice for other companies working to incorporate corporate social responsibility efforts into their communications strategy.
Tell us a bit about your Effie-winning effort, “Coffee vs. Gangs.” What was the insight that led to the big idea? How did you get to that insight?
PK: Kenco had always lead the way in sustainability, but by 2013 other players in the category had caught up, and this no longer offered a point of difference. We knew we needed to reassert Kenco’s ethical leadership in a market which had become saturated. The insight lay in our product itself: coffee. We found an injustice at the origin of coffee in violent gangs and created an educational programme to give young people in Honduras the opportunity, training and financial and emotional support they needed to leave their dangerous lives behind them and become coffee farmers (one of the few honest and lucrative professions left in Honduras), providing them - for the first time - with a choice in life.
What the role of the marketer (or marketing) in driving Kenco’s social and environmental sustainability impact?
PK: A fundamental and integral one. With Coffee vs Gangs, our advertising strategy didn’t just play in the traditional sphere of communications, but reached into the strategy and behavior of the company itself. Marketing reframed what a coffee brand could achieve and has hopefully encouraged other marketers to look at how their work can impact social and environmental change at its core. This was an amazing team effort. We had ambitious, visionary clients who had the courage and passion to do something incredible.
What advice would you offer other companies working to incorporate corporate social responsibility efforts into their communications strategy?
PK: Make sure that your social responsibility efforts are authentic and true to your brand and offering. It’s important that CSR isn’t seen is a separate entity, but is truly and wholeheartedly baked into the idea and application of your communications strategy.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in bringing this project to life? How did you overcome that challenge?
PK: Accepting and facing new levels of risk involved in setting up an idea such as this was our biggest challenge. From finding the right NGO partner to help us set up a scheme in one of the most dangerous places in the world, attempting to hold simultaneous Skype chats with participants whose internet was powered by an unreliable generator, to ensuring the Honduran government were on board are all challenges that were definitely outside the normal remit!
The first class of “Coffee vs. Gangs” entrepreneurs recently graduated. How has the effort evolved since it was launched? What’s coming next for the “Coffee vs. Gangs” project?
PK: The original participants have now been given the seed money from Kenco to help them see their business plans come to life – from coffee farms, to coffee shops and nail bars. The scheme is continuing: we’ve now recruited the second wave of participants, who are now beginning their journey and receiving the training, education and support to become coffee famers. Watch this space.
Is there anything else we should know about the “Coffee vs. Gangs” campaign?
PK: Not only has the campaign won many marketing accolades (including a shortlist for Cannes PR, Best Integrated Cross Channel Cross Media campaign for the Drum Content Awards, FAB award for Branded Content, and of course a Euro Effie) but we’ve also seen a dramatic improvement in business results. Within the first 3 months of the campaign we saw a 27% increase in YOY volume sales and a 14% increase in YOY value share. Kenco brand loyalty also increased by 4% and the perception of Kenco as an ethical brand doubled. Furthermore, the total ROMI of the campaign was an impressive 1:1.45. The campaign was very well received, and we generated an additional 209 million opportunities to see via earned media. Most importantly our participants have completed their first year and are not only successfully beginning to build their own businesses, but also a life away from gangs.
Call For Entries for the 20th anniversary edition of the Euro Effie Awards is now open. Entry deadlines run April 13 - May 13, 2016. Learn more and enter at www.euro-effie.com.
Trends in male grooming have changed many times in the decades since Gillette, a Procter & Gamble company, first launched in 1901. In recent years, a new trend has been quietly on the rise in Europe: body grooming.
In response to this, Gillette developed the first razor specifically “built for the male terrain” - the Gillette BODY razor. While the market for this tool was large and still growing, research showed that many men were embarrassed by what they perceived as niche behavior. For the Gillette BODY product launch to be a success, Gillette needed to normalize the practice of body shaving among their target audience.
Enter “100 Years of Hair,” a time-lapse video by Gillette (Procter & Gamble) and agency partner, Grey London, which showcased a century of men’s grooming trends in under a minute. Iconic trends from each era were brought to life with changing backgrounds, clothing, music, and hair styles, culminating in the introduction of the Gillette BODY razor.
The Gillette BODY campaign took home a Gold Effie in the Small Budget category, and a Silver Effie in the Product/Service Launch category at the 2015 Euro Effie Awards Gala, where Grey Group EMEA was named Agency of the Year. Of the Gillette BODY launch, the Euro Effie team said, “This campaign had a great strategy to overcome the category decline and managed to have impressive sales, but what really impressed the jurors is how the strategy and creative idea were brought to life!”
We asked Alix Toothman, Senior Planner at Grey London, to share her perspective on how this successful campaign, driven by a viral video, was brought to life.
Tell us a bit about your Effie-winning effort, “Gillette BODY: 100 Years of Hair.” What was the key insight that led to the big idea? How did you get to that insight?
AT: We considered several approaches to the brief in the early planning process, but we got most excited about an insight relating to generational differences. While combing through some of the research data, we realized how different body grooming rates were between younger men and older men (roughly Millennials and Boomers). While culturally body grooming still seemed a little taboo, amongst younger men, it was actually the norm with almost 80% body grooming vs. 30% of Boomers. This led us to realize that body grooming wasn’t really inherently weirder than other grooming and style trends – it was just a newer trend that younger men were adopting first. So that led to a brief around putting body grooming into context of all the other style and grooming trends that have come before it.
The primary objectives of the Gillette BODY product launch were to create awareness and drive sales. What were your KPIs against these objectives? How did you know you had been successful?
AT: As with any P&G launch, there were clear sales goals in the key launch markets which we were aware of, because fundamentally we always try to tie the marketing objectives back to business objectives. Our marketing objectives were based on trial of existing body groomers, although we quickly realized that even men who were already body grooming were reluctant to actively acknowledge the behavior – which is what is required to buy a second razor specifically for body grooming!
We had a feeling we had met these KPIs even before the hard sales numbers came back because a few retailers like Amazon Germany actually sold out, and the view rates on the creative were very high. Our success was confirmed when we got the actual sales reports back from Gillette.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in bringing your idea to life? How did you overcome that challenge?
AT: The biggest challenge was to find a way of normalizing a behavior that was still embarrassing to acknowledge for most of our potential consumers. We couldn’t just tell our men there was a better tool for the job they were already doing. We had to make them feel good or at least normal about the behavior first.
What was the biggest learning you took away from this effort?
AT: It may sound obvious, but it’s always easy to focus on the attributes of the product. This razor was objectively better designed for body grooming and had received great results in research. But rational messaging wasn’t going to overcome the emotional reluctance that still lingered around the behavior. We had to understand the wider context around using our product to unlock a powerful emotional entry point for creative.
Call For Entries for the 20th Anniversary of the Euro Effie Awards will launch on December 14, 2015. Visit www.euro-effie.com for updates.
Winner Spotlight: Deutsche Telekom & DDB Berlin, “Travel & Surf”
December 3, 2015
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Have you ever wasted an inordinate amount of time on vacation searching for a Wi-Fi connection, only to spend even more time worrying about exorbitant roaming charges?
It’s a struggle many people can relate to, especially when traveling internationally. To help with this common problem, Deutsche Telekom offers “Travel & Surf” data roaming packages, which allow travelers to use mobile internet at a fixed price. Despite the obvious benefit, the company was challenged to convince consumers to overcome their fear of unexpected charges and change their roaming behavior.
Deutsche Telekom and agency partner, DDB Berlin, introduced “Wi-Fi Dogs,” a humorous mockumentary-style video that tells the story of José, a cheeky entrepreneur who trains dogs to sniff out Wi-Fi and leases them to vacationers. The video pokes lighthearted fun at the lengths we will go to to find internet abroad, encouraging travelers to try Travel & Surf and reclaim their vacation time.
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The campaign, which generated wide-reaching engagement and grew Deutsche Telekom’s user base, won Grand at this year’s Euro Effie Awards competition. Of this year’s top winner, the Euro Effie team commented, “The jurors all agreed that this was a solid, well written case mentioning all the needed results to assess its effectiveness. It was a great all-round case: creativity, insight, strategy.”
We asked DDB Berlin's Alice Bottaro, Creative Director, and Bianca Dordea, International Business Director, to share their perspective on their team’s successful campaign.
Tell us a bit about your Grand Effie-winning effort, Travel & Surf. What was the key insight that led to the big idea? How did you get to that insight?
AB: We noticed immediately that data roaming had a really bad reputation and everyone preferred to rely on Wi-Fi. What was really interesting, though, was the resulting change in our holiday behaviour: we were suddenly doing the most ridiculous things to find free Wi-Fi abroad. People were sneaking into the neighbour hotel or spending hours in a Starbucks instead of being at the beach. It seemed like a relevant topic for travellers and a story that no one had told yet. The challenge was to tell it in a way that would make people smile about themselves, without the brand seeming judgmental or preachy.
For this project to be effective, you needed to get consumers to overcome the habit of turning off their data roaming out of fear of expensive charges. What was the most challenging aspect of this, and how did you overcome it?
AB: Data roaming causes a sort of Pavlovian response, because people have learned that the only safe thing to do is to switch it off. The tricky part is that to make a Travel&Surf pass work, you have to turn your data roaming on. If you look at our campaign, however, we didn’t address this issue directly. Instead of trying to convince everyone that data roaming is amazing, we showed how absurd it is to waste precious holiday time looking for Wi-Fi. This made our product more relevant and our message credible, because it related to people’s experiences.
What was the biggest learning you took away from this project?
AB: It was fun and fascinating to work on such a “Zeitgeist” brief. Also, this campaign shows how creativity and effectiveness are connected and benefit from each other. Being awarded at the Euro Effies and also at festivals like Cannes and the D&AD is a great result: it proves again that “creativity is the most powerful force in business,” as a wise man once said.
What is your key to a successful client-agency relationship?
BD: The successful long-term relationship between DDB and Deutsche Telekom is based on transparency and trust. Both sides have very high creative standards for their products and in the last years they have been setting benchmarks for creating successful branded advertising content and storytelling with campaigns such as “Familie Heins” or “Wi-Fi Dogs.”
Call For Entries for the 20th Anniversary of the Euro Effie Awards will launch on December 14, 2015. Visit www.euro-effie.com for updates.
