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.
BP station owners have reported sales declines up to 40 percent since the Gulf spill, and BP has done right by offering them cash, reductions in credit card fees and help with national advertising. Now there’s a push among BP station owners across the U.S., understandably anxious about long-term damage to the BP name, to rebrand as Amoco (the American oil company BP bought in 1998).
Proponents of the change praise Amoco as a well-known name with a great reputation. Others feel a rebrand is a big risk, given all the marketing dollars already spent creating the BP brand, and that a successful turnaround with the existing brand will have a larger impact. In my opinion, a name change isn’t needed—look at Tylenol and Exxon, which both survived PR nightmares and came out fine in the end.
Strong investment in the brand is the best way to strengthen BP long term—it would take a significantly larger investment to create familiarity and trust in a new brand. BP was a name consumers once trusted, and they want to again—and can, if the BP is managed properly. This means standing behind the brand and making decisions that demonstrate responsibility—donating a portion of gasoline sales to ongoing cleanup efforts, etc.
While it’s clear that not enough Americans are anxious about their health and motivated to improve it, they are likely concerned about the health of loved ones. For its 2010 Effie Award-winning campaign, the regional health insurance company Anthem created a “Health Footprint”—a score similar to a carbon footprint—designed to measure “your positive influence on others.” The message was that people’s actions have an effect on their social network; the bigger your Health Footprint, the greater your positive influence on others.
Believe it or not, studies suggest many of us can blame friends, family and co-workers for extra inches around the waistline. A 2007 study found that a person’s chances of becoming obese skyrocket if a friend becomes obese; conversely, “thinness is contagious.” Anthem’s TV commercials illustrate the concept—for example, a boy is seen imitating his dad’s good habits—and invite viewers to calculate their health footprint online and share their score with their virtual social networks. The microsite includes health and fitness tips.
The idea seemed to hit a nerve. Anthem’s microsite got 79,000-plus visits, more than double the goal. And 75 percent of those who started calculating their health footprint completed the process. By tapping into a social phenomenon, Anthem was able to engage consumers by helping them see how they can make a difference in the lives of loved ones, a message both empowering and inspiring.
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.
Marriage can be a great source of anxiety for young Indians, whose marital fate is often out of their own hands, arranged through the parents’ network, a priest or ads in local newspapers. The anxiety is that much more intense for educated, independent-minded women who don’t want to compromise on their beliefs and lifestyle but may be rushed to commit to someone they hardly know. (Our sister site has written about one Indian brand’s response to the modern woman’s wariness of arranged marriage.)
Earlier this year Times of India, a leading national daily, introduced the Times Equality Matrimonials to its Sunday supplement of matrimonial classifieds. “This space rejects the conventional thinking of a woman playing second fiddle to her husband and regards marriage as a true partnership placing both people are on an equal footing,” The Times declares. It even ran an Equality Marriage Manifesto. Separate ads target women (“Does hello to marriage mean goodbye to life as you know it?”) and men (“Do you want someone you can dictate to, or someone you can ask for advice?”).
The Times approach is likely to generate goodwill among its target consumer whether or not they place an ad (indeed, even if they’re already married). This is a great example of how a very old product or service can tap into current truths or anxieties to come across as very contemporary and strengthen bonds with younger generations.
“If Spain wins the World Cup, we’ll have to rethink our GDP growth forecast.” Those were the words of the minister of industry a few days before the World Cup final; going by the same rule, losing could lead to a slight decrease. The idea is simple: If I wake up happy and in a good mood, I might go out for lunch, get a fancier wine for dinner and book my vacation with a bit more enthusiasm. And if 40 million people wake up optimistic and confident, that could make a difference for the national economy.
Ironically, it was the Dutch bank ABN AMRO that researched the topic (after the 2006 World Cup) and released the study “Soccernomics,” which puts the economic effect of winning the World Cup at an additional 0.7 percent year-over-year growth for the winner; the loser is forecast to see a negative impact of 0.3 percent.
The economic effect in Spain remains to be seen, but the country certainly forgot about recession and unemployment for a few days. People focused on what they have in common rather that what differentiates them, and embraced the colors of our flag, finally getting over the bitter memories of dictatorship that it carried. What else can brands do beyond the typical endorsement or congratulatory note to ride out the wave of positive public sentiment following a win?
In Saudi, where grooms are expected to pay the bride’s family a dowry for her hand in marriage, many young men are asked to bear financial burdens they cannot hope to shoulder. Saco Hardware, in collaboration with JWT, created a social media promotion that spotlights the financial challenges facing young people and positions the retailer as a tool for helping them.
We came up with a simple concept/story: A video clip shows young Mousaed making the traditional visit to his future father-in-law, who demands 28 items from Saco as a dowry. Returning home, Mousead finds the catalogue is ripped to shreds, and the young man is left to guess the names of the items he needs to buy. Photos of torn pages were posted to the Saco Facebook page, and people were encouraged to identify the products to help Mousaed get one more item toward his marriage. Correct guesses won items.
The campaign is doing well with minimal support, and the hope is to evolve the effort into a commitment to sponsor newlyweds who need to furnish their apartments. For more social media case studies, see our Social Media Checklist.
We’ve written about two brands (Heineken and the sports channel Eurosport France) that have created campaigns based around the anxiety felt by soccer fans when they miss important games. With the 2010 World Cup, anxiety in this part of the world centered on the fact that the games were scheduled during working hours: 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. local time. Starbucks saw an opportunity, presenting itself as a solution that would allow people to watch the match and work at the same time. No guilt or stress over hiding from the boss. The other idea: to position a coffee drink as a beer alternative for watching these workday games.
Starbucks gave the World Cup a business breakfast touch. It installed 71 big flat-screen TVs in select branches and boosted its Wi-Fi so that the added online traffic wouldn’t cause problems. People would be able to work as fast as in their offices, but with a richer experience. There were also some World Cup breakfast specials and socially focused promotions (e.g., buy two, get one free). The stores seemed to be buzzing with people, and, more important, many customers (mostly male) started seeing Starbucks differently, as a new place to meet up with friends.
Chrysler sales have not come back as strongly as the automaker had hoped, so earlier this month the company announced a summer sales event that included a 60-day “Regret Free Purchase” incentive. Customers who buy a participating Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge or Ram Truck vehicle can return it within 60 days, and Chrysler will make the first two payments. The commercial, true to the Dodge brand’s use of sophomoric humor, compares buying a Chrysler vehicle with getting married: You may regret your recent nuptials, but you’ll be happy with your Chrysler purchase; if not, return it.
General Motors, post-bankruptcy, ran a similar incentive last September, and Chrysler made a similar offer on its minivans earlier this year. I’m not a fan of marketing that uses a negative point of view to make a positive point, which puts doubt in the consumer’s mind. I might regret buying shoes I don’t need, but a car? Or is it that I might regret buying a Chrysler? The question for the consumer is whether Chrysler is the best choice right now, between the bailout, quality issues and lack of new product—why re-plant that seed of doubt?
Hyundai’s successful “Assurance” program covers owner’s payments in the event they lose their job, sending a positive message that Hyundai stands behind its products and cares about its owners. Chrysler just hopes you won’t send it back!
Here in Pakistan, domestic home appliances brands have shown a significant communication shift during this recession. While pre-recession communication was centered on inspiring lifestyles, now it’s all about a reason to believe, and brands are highlighting features and facts. A good example is Dawlance, which targets the upper middle class.
A pre-recession commercial, from April 2008, poetically promises viewers that the brand is “As reliable as mother’s love, as reliable as shade in the sweltering heat of the sun, as reliable as true love, as reliable as a true promise.” A more recent TV spot drops the poetry for hard facts: A spokeswoman “at Dawlance i-novate Center” tells us that “in refrigerators I need quick cooling, and a large five-piped compressor gives me instant cooling. Dawlance understands my needs and is reliable for me.” Other spots highlight different features.
The problem here is that since the product is not significantly different from those offered by rivals, the brand is differentiated largely by the emotional promise propagated. By abandoning the emotional approach, Dawlance becomes more generic—the provider of just another product, one that could just as easily come from another manufacturer.
Larry Hagman, best known as oilman J.R. Ewing in the hit 1980s television show Dallas, is now the face of SolarWorld, a German solar energy company. Long a solar energy enthusiast, Hagman recently toldThe New York Times he was motivated by the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico to speak out. He added: “Since Sarah Palin is saying, ‘Drill, baby, drill,’ I’m saying, ‘Shine, baby, shine.’”
That’s just what the actor says, with his trademark cackle, in a spot for SolarWorld’s new advertising campaign. We see J.R. looking disapprovingly at a portrait of his younger self in an oil field while a background TV screen gurgles with oil-spill images. He walks out of his house and we see a roof lined with solar panels. SolarWorld does an interesting thing here: It’s not only tapping into anxieties around the Gulf spill and the target consumers’ likely aversion to the “Drill, baby, drill” mind-set but is also showing how perspectives can change, even if J.R. is fictional.
BP station owners have reported sales declines up to 40 percent since the Gulf spill, and BP has done right by offering them cash, reductions in credit card fees and help with national advertising. Now there’s a push among BP station owners across the U.S., understandably anxious about long-term damage to the BP name, to rebrand as Amoco (the American oil company BP bought in 1998).
