Blown up and not blown away

From a top floor with beautiful views of the London skyline, members of The Marketing Society gathered to meet three hand-picked Brave Award winners and their campaigns. Gemma opened the session on a bomb, referring to half of SOHO being evacuated earlier in the day.

I wondered if that was relevant to what we would hear next...?

First up was Ruth Rowan (CMO NTT) talking about revolutionising the fan experience of the Tour de France. At the core of this B2B partnership was a technology problem for NTT to solve. Connectivity over the 3000k route and extremely varied terrain was poor and effected the fan experience badly. The innovation in tech enabled creation of content that was not available before, like predictions or live speeds and overlays into live TV broadcasts. This new content began to build stories, which were highly engaging for fans and will (my humble opinion) set standards for sport event coverage going forward.

NTT used the spotlight and attention on the Tour to amplify their brand in the B2B market by high profile print and digital communication. This together with inviting prospective clients to an attractive experience centre accompanying the Tour, generated 200M in new business.

In summary Ruth advised to be ready for the unexpected, really engage with people and learn through them.

Next up was Rob Sellers and Craig Mawdsley taking us through their amazing Trash Isles Project, which was a collaboration between AMV BBDO, LadBible and Plastic Oceans. The engine of this campaign could not be money, so they invented a model that stimulated the 3 main stakeholders public, government and media continuously. The genius idea behind the campaign was to turn the massive trash patch floating in the Pacific Ocean into a recognised country by the UN, which would put an obligation on other countries to clean it up.

You really can influence global conversation by taking an idea a little further and executing it in an innovative and creative way.

The third campaign came from Eva Bojtos and Imogen Thompson sharing their award entry for the ‘Creative use of Media’ – ‘We are partners’ by John Lewis. Following a huge rebrand in 2018 under the tagline ‘because for us it is personal’, the team were looking for an opportunity to empower their 25k partners (employees) to become brand ambassadors through a social media app. The high risks associated to this led them to test and learn under the radar. ‘Less people you ask, the quicker you can go’, said Eva. The trial gave the needed ammunition it could work, once it is out it is less scary.

The content could be categorised into four buckets:
1. social inspiration
2. reappraisal for brand
3. 121 relationship building
4. being part of it (gaining skills in social media). Since launch a community has started to form and with that a direct relationship with customers.

Overall a great event with three impressive campaigns, nothing got blown up rather blown away.