Same Same? – Set sail for Blue Ocean Content

It often feels as though in many categories, brands tend to serve up the same content as their competitors and then wonder why the content doesn’t cut through.

When we set out to define a content mission for our clients we spend time looking at the competitive set and sometimes even ask the client to name the brands behind the content….it’s rare that they will pick them correctly.

To cut through, content needs to have the consumer at the heart and be built around strong insights and brand truths, but also there are always opportunities to disrupt what the pack is doing and cut through with hero content campaigns that don’t look like or take the same narrative as your competitors.

It also seems that the higher the price point the less risk adverse brands are:

Jewellery – great looking model or celebrity with a piece from the brand.

Cars – highlight the car in aspirational location or escaping with the family, beautiful exterior shots, internal shots showing the instrumentation and cut to the driver and or family enjoying the experience.

 That’s why we love this new piece of work from The Wieden+Kennedy team in Tokyo, who decided to leave the car clichés in the bin with their latest campaign for Audi Japan. Instead of they opted for an approach that tunes into emotion and headspace – leaving shots of the A7 Sportback and A8 till the final seconds of the two spots.

And of course, travel:

Panoramic destination shot, authentic experiences and people slightly more aspirational than me enjoying the experience.

Even when it is a must from the client to have some of these attributes, we relish the opportunity to make the content more relatable and not same same.

Recently with Avalon Cruises in a campaign that included TV and a range of content we flipped the thinking to tell the story n the insight that kids don’t believe that their parents could ever be up for having a good time…

We extended the story with personalised film and content to travel agents, asking the agents to help the kids with their homework, and even sent them lunch boxes to make the kids lunch.

 The result was Avalon got noticed above and beyond the pack, travel agents engaged in there hundreds through the microsite and a closed Facebook page and sales went up by over 25% year on year.

 Yes, we got the obligatory experiences in there, but by looking for a strong insight and telling the story from a fresh perspective, cost effectively gave the brand higher impact.