Marketing Art Meets Science

7/21/2019 Marketing Art Meets Science

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/marketing-art-meets-science 1/14

DOI: 10.2501/JAR-53-3-273-285 September 2013 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH 273

Every three months, the Journal of Advertising

Research strives to showcase the finest global

thought leadership from marketing-research aca-

demics and professionals. And every year its pub-

lisher, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF),

shares a selection of award-winning papers from

its annual David Ogilvy Awards for the Septemberissue. The Journal is honored to present this impor-

tant work in the pages that follow.

Launched in 1994, the Ogilvy Awards celebrate

the extraordinary and/or creative use of research in

the advertising development processes of research

firms, advertising agencies, and advertisers. Each

year’s winners represent “the incredible creativity,

collaboration, and agility that mobilize today’s suc-

cessful insight leading advertisers,” said ARF Presi-

dent and Chief Executive Officer Gayle Fuguitt.

This year’s winners did what successful cam-paigns have done with intelligence and integrity

over the past 19 years:

• ignited brand resonance by successfully posi-

tioning (or repositioning) brands to speak

directly to the consumer/customer with more

relevance, strength, and authority;

• helped companies overcome critical challenges

to their core brand essence and transform the

way they use advertising;

• optimized product, campaign, and communica-

tion efforts aimed at revitalizing brands and gen-

erating new customers, segments, or markets;

• literally created new categories of products or

services where none existed before; and

• achieved unparalleled bottom-line revenues,

sales growth, and brand building.

Fuguitt applauded these three top Ogilvy winnersfor their groundbreaking work:

• Grand Ogilvy Award (Procter & Gamble: “P&G

London 2012 Olympic Games ‘Thank You,

Mom’”);

• Research Achievement (Slim Jim, ConAgra

Foods: “Slim Jim Man Medicine”); and

• Research Innovation (Glad, The Clorox Com-

pany/Procter & Gamble: “Stronger StandAgainst Waste”).

“Real time metrics, remarkable partnerships

between tried and true tracking firms and new

world digital insight firms demonstrate that win-

ners have to connect together in a way that was

considered taboo less than a decade ago,” said

Fuguitt. “You can even see competitors collaborat-

ing to achieve the greater good—on great advertis-

ing that hits the emotional spot for consumers and

inspires action.”To her point, the winning entries take us to

places that were completely unknown to market-

ers nearly two decades ago, when the competition

began. We trust you’ll enjoy the selections.

In 2013, Once Again, Marketing Art

Meets Science

Best-in-Show Winners of the Advertising Research

Foundation’s David Ogilvy Awards

Each year’s

winners represent

“the incredible

creativity,

collaboration,

and agility that

mobilize today’s

successful

insight leading

advertisers.”

Gayle Fuguitt,

President/CEO,

Advertising

Research Foundation



274 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH September 2013

BEST-IN-SHOW DAVID OGILVY AWARDS

INTRODUCTION

Procter & Gamble is the world’s largest

and most profitable consumer packaged

goods company. It has built a portfo-

lio of 25 billion dollar brands—each ofwhich generates from $1 billion to more

than $10 billion of sales each year. This

includes brands like Pampers, Gillette,

and Tide—which span a range of prod-

uct categories and are household names

around the world.

While P&G growth has been strong in

developing markets, it has been weaker

in developed markets, due to slower mar-

ket growth and declining market shares.

These share declines were driven pri-marily by consumer value issues on key

brands in several large categories because

of price increases taken to recover higher

commodity costs, which P&G competitors

did not take, and increased promotional

activity by competitors.1

P&G needed to re-establish strong con-

sumer value across its brands to help drive

sales. To drive sales across brands and cat-

egories, P&G needed a radically new way

to think about creating additional con-sumer value for its brands.

P&G is a company of brands, but his-

torically, it did not have a collective iden-

tity. Lots of powerhouse brands, in lots of

countries, which is great, but how to lev-

erage this strength across brands? What

if there were a way to turn P&G’s corpo-

rate scale and reputation into a competi-

tive advantage? What if we could unite

P&G’s brands and categories under a big

idea and make P&G—on its own and forthe first time—stand for something special

in the hearts of billions of people world-

wide? What if we could get people to buy

P&G products because they love what the

company brand stands for and they want

to buy what the company makes?

1 2012 P&G Annual Report.

The big idea: Organize around the con-

sumer—mainly women—in the role they

uniquely play as caregivers and family

anchors—as mothers—in a way that has

global resonance—via connection to theaspirations of the Olympics.

To do this, P&G would be doing what

it had never done before: leading with the

corporate brand. It would put P&G before

the brands that people love and trust. For

the first time ever, P&G would be targeting

its core audience, women age 18 or older,

with a brand campaign from a company

that most had never given more than a

passing thought.

For the 2010 Winter Olympic Games inVancouver, Canada, P&G signed up to be

a sponsor of the US Olympic Team and

debuted the first corporate campaign—

“Thank You, Mom” with the very success-

ful “Kids” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone”

ads. Following the success of that sponsor-

ship, P&G signed on as a full International

Olympic Committee (IOC) “TOP” sponsor

of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

P&G aimed to generate unprecedented

incremental sales globally from its LondonOlympics sponsorship. The creative com-

munications campaign used the Games

as the platform to help deliver business

results for the first of its kind, the biggest

initiative in company history.

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES

Win the Olympics

When you’re a corporate sponsor, you

want to “win” the Olympics. We weren’t

happy to just be there. Going up againsttrusted brands like Coca-Cola and Visa,

who have sponsored the Olympics for

decades, we knew the stakes were high.

Make P&G a Love Mark

To get women age 18 and older to choose

P&G (and therefore P&G brands), we

needed to drive corporate equity measures.

P&G London

2012 Olympic

Games

“Thank You, Mom”

GRAND OGILVY AWARD WINNER

ADVErTISEr: Pocte & Gamble

rESEArCH: Ipsos ASI, Nielsen

AGENCIES: Wieden + Kennedy

MEDIA: Caat, Stacom MediaVest Goup



September 2013 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH 275


Sales

The most important objective was sales.

P&G aimed big with an unprecedented

global incremental sales goal from its

Olympics marketing program.

Key Takeaways

• Agility need not be exclusive to the small

and simple situations: Our experience

with the Olympics proved that no

matter how big, complex, or high-risk

the circumstances, research plans can

be adapted to enable overall organi-

zational agility. The key is to be com-

fortable integrating existing and new

learning in real time and to be crystalclear on what the most important risks

are to manage.

• Iterative, focused, fast cycle learning tools

can lead to breakthrough results: His-

torically, high stakes situations lead

researchers to conduct exhaustive,

testing heavy learning plans. For the

Olympics, we adopted a “do/learn/

optimize” approach that was laser-

focused in terms of business questions

and scope. We learned that the approachnot only enabled us to make decisions

and develop plans faster, but it sharp-

ened our ability to leverage knowledge

in the right ways at the right times—

leading to stronger overall results.

• In-market sense-and-respond platforms

are essential in the “can’t wait” world: In

today’s business environment, wait-

ing until you’re sure about everything

before pushing “go” will result in being

left behind by competition. In-markettracking tools enabled us to continu-

ously manage risk and optimize as we

acted. This approach was essential to

our ability to stay on track and deliver a

breakthrough program.

Challenges

While the Vancouver “Thank You, Mom”

campaign was a proven winner in the

United States, the London program

required globally relevant scale copy that

could be applied across the age 50-plus

markets where the program would be

activated. In addition, the communicationobjectives of the program were expansive,

requiring a multi-layer corporate and

brand activation copy plan.

The research team was tasked not only

with enabling the development of globally

resonant copy that was at least as strong

as the Vancouver execution, but also with

informing the creation of the optimal mix

of corporate anthem and promotion copy.

We had to ensure that the three layers of

copy (which included individual brandcopy spanning 32 brands) would work

effectively as a whole.

Furthermore, copy had to be qualified

before a traditional approach to copy opti-

mization and qualification could be com-

plete. This required the research team to

develop a different approach to learning

and managing risk which was very new

to P&G.

The team was faced with having to

address the following key questions:

• How would we manage risk in the right

ways at the right times?

• How would we ensure the program was

set up for global success?

• How would we enable real time risk

management and program optimization

in market?

Approach

Historically at P&G, in business situa-

tions where the risk is high, there was a

bias to test exhaustively to manage risk

and perfect marketing elements prior tomarket launch. It would be typical to lev-

erage a stage gate approach to initiative

management on a program as audacious

as the Olympics program. It would have

involved multiple rounds of qualitative

and quantitative testing across numer-

ous markets, involving a series of hurdles

the program elements would have had

to overcome before in-market activation.

This would include a process that would

develop highly perfected materials and a“test to pass/fail” mindset. In addition,

a tracking program designed to assess

whether the program delivered against its

stated goals would have been conducted.

After the initiative, the business would

have judged the performance of the pro-

gram and simply applied the learning to

future initiatives.

Applying the “standard” approach to

the Olympics was impractical—not only

because there was insufficient lead timeprior to activation to complete the usual

protocols, but also because the complex-

ity and resource intensity would have

been prohibitive.

Instead, P&G adopted a “do/learn/

optimize” approach, while streamlining

the learning plan with a new mindset

around risk management (See Table 1).

TABLE 1rethinking risk Management

From To

Managing ALL risk Managing the real risks

Managing risk Eveywhee Leaning Maket Mentality

Testing to Pass/Fail Testing to KNOW and LEArN

Standad Qualication Citeia Situation Adjusted Citeia

Tacking to Assess Tacking to Maimize results





Phase 1: We began by leveraging exist-

ing knowledge and market expertise and

a very small number of qualitative con-

sumer engagements. The exercise was

built to confirm if the insight behind theU.S.-Vancouver “Thank You, Mom” cam-

paign was globally relevant and to iden-

tify any significant nuances in key markets

that could impact the creative.

Phase 2: We then moved immediately

to ad execution development, leverag-

ing early ad diagnostic techniques. We

integrated this learning together with in-

market advertising effectiveness learning

we were collecting virtually in parallel inearly activation markets. The objectives

were to assess ad quality, understand

whether the advertisements were on track

to deliver versus their strategic intent,

and to uncover opportunities for opti-

mization. The in-market ad effectiveness

tracking was done on advertisements that

were similar in style and mix as what was

planned for London. Integrating the learn-

ing on how the communications model

was working in-market with the early addiagnostic insights enabled us to optimize

the advertisements, and hone in on the

holistic ad mix we would pursue for the

London activation.

After optimizing the advertisements we

moved into ad qualification, using finishedad stimulus in five lead markets. While the

testing was designed to enable airing deci-

sions, we approached it with a diagnostic-

heavy technique to ensure we would learn

as much as possible to continue to increase

our odds of success in market.

Phase 3: We built a tracking program

that would continue to enable us to

optimize while also measuring perfor-

mance against business goals. In sevenmarkets we employed standard ad

tracking in addition to a variety of other

tracking tools ranging from social media

listening to sales tracking. In two of the

seven markets, we enhanced the tracking

with real time ad effectiveness tracking.

In 15 markets, basic sales and ad tracking

was employed.

Examples of How It Worked

The highly focused do/learn/optimizeapproach facilitated the right decisions

at the right times and enabled P&G

to continuously improve the London

2012 Olympics program advertising

and mix all the way through the main

activation.

1. Key Market Equity Ad Optimization

(See Table 2).

2. Media Plan Mix Optimization

(See Figure 1).

3. Individual Ad Performance Optimization

(See Figure 2).

BREAKTHROUGH RESULTS

The do/learn/optimize approach led to

increased agility, speed to market, and

optimization capability:

• Advertisements were optimized in

real time.

• Airing decisions were enabled at the

right time.

• The overall media plan mix was opti-

mized continuously.

•

P&G built substantial scale copy“know how”.

TABLE 2

Key Maket Equity Ad Optimization

Insights Optimizations

I. Qualication testing indicated the “Best Job” ad was not

esonating in a key maket with indications of confusion and lack

of pesonal elevance.

• Simila leaning fom ealie testing in anothe maket.

II. rapid application of tageted online quals evealed:

• Local moms neithe viewed aising childen as “had”

no as “wok”.

• Local moms didn’t undestand that what they do on a daily

basis can be peceived as the “best job”.

• Talent wasn’t elatable and distacting.

III. Integation of qualitative insights, plus leaning fom othe

makets, enabled emakable claity on how to optimize.

The team applied integated leaning about how to minimize

confusion to steamline the advetisement.

An altenative tag line was employed—”Behind evey athlete is aloving mom”—which made moe sense to local moms.

Altenate digital assets wee ceated featuing local Olympic

athlete/mom stoies to illustate the ole of moms in the life of

Olympians in a moe eplicit way.

One-week tunaound fom identifying the poblem to a solution

that woked.

Did not e-test ad but leveaged online qualitative to conm

updates ed the issues, saving signicant time and money.





Communications exceeded all

expectations.

Perceptions of P&G went from cold and dis-

tant to deeply human and personal:

•

P&G equity gains achieved in everymarket measured.

P&G Olympics equity ads turned in “gold

medal” performance at the Olympics:

• Strongest Olympic sponsor ads

measured

• 40% stronger performance than Vancou-

ver P&G Olympic ads.

The program has driven a positive business

impact:• Promotional volume response from the

program in the United States indexed

as high as 145 versus the previous year

among activating brands

• Advertising was praised by analysts

after P&G reported higher Q4 results

than expected.

P&G Olympics equity ads won Cannes and

Emmy awards.

The experience has accelerated a shift

within P&G to do/learn/optimize

advertising development.

Measuring Advertising Effectiveness

In-maket copy effectiveness tacking evealed that one vesion of an ad was

moe ef fective than anothe vesion which had significant media spend behind it.Media suppot was shifted to the stonge ad

Ad 2 was outpefoming Ad 1 as the Olympic Games dew nea,

indicating upside to giving it geate suppo t.

Ad 1

Ad 2

P e r c e n t a g e

o f E f f e c t i v e n e s s

CPG Norm: 27%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%May

14

May

7

May

28

Jun

4

Jun

11

Jun

13

Jun

25

Jul

2

Jul

9

Jul

15

Jul

23

Figure 1 Media Plan Mi Optimization

Band x swapped thei Olympic ad

fo anothe eisting ad known to pefom above the CPG nom in maket

73% 73%

38% A

General Recall × =Band Linkage Brand Recall

Brand X Olympic Ad Performance (Strategic Target)

Band x Olympic Ad Histoical Band x Ads

CPGNom 64%

CPGNom 29%

CPGNom 45%

31%

52% A

23%

Figure 2 Individual Ad Pefomance Optimization





BUSINESS SITUATION AND CAMPAIGN

OBJECTIVES

Teenage boys had long been Slim Jim’s

core consumer. In fact, by 2010, teens

accounted for the majority of Slim Jim con-sumption (NPD). Furthermore, teenage

guys had a favorable opinion of the Slim

Jim brand, found it socially appealing, and

craved the product (Slim Jim A&U, 2010).

Despite Slim Jim appeal among teen-

age guys, however, consumption dropped

off once they turned 18. In 2011, Slim

Jim sought to grow from a brand heav-

ily entrenched among teenage boys (ages

12–17) to one that could also attract young

adult guys (ages 18–29).Successfully extending the brand rele-

vance and communication to young adult

guys would represent significant business

potential. Moreover, the drop-off in con-

sumption Slim Jim was experiencing was

not a category norm. In general, snacking

declines when guys become young adults

as compared to their early teen years;

however, competitive brands, such as Jack

Links, Doritos, Cheetos, and Pringles were

not seeing the same levels of abandon-ment (NPD).

The strategic marketing objective was

clear: Reverse the drop-off among young

adult guys, while retaining the core teen-

age audience. Success would be measured

according to the key metrics among the

core male consumers and the young adult

guys: Increase brand relevance, increase

purchase intent, and increase consumption

Slim Jim was fielding a new ad tracking

study for the 2011 campaign, and the newcampaign was expected to deliver signifi-

cant lifts relative to that young group.

RESEARCH STORY

To better understand the drivers of con-

sumption drop-off, the Slim Jim team

conducted a snacking attitude and usage

study among adults and the teenage boys.

The analysis revealed that two segments

of Snackers emerged as teenage guys tran-

sitioned to young adulthood:

• Snack Graduates

•

Young at Heart.

This second group of older guys (“Young

at Heart”) represented a clear opportu-

nity to grow the brand. The team learned

through consumer research that Slim Jim

was not as relevant to young adult guys.

First, they did not find the brand as per-

sonally relevant as younger guys did.

Young adult guys viewed competitive

snack brands such as Doritos, Cheetos,

and Pringles as more relevant than Slim Jim. For years, Slim Jim had been focused

on communicating to a younger teenage

target, so the fact that these “older” young

adults found the brand as less relevant

was not surprising.

After all, although only a few years

apart in age, young adult and teenage

guys are worlds apart in terms of their

lifestyles. Teens are living out the twilight

of their childhood, whereas older guys are

being thrust into the adult world. Thoughthese life stage differences might have first

seemed like a major barrier to extending

the brand to an older audience, they actu-

ally represented a strategic opportunity.

That is because the transition to adult-

hood is not easy for most guys. Faced

with the increasing responsibility, it is

often difficult to just be a guy. The detailed

examples of the struggle became clearer

through numerous interviews and in-

home observations.For instance, obligations such as pay-

ing rent, holding down a job, or being

sensitive to a girlfriend’s feelings make it

harder to sleep until noon or spend count-

less hours playing video games. More-

over, the adjustment to adulthood seemed

particularly unwelcome among Slim Jim’s

growth segment—the “Young at Heart”—

who still clung to many of their teenage

Slim Jim Man

Medicine

RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENT OGILVY

AWARD WINNER

ADVErTISEr: ConAga Foods

rESEArCH: C&r reseach, Think

Consevatoy, Communicus, IrI, The NPD

Goup

AGENCY/MEDIA: Venables Bell & Patnes





behaviors and attitudes. Within that ten-

sion is the sweet spot and a clear role for

Slim Jim.

In particular, with Slim Jim’s equity, the

brand was well suited to rescue youngmen from the burdens of adult life and

help them just be guys (i.e., restore them

to an idealized state of manliness).

The insight was grounded not only in

the brand’s equity but in the product itself.

After all, Slim Jims are made of meat, and

few things are manlier than meat.

Finally, the notion of rescuing guys from

the burdens of adult life was a unique

emotional high ground no other snack

brand had claimed. Though Slim Jim’scompetitors certainly appealed to young

adult guys through humor and reflections

of their lifestyle, none had built a brand

with a clear, credible role in their lives. The

introduction of a new campaign would

support the current business and also

introduce a new line of spicy products.

The play on the need to replenish male

spice loss from the pull of adult respon-

sibility was a perfect match for the new

“Dare” line of Slim Jim products.Understanding how to represent the

burdens of adult life and the Slim Jim cure

in a relevant, entertaining, and meaningful

way required additional consumer learn-

ing. There was a delicate balance of just

being a guy among friends and the pull of

responsibility and adulthood that could be

exposed and leveraged. Through qualita-

tive iterations, consumers let us know just

how far the Slim Jim brand could repre-

sent that tension, and it provided guid-ance for what would resonate with the

young adult male audience for our current

product offerings and the new “Dare” line.

CAMPAIGN DESCRIPTION

The Big Idea

In particular, the “Man-Medicine” cam-

paign introduced the world to the Slim

Jim Center for Spice Loss, a medical-type

organization whose trained professionals

treated guys suffering from the ill effects

of unmanly behavior.

The Campaign

• Disorder: Male spice loss.

• Cause: The new-found pressures of

adult responsibility (e.g., maintaining

a romantic relationship or the harsh

reality of full-time employment).

• Symptoms: Plummeting video game

aptitude, diminished zombie survival

skills, and important bro-time being

replaced by furniture shopping.

• Cure: Slim Jim products, naturally.

Depending on their symptoms, patientswere prescribed a number of Slim Jim

products to restore their manliness.

It was an idea designed to both attract an

older audience and still deliver the irrev-

erent humor that teenage guys expected

from Slim Jim. The team put together a

comprehensive media plan which began

in July 2011 and included the following:

•national video (network prime andselect male targeted cable networks and

digital online video);

• live commercial, with “Jimmy Kimmel

Live!”;

• video game-focused digital, including

xBox-branded destination; and

• social media including Facebook, Twit-

ter, and peer-to-peer social seeding.

The communications strategy placed

Slim Jim in media channels where youngadult guys turned to escape adult respon-

sibility. Based on syndicated sources,

these escape routes included television,

online video, social media and, of course,

video gaming. In particular, video and

digital placements ran within channels

such as Comedy Central, G4, Break.com,

Gamespot, and Xbox Live. On-air integra-

tions with Comedy Central’s “Tosh.O”,

and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” further

entrenched Slim Jim among the target’s

escape routes. Finally, Slim Jim’s Face-

book page, YouTube channel, and Web

site were themselves transformed fromdestinations for product information into

channels that also provided young adult

guys with entertaining escapes from

adult responsibility.

Slimjim.com itself was transformed into

the official Center for Spice Loss, a clear

sign the brand fully embraced the new

strategy and creative idea. In particular,

the site allowed users to learn about male

spice loss, take a “man quiz” to measure

their male spice levels, and explore Slim Jim product cures.

Social media invited guys to spread the

word about “Man-Medicine.” Specifically,

a series of video greeting cards allowed

guys to send condolences to friends suf-

fering from male spice loss. The cards

lamented a variety of unmanly behaviors,

from attending a baby shower to enjoy-

ing adult contemporary music. Visitors to

Slimjim.com were able to share the cards

and post them to friends’ walls.

Business Results

Tying back to the marketing objective, this

new brand strategy and creative idea effec-

tively drove lifts in relevance, purchase

consideration and, ultimately, sales among

both teenage and young adult guys.

To measure campaign effectiveness,

Slim Jim fielded a tracking study in

November 2011 following the roll-out of

paid media. In line with objectives, thestudy demonstrated significant lifts in all

key measures: relevance, purchase intent,

and consumption among both teenage

and young adult guys. As important,

these lifts were achieved with flat year-

over-year spend levels:

• Relevance (Is for someone like me) + 16 pts

Teen Boys, +11 pts Young Adult Guys





• Purchase Intent +25 pts Teen Boys, +25 pts

Young Adult Guys

• Consumption (unaided) +8 pts Teen Boys,

+8 pts Young Adult Guys.

Beyond those tracking measures, sales

were the ultimate validation of the “Man-

Medicine” campaign. In the year after the

campaign launch, Slim Jim sales grew

14 percent. For context, that rate outpaced

the growth of every snack category except

only corn nuts.1

In these ways, “Man-Medicine” bothattracted a lapsed young adult audience

while still appealing to the brand’s core

consumer. Sales gains were also driven by

1 IRI Meat Snack Category sales (July 2012).

higher commodities costs, which resulted

in increased pricing. However, higher

commodities costs affected the entire pack-

aged food industry, meaning Slim Jim’s

results were achieved on a level playingfield. Furthermore, the campaign tracker

demonstrated that consumption increased

during the campaign period.







and 55 percent, respectively, versus a

year ago.

• Reduce the total plastic waste in the

United States by more than 10 million

pounds versus a year ago.

MARKETING STRATEGY

The combination of the technical break-

through allowing us to strip plastic from

our bags, while improving strength and

mounting cultural pressure to care for the

environment, inspired our research. When

we asked, consumers told us they were

ready for a conversation about responsible

waste management. Taken together, we

realized we needed to rewire the ingrainedthinking about the category as a simple

thick bag competition.

Drawing heavily on our partnership

with Hall & Partners, Sands Research,

and Kelton Research (see next section), we

worked to ensure every piece of communi-

cation from Glad going forward expressed

the sentiment that at Glad, we are taking a

“stronger stand against waste” and even-

tually settled on a three-pronged approach

made up of television/digital, public rela-tions, and education:

• drive awareness: disruptive dramatiza-

tions of “extra” plastic in iconic land-

scapes on television and online;

• build credibility: public-relations events

such as the “One Bag Challenge” to

effect change in the real world and

inspire others to do the same; and

• engage consumers directly: education

aimed at facilitating responsible waste

management through Glad.com and

Trash Smart iPhone application.

With Glad, the Trash Scentinel gets a supe-

rior bag that wastes less and a brand that

helps her make a small change that adds

up to a meaningful difference in the world.

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION TO

CAMPAIGN SUCCESS

Decades of advertising had convinced con-

sumers of one thing when it came to trash

bags: thicker is better. Specifically, thick-ness equals strength. And strength was the

only thing that mattered. An exhaustive

evaluation of research to date, notably our

consumer segmentation, confirmed that

every consumer segment found strength

to be the most important attribute in a

trash bag, thickness being the top cue.

It was clear to us that we had a product

that could disrupt this conventional think-

ing. Our newest product improvement

did the unthinkable: It made our bagsstronger while allowing us to take 6.5 per-

cent of the plastic out, thereby having a

huge macro-impact on the environment.

Though we understood what a revolu-

tion this could be for the Glad Brand, we

needed to make sure our consumers did

as well. For the Stronger Stand Against

Waste campaign to be successful, we

would have to not only change the way

we talked about our product but reframe

the category to drive engagement.

Targeting the Trash Scentinel

Our first area of investigation was to

understand how the target consumer, the

Trash Scentinel, thought about her per-

sonal role in the environment and, there-

fore, whether and how we could position

our product improvement to help her

in this area. By partnering with Kelton

Research, Trash Scentinels granted us

special access into their homes and per-sonal lives over a 10-day period by way

of blogging.

Through her daily video “confession-

als,” we quickly learned that though she

felt very capable and on top of many areas

of her life, helping the environment was

not one of them, as she was not quite sure

how to “do her part.” We on the Glad

team knew immediately that we had an

opportunity with this consumer. As we

strove, however, to understand how this

insight could be leveraged for our new

bag, we realized that a 6.5-percent reduc-

tion in plastic was not exactly earth-shattering to the consumer. And on top of

that, it compromised her perception of our

bag’s strength.

Engaging the Trash Scentinel

Glad’s new product translated to 6.5 mil-

lion pounds of plastic savings a year,

equivalent to 140 million trash bags. Yet,

our consumers told us that the reduction

in plastic simply was not enough to make

a difference to them.Thus, our advertising partners at DDB

San Francisco were challenged to bring

the facts to life in a larger-than-life way.

DDB created three television advertis-

ing executions, visually showing that the

saved plastic would cover all of Manhat-

tan or Mount Rainier or fill more than

200 garbage trucks (See Figure 1).

Although our team found the visualiza-

tions to be fascinating and impactful on

an emotional level, we were not so con-fident that our consumers would tell us

they agreed.

By collaborating with Hall & Partners,

in partnership with Sands Research, we

used qualitative exploratory research to

gain insight into the “why” behind high/

low brain activity (i.e., engagement) and

positive/negative emotion throughout

the advertising. The integration of these

methods allowed us to identify what

resonated with the subconscious andemotional side of consumers—the side

that is not necessarily easy to articulate in

words—and probe more deeply on how to

optimize these cues/key moments in the

advertising. We confirmed our instincts

about the advertisements—consumers

were highly engaged in what they saw,

and experienced a range of emotions

(See Figure 2).





RESEARCH LINK TO THE CAMPAIGN

DEVELOPMENT AND EXECUTION

The Bedrock of the Campaign Kelton

Research, Consumer Blogging

Blogging research revealed the pivotalinsight that our consumer felt very capa-

ble and on top of many areas of her life

but, when it came to the environment, she

was not quite sure how to “do her part.”

Thus, realization of this insight gave

Glad permission to position itself as the

consumer’s ally and source of informa-tion and become the bedrock of the holistic

“Stronger Stand Against Waste” campaign.

This work also highlighted the skep-

ticism associated with our new bag’s

strength and relevance of its 6.5-percent

reduction in plastic. And as an outcome,

each of the following consumer touchpoints spoke to and provided ways to

“do her part” while also reinforcing the

strength message of Glad bags:

• Waste-Less hub at Glad.com (Figure 3)

—tips and tricks on how to minimize

waste

• Glad Trash Smart iPhone app (Figure 4)

—tips on recycling and composting

• One Bag initiative (Figure 5)—challenge

to consumers to use fewer bags duringthe 2011 USC-versus-Stanford game

• Television advertising—illustrated cumu-

lative effect the use of Glad bags can

have on the planet.

Optimizing the Advertising: Hall &

Partners, Sands Research, Neuro

Research, and Focus Groups

The combination of qualitative focus

groups and neuro-research validated our

instincts about the way we were commu-nicating the bag’s plastic savings: Visu-

ally bringing to life the macro effects on

the environment engaged our consumers

at their core. We were able to understand

neuro-engagement at every moment in

our tested ads and, therefore, identified a

few key areas to optimize in these adver-

tisements and to establish as principles for

future advertising development:

• Get Physical: Showing the physicalhandling of trash provokes strong emo-

tional reactions and seems to be an effec-

tive way to engage throughout ads.

• Synch Branding: Branding is best real-

ized when it is integrated with the

actual bag versus as a stand-alone logo

that potentially distracts from the fea-

tured product.

Figure 1 “Peaks” Advetisement within Glad’s “Stonge

Stand Against Waste” Campaign

Figure 2 Hall & Patnes/Sands reseach Neuo reseach

Snapshot of “Manhattan Sky” Advetisement within Glad’s

“Stonge Stand Against Waste” Campaign





• Finish Strong: Glad package anima-

tions provide attention and positive

emotional associations at close of spots,

more so than static branding.

After making these key changes, the only

outstanding question remaining was

whether the irrational engagement with

our advertising would then lead to a very

rational decision at the store shelf.

CAMPAIGN BUSINESS RESULTS

Glad historically has produced extremely

efficient advertising, so the bar we set

for success is high. That, combined with

conventional wisdom suggesting mostconsumers are not willing to pay more

for sustainable products in a down econ-

omy, led to heated initial debates over

the viability of the “Small Change, Big

Difference” campaign.

Strong insights won in the end, however,

supporting the case that given the right

creative, we would not only re-engage the

category and sell more bags but elevate

the national conversation around waste.

We began with “Manhattan Trucks” inOctober 2011, followed by “Manhattan

Sky” in January 2012, and “Peaks” in Octo-

ber 2012. Achieving scores comfortably in

top quintile of Ipsos ASI’s database for

both Reach Potential and Brand Linkage,

“Trucks” and “Sky” not only exceeded all

Clorox hurdles, they performed 13 percent

more effectively (volume sales per GRP)

than our five-year rolling average, and

54 percent more efficiently (volume sales

per media spend) than messaging runningover the same period one year ago.

Glad’s loyalty (SOR) increased by two

points (3 percent) in FY12; Glad’s kitchen

trash dollar sales increased by more

than 5 percent. And the campaign’s suc-

cess is not over: Our Analytic Insights

group forecasts that “Peaks” will be

38 percent more efficient than “Sky” and

“Trucks” combined.

Figure 3 Waste-Less Hub at Glad.com as Pat of “Stonge


Figure 4 Glad Tash Smat iPhone App as Pat of “Stonge






Complementing television, we devel-

oped a number of public-relations initiatives

to drive real-world change, including our

“One Bag” initiative. We invited people to

use one less bag during the 2011 USC versusStanford game by implementing the first-

ever recycling initiative at the Coliseum. In

just one day, we reduced waste by almost

three tons and, in the first three months

alone, the initiative at the game drove more

than 77 million brand impressions.

To drive consumer education and partic-

ipation further, we invested in the Glad’s

digital, social, and mobile infrastructure,

integrating it with Small Change, Big Dif-

ference. The Glad.com “Waste-Less” hubtold our story, elaborated on what we

were doing in terms of product outreach

and public-relations initiatives, and gave

consumers tools with a community forum,

downloadable charts, and 1800Recycling.

com content integration.

AKQA found that “Small Change” ban-

ner advertisements significantly increased

Glad’s association with “stronger with less

plastic” after only one exposure, allowing

us to effectively and efficiently target onlythose Web sites with strong Trash Scenti-

nel presence.

Finally, in addition to the site and banners,

we developed the Trash Smart mobile app

for iPhone that helps consumers find nearby

locations to recycle hundreds of household

items. USA Today featured it in TODAY

Green Living magazine, and the app won an

FWA Mobile award in February 2012.

Figure 5 One Bag Initiative as Pat of “Stonge Stand

Against Waste” Campaign

TABLE 1

Campaign results, Taget vs. Actual

Campaign Objective Target Actual % Target Achieved

Incease Advetising Efciency 10% 54% 540%

reduce Plastic Waste 19M lbs 12.1M lbs 121%

Incease Unique Visitos to Glad.com 50% 308% 616%

Incease repeat Visitos to Glad.com 55% 316% 575%



Documents

Marketing Art Meets Science