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• Looking Outside for a Dramatic Kick in the Marketing Pants

Looking Outside for a Dramatic Kick in the Marketing Pants

written on December 06, 2010 by Nikki Evans

If businesses need a dramatic and swift kick in the pants marketing wise, their executives should look outside for help from the most experienced and wildly creative marketing/advertising/branding people they can find.

That’s what I heard in the 2009 PBS documentary, Art & Copy, which played recently at an AIGA Cleveland event.  That’s not what anyone said exactly, but here are three stories from the movie that might convince you I’m right.

Color Makes the Difference

In 1965, Braniff’s new president hired Jack Tinker Associates to help him overhaul Braniff’s public image, which he considered “staid.”  Jack Tinker account leader, Mary Wells, brought in well-known fashion designers to join her team, which then collectively created The End of the Plain Plane campaign.

Each of Braniff’s planes was painted a single color, selected from a palette of 15 bright hues.  The color palette was applied to aircraft interiors, gate lounges and ticket offices.  Complementary artwork was imported from foreign countries, and famous fashion designers created all new, colorful crew uniforms.  Ads promised, We won’t get you where you’re going any faster, but it will seem that way.

Up to 1978 when airline industry deregulation was introduced, Braniff was one of the fastest-growing and most-profitable airlines in the United States.

Struggling No More

George Lois promised Tommy Hilfiger, unknown and struggling New York fashion designer, he could immediately get his brand recognized.  The ad Lois created for billboard and magazine publication put Hilfiger into the same category as three other extremely well-known designers, Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis and Calvin Klein.

The ad delivered on Lois’s promise.  A few days after the ad debuted, Hilfiger appeared on the Tonight Show where he admitted to Johnny Carson and millions of viewers that he was a “struggling designer” and was embarrassed to be put into the same category as those other men.

Right away, to be sure he lived up to the ad’s promise, Hilfiger admits to working “like an animal” to make sure every button, every stitch and every fabric was perfection.  He now credits Lois’s ad for his becoming a multi-billion dollar company.

Just Do It…However

In 1988, Weiden+Kennedy created the slogan Just Do It for a new Nike campaign.  Immediately, the short sentence not only became associated with Nike but also became three simple words to live by for many Americans.

Nike received a letter from a woman giving credit to the slogan for her “leaving the bum.”  A man said hearing Just Do It as a senior in high school gave him the courage to ask a girl to the prom.

Inside Nike, female employees began to tell their personal stories about how sports helped them become confident and self-sufficient woman, leading to ads featuring one young girl after another stating all the good things that will happen to her “if you let me play sports.”  Just Do It had become much more than an advertising slogan.  All the while, it continued to be positively associated with the successful company it spoke for.

See What I Mean?

During the movie, one ad man expressed the sometime sentiments of many marketing/advertising/branding consultants when he said, “I think we have more passion for what our clients can aspire to than they do.”

If business executives hunger for a different way to market, they should look outside for the best talent they can find and then allow those people to do their thing.  It might pay off as much for their businesses as it did for Braniff, Tommy Hilfiger and Nike.

 

Copyright © 2010 Nikki Evans, Spotlight Writing