JWT’s AnxietyIndex is designed as a place to discuss how brands and consumers are responding to the global recession. With daily content updates, AnxietyIndex.com includes contributions from around JWT’s network, offering a truly global perspective.
After completing a major renovation that includes new food and retail facilities, Sydney Airport is appealing to Australians to get to the international terminal early to shop and eat. But rather than simply spotlight the offerings, the airport puts anxiety at the center of a campaign that positions the terminal as an antidote to the tongue-in-cheek ailment PFT (Pre-Flight Tension). Explains a YouTube page: “If you’ve ever flown overseas, you may have noticed a change in your normal behaviour. You might have seemed a little more anxious. You might have experienced sudden mood swings. You might have even found yourself sweating and, in some cases, swearing profusely.”
One spot shows a hilariously near-hysterical wife and her husband as they prepare to leave the house, almost forget their tickets and arrive at “final call” for their flight. Spouses of both genders should readily identify. Another spot shows a sufferer of “obsessive passport disorder” at the airport who frantically searches for his passport, finds it, then forgets where he’s put it, setting off more frantic searching—a little too much anxiety and not enough humor here. The ads direct people to easepft.com.au.
Any traveler will surely engage with the premise, but the campaign risks hitting a bit close to home for the more seriously anxious, and travelers don’t find out what’s actually in the new terminal until a second phase of the campaign launches.
In our Recession Handbook, we advised marketers to “Inspire rather than empathize with consumers” in tough times, fueling hope and optimism rather than resentment. Kia Canada’s new “Drive Change” campaign provides a nice example. An initial spot told viewers that “drive” is “the urge to push on, a force that makes us think big no matter how small we start. It’s our inner fight to do what’s right, and it’s in us all.”
Then Kia put its words—“A vehicle can be a vehicle of change too”—into action with two minute-long spots that show a Kia team making over rundown spaces in just a day. In “Change Court” (below), a parking lot at a youth shelter is turned into a basketball court complete with mural, and “Change Garden” shows a junkyard at a community housing development morphing into a sustainable garden. Kia vehicles are parked in and around the spaces being renovated, integrated somewhat organically into the settings.
The ads do a nice job of showcasing the product and the CSR initiative concurrently. And they cleverly tap into the satisfaction we get from Extreme Makeover-type shows—watching a scene of disrepair being turned into one of renewal, we feel that with some basic skills and determination, we too can make this happen.
At a time when manufacturing jobs in the U.S. are declining drastically and iconic domestic brands like Chrysler have been struggling to survive, many Americans are anxious about the economic realities of a post-recession era, a digital age and a flatter world. With Apple and Google as today’s venerated brands, the skilled blue-collar worker has clearly lost his place at the heart of the economy.
Using slogans like “Everybody’s work is equally important,” Levi’s is tapping into this sentiment and adding an optimistic spin. A press release cites “a new generation of ‘real workers’ … who see challenges around them and are inspired to drive positive, meaningful change.” Ads focus on the company’s donations to the struggling Rust Belt town of Braddock, Pa., and feature its citizens. But some commenters on YouTube and elsewhere gripe that Levi’s isn’t actually bringing jobs to the town and its clothes aren’t domestically produced.
By contrast, a campaign from Chrysler’s Jeep Grand Cherokee is a paean to the idea of “made in America.” A voiceover talks about a nation of builders and craftsmen—“men and women for whom straight stitches and clean welds were matters of personal pride”—as we see images of America’s proud industrial past. Viewers are reassured that “This was once a country where people made things, beautiful things. And so it is again.” (Cue the latest Grand Cherokee.) The tagline: “The things we make, make us.” This campaign seems more likely to connect than Levi’s pitch, which seems to beg the question of where blue-collar hope will come from, at least for towns beyond Braddock.
It was only a matter of time before a marketer coopted the quintessentially British “Keep Calm and Carry On” slogan—originally a World War II propaganda poster (designed in case of Nazi invasion), rediscovered by a bookstore owner 10 years ago and seen everywhere (on posters, mugs, T-shirts, screensavers, etc.) in the U.K. during the downturn. “The words are … particularly positive, reassuring, in a period of uncertainty, anxiety, even perhaps of cynicism,” a London School of Economics social psychologist told The Guardian last year in explaining its popularity.
Things are looking even worse for the U.K. today. The government’s austerity measures, announced Tuesday, were met with headlines like “Pain now, more pain later.” Nectar, a loyalty card, launched a print campaign timed to coincide with the announcement, telling Brits to “Keep Calm and Carry One.” Nectar’s signature purple replaces the usual red background, and an image of the card stands in for the crown. Web copy reads: “Don’t be disheartened by the Budget news! Times may be tough, but using your Nectar card is a savvy way to collect points and spend them on great rewards.”
Using bad news for a brand’s advantage is risky and tough to pull off, but now seems like just the right time for Nectar to leverage this pop-culture phenomenon.
Tapping into nostalgia and heritage has been a recession marketing tactic among brands across categories and continents (we’ve written about relevant campaigns in the U.K., New Zealand and the U.S.). Harking back to better, simpler times idea can serve as a source of comfort for unsettled consumers.
We’ve seen many instances of this in food and beverage marketing, and the latest comes from Coca-Cola. A new campaign for Mello Yello (Coke’s very low-profile answer to Pepsi’s Mountain Dew) revives the original logo from 1979 and uses the tagline “The original smooth.”Brandweek quotes a brand strategist who says Mello Yello’s retro strategy makes sense given that “things with an edge speak to fast pace, hectic and crazy. People are already overwhelmed quite a bit.”
Recently this trend has popped up in fashion. The New York Times spotlighted several long-established brands that have revived bygone looks “in the hope that old clothing styles with a classic feel will assuage consumer anxiety in shaky times.” These include Jantzen (which has updated its swimsuits from various decades of the 20th century), L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer. A TV spot showing models in L.L. Bean’s Signature Collection amid idyllic New England scenery includes the tagline “Inspired by our heritage. Designed for today.” Tapping into the brand’s history seems like a good way to assure shoppers looking to spend on items that are more timeless than trendy.
When the recession set in, many brands predictably focused on price and value messaging. For example, a print ad for Kraft’s Macaroni and Cheese was headlined “Small price. Big cheese-eating grin.” A new theme introduced last month, “You know you love it,” drops the focus on value and lightheartedly plays up the comfort-food appeal of a mac ‘n’ cheese meal for adults with lines like “The most fun you can have with your stove on” and “Imported from your childhood.”
“We’re realizing a lot of our brands have the right to play in a more emotional space than the rational territory we’ve mined in the past,” a Kraft exec told The New York Times in a story about the brand’s change of direction. Brandweek cites the campaign as part of a wave of upbeat branding and image work that aims to make more emotional connections than the tactical approaches of the recession. (We’ve written about another example spotlighted by Brandweek, AT&T’s optimism-themed “Rethink Possible” campaign.)
While consumers are still looking for value as they continue to search for signs of stability, the time is right for brands to reassert their identities and invest in forging longer-term ties with consumers.
As the U.K. counts down to the May 6 general election, a tight three-way race, an ad campaign from The Independent is tapping into the political anxieties of its target readers and attempting to inspire them. “A few people count way too much,” an election-themed video warns, listing Rupert Murdoch (who will “throw the weight of the country’s two biggest newspapers behind one party”) and the millions spent by the Tory-supporting Lord Ashcroft and by unions.
The point is not only that The Independent will provide the facts—“Truth matters” is the campaign’s tagline—but that the facts will empower voters (“People should not fear their government. Government should fear you”). Outdoor ads distill the message—says one: “Rupert Murdoch won’t decide this election. You will.” The campaign, which coincides with a major redesign of the newspaper and the arrival of a new owner, seems like a smart way to connect with readers at a tense time.
Meanwhile, IKEA is tackling election anxiety with levity on its U.K. site, presenting “kitchen designs inspired by our would-be PMs.” Each candidate gets a suitably Swedish name—for example, Brown becomes Brün; his kitchen is “durable and prudent for the economically conscious.” The idea reminds us of 7-Eleven’s recent whimsical elections-themed promotion in the Philippines.
The latest tactic to motivate shoppers to spend: the members-only sale site. These online outlets require “membership” (usually just a matter of signing up but sometimes a bit more involved), then run flash sales of designer goods or services. The concept started a decade ago with French fashion site Vente-Privee, according to The New York Times, but is a more recent phenomenon in the U.S.—one that makes a lot of sense at a time when most shoppers are still hesitant to shell out for higher-end brands.
It started about three years ago with fashion, a category now largely dominated by Gilt Groupe andideeli but getting more crowded and expansive (beauty offerings are a new feature). More recently, members-only has spread to travel (Gilt-owned Jetsetter, among others), home furnishings (Décor Insider) and mom-and-kids stuff (e.g., bTrendie and The Mini Social).
The concept is a smart one, providing not only the thrill that bargain lovers seek but a sense of urgency that can help override a shopper’s more cautious instincts. For brands, it’s a great way to discount when necessary without cheapening their image (since only members see sale prices, these don’t pop up in Google or aggregator sites). Plus, happy customers may well come back at full price. “We’ve had brands tell us that after one of our sales, the traffic on their own sites has increased in the double digits,” the VP for beauty at HauteLook told The New York Times.
Helping value-minded consumers shop more smartly is becoming increasingly important for brands and retailers in the post-recession era. According to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers report, the “rampant deal-seeking” of the recession is giving way to a selective consumer who still uses “shopping techniques and tools discovered during the recession.”
A PwC executive notes in a press release that as tools such as online and mobile coupons, comparison shopping sites, and loyalty and rewards programs become more ingrained among shoppers, “retailers will need to adapt their strategies to appeal to this new generation of consumers.” One recommendation is that retailers make “promotion and savings-related information more easily accessible across all shopper touch points.”
Target took a step in the right direction last week when it became the first major nationwide retailer in the U.S. to introduce mobile coupons. Customers sign up online or via text, then get monthly texts with links to a coupon page. The store clerk scans the bar codes from the phone at checkout. Watch for mobile coupons to become as popular as they already are in Japan, where consumers have used them for several years already. Juniper Research has forecast that in the developed world, more than 1 in 10 mobile subscribers will use mobile coupons by 2014, according to USA Today.
BMW’s recent shift away from its longtime tagline “The ultimate driving machine” to “Joy is BMW” looks like a savvy way for the luxury brand to remain relevant to post-recession consumers. In a release, BMW marketing VP Jack Pitney explained: “All of our efforts in engineering, design and technology are about one thing, which is creating moments of joy” and said the campaign focuses on “sharing those moments in an upbeat, humanized and refreshing fashion.” In other words, a cool car isn’t an end in itself. The visuals reinforce this, with ads showing more people (real BMW owners) than vehicles.
The North American campaign, emphasizing that “what you make people feel is just as important as what you make,” is at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum from one focused on performance and engineering. Which is about right, considering that “People now want to lead a richer life, rather than a life of riches,” as Madelyn Hochstein of DYG, a market research firm working with BMW, told The Wall Street Journal. Still, consumers may see touchy-feely as too much of a stretch for BMW; “Germans? Joy? Hahahaha,” remarked one commenter on the auto blog Jalopnik.
