Author Archives: StevieG

Idea Of The Day – The “Reframe Manoeuvre”

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Marketing guru and author John Grant refers to the “Reframe Manoeuvre” – this is where you shift your brand or product into an adjacent area which your target audience are hugely passionate about, or which is currently resonating in popular culture.

For example, using Cuprinol to care for your fences and sheds creates the perfect backdrop for entertaining in your garden. So, given that this activity is on the up as people do more socialising at home, what better way to promote Cuprinol than to create a series of activities around garden parties (for example hosting a massive garden party at Grand Designs Live, and giving people the chance to win garden party kits, as we did in last summer’s campaign).

So what reframe manoeuvres could you pull?

Are you a brand that sells nappies, or a provider of brilliant experiences for parents and their babies?
Are you an airline, or a reuniter of families that live apart from each other most of the time?
Are you a mobile network, or a facilitator of great nights out?

So when might a reframe manoeuvre be a good idea? At least three situations spring to mind:
- when you operate in a cluttered category with little functional difference between the brands.
- when using your product has a positive end benefit that has an emotional resonance with the audience.
- when everyone is familiar with your product and you have little new news to deliver.

Happy reframing!

Idea Of The Day – Get “Hung Up” On Realisation

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ABBA never, ever let anyone sample their songs. From the advent of sampling technolgy, producers flooded songwriters Benny and Bjorn with requests to borrow bitesize chunks of their classic tunes to spice up new tracks. But the Swedish pop alchemists were unmoved.

Until 2005 that is.

Madonna was creating her new album with producer Stuart Price. They had an idea for a song which had “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” as its basis. Rather than asking for sample clearance up front (which would have been turned down) they just went ahead and created the track “Hung Up”. Then they played it to Benny and Bjorn. Who loved it. Because it’s ace. And so they agreed to the release immediately.

What can we learn from this?

It’s far easier to sell an idea if the person you’re selling it to can see / feel / hear / touch / smell what it will be like. Much easier than trying to get them to visualise it from a few words or pictures cobbled together from Google Images. So wherever possible, create an image (or audio track, or film) that shows exactly what your genius brand activation / partnership / content idea / facebook page will look like. Not just for pitches – for everything.

John Wyer, our resident visualisation designer (and confectionery fiend) is waiting for your call…

Idea Of The Day – Where Good Ideas Come From

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Here’s today’s IOTD.

This is a promotional film for Steven Johnson’s excellent book “Where Good Ideas Come From”.

It’s a joy to watch.

One of his observations in the book is that, even though the common perception is that big ideas come to individuals in a flash of inspiration (the Eureka! moment), this is rarely the case. Great ideas are generally borne of a bit of a slog, involving many people’s input. We should remember this when we come out of a stetch session thinking that we haven’t quite cracked it. We probably have, we just don’t know it yet, and the thing to do is to pick the best of what you have and graft at making it amazing. With the help of all the brilliant people around you.

Idea Of The (Bank Holi)Day – Lynx In Tunisia

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You’ll be aware of the Lynx (or Axe in other countries) brand promise – using our deodorant will make you irresistable to women.

Here’s a film that shows how their Tunisian agency expressed this strategy.

If you are too lazy to click on the link, or have a very slow network connection, this is what they did…

They created a Facebook app which enables you to change your relationship status to something along these lines: “John Jones is in a relationship with Susan Smith and 312 other women“. This appears in your newsfeed at which point your mates, amazed (and not a little jealous) to hear of your incredible sexual prowess, click to find out more. Here they get taken through to an Axe (remember, Axe in other countries) page where they get a) the joke and b) the chance to do the same thing.

Idea Of The Day – Remix A YouTube Video

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Here’s an interesting bit of YouTube functionality that you might not have seen. Follow the instructions in the clip to see how you can remix the video.

There must be some interesting applications of this we can use – allowing people to jump to a particular part of the clip, the notes of a piano, playing sections of a song…

Post any you can come up with.