McArthurGlen – Hijacking London Fashion Week

In a bid to reposition McArthurGlen as a destination fashion retailer, the brand hijacked London Fashion Week to prove it could replicate the latest trends with products from its outlets.

Partnering with ESI Media, an official sponsor, the aim was to reach fashionistas in the right environment via social media, online and print with an element of authority, which ESI Media provided, at the right moment during the event.

The marketing campaign gained attention by using celebrities, fashion designers and influencers in around-the-clock live streaming, amplified by promotions in the London Fashion Week special edition of ES Magazine and via social media using the hashtag #MGINSIDER.

Canon – Touch to See

Findings from an agency insight project with UCL and Newsworks, on the power of touch in advertising, shaped a campaign for Canon to drive unprecedented levels of engagement and Christmas sales for the camera brand.

By allowing users to wipe the top layer of a tablet ad to reveal imagery – functionality never before used in the category – the campaign cleverly demonstrated Cannon’s low light camera technology.

With engagement rates averaging at 33x the industry benchmark, this marketing campaign demonstrates how utilising touch in tablet advertising can result in an effective and original solution.

C4 – Alternative Election Night

The General Election is an event that brings together the entire nation. For days, weeks and months, media coverage is dominated by the election and election night is always a special event. To make the 2015 election the most memorable for Brits, Channel 4 had an ambitious plan: host an event that would give people across the UK a fun and unique experience.
The marketing objective was simple, get people to tune in to Channel 4’s Alternative Election night, but with so many distractions, how would Channel 4 stand out?

Newsbrands were central to the task of driving viewers on just one day, 7 May. The combination of print and digital executions delivered the audience in a relevant and targeted environment, while contextually placing ads within election editorial emphasised Channel 4’s news credentials.

With all of the objectives met, the advertising campaign turned Channel 4 into the real winners on election day.

Kia – The power to surprise

Kia had moved from a value proposition to a sophisticated modern manufacturer in a short space of time, but consumer perceptions lagged behind.

While trust in advertising was generally waning, peer to peer recommendations and consumer reviews were becoming increasingly influential. The brand wanted to highlight its high levels of customer satisfaction by providing clear call to actions for consumers to read the customer reviews.

Kia partnered with The Telegraph in order integrate the power of genuine online customer reviews across print and online platforms with the aim to encourage new customers to re-consider Kia for themselves.

The digital elements of the partnership included a direct call to action, enabling people to click straight through to Kia’s review site. Also, a series of advertorials held within The Telegraph’s motoring section were designed to ‘hero’ Kia car owners and document their reviews of their Kias in a personal and engaging manner.

The partnership enabled Kia to follow consumers during the various stages of their purchase cycle – from consideration, to exploration, to purchase, and to further engagement – producing some impressive results.

The activity drove just under 36,000 clicks within a week, performing with an average CTR 639% higher than the market average and Kia enjoyed its strongest Q1 performance to date (2013), with dealer searches up 72% year on year and registrations up 12% year on year.

Cisco – Internet of (nearly) everything

Cisco teamed up with the Guardian for the most editorially-led commercial partnership ever delivered by the newsbrand (2015).

Cisco’s IT products, which power The Internet of Everything, are hidden from view, resulting in lack of recognition for its innovative approach. Setting out to change this perception, Cisco embarked on the most editorially-led commercial partnership ever delivered by the Guardian.

With a Connected World hub living on the Guardian.com/Tech editorial pages, the centrepiece of the campaign was an interactive tool exploring how the internet is connected to (nearly!) everything.

Events, video content and editorial articles contributed to the partnership, which smashed its pre-campaign targets and exceeded Guardian benchmarks.

The campaign boosted Cisco’s profile within content and conversation for both the Internet of Things and the Internet of Everything increased. Long dwell times on articles indicate the quality of the journalism and resulting engagement in Cisco’s technological revolution. A large number of social shares and comments are further evidence that the content really resonated with the target audience and increased knowledge of Cisco’s offering.

RBS – SmartMatch

RBS was the first bank to use semantic targeting to deliver expert advice to ad-ignoring CEOs in contextually relevant environments.

RBS’ mergers and international banking arm faced an audience targeting challenge. CEOs – an elite, sceptical bunch – are almost impossible to reach any other way other than via financial newspapers. However, this is an incredibly cluttered environment. They are heavy consumers of digital but are almost completely unresponsive to display advertising and are tired of the ‘banks have changed’ message.

The aim was to create understanding of the expertise RBS has, build trust among its core audience and get CEOs interacting with RBS experts. This needed to be done in the right place at the right time, reacting to what RBS’ audience were consuming. The Financial Times was the ideal newsbrand for the solution, which was to match RBS opinion to FT editorial, via real-time, automated semantic targeting.

The seamless juxtaposition of FT and RBS content gave readers an enhanced experience and led to the best performing financial services campaign on FT.com in 2013. The campaign enjoyed five times more interaction than the average financial services campaign on FT.com.

Tesco – Horsemeat: National Crisis Averted

A bold media strategy, with newspapers at its heart, allowed Tesco to regain the trust of millions of customers.

At the start of 2013, a story hit the news and dominated the headlines for weeks on end: horsemeat had been found in Tesco burgers. It was a story that had the potential to cause significant damage to the UK’s biggest retailer, unless handled with extreme care.

With news of the ‘horsemeat scandal’ spreading, Tesco had no time to waste. Unless the supermarket responded immediately, the long-term health of the business would be at risk. Media would be crucial in guiding that response, and newspapers (the medium fuelling the horsemeat story and inciting the public debate) were at the heart of it all. With a bold and honest approach, and an ‘always-on’ mentality, the company used news advertising to issue a sincere apology, position Tesco as a thought leader and restore customers’ faith.

In the week following 17 January 2013, Tesco saw a dramatic drop in convenience food sales. However, this could have been the precursor to a much bigger problem for the retailer. As it was, two months on, overall footfall and sales were back in line with previous forecasts. Suggesting that disaster was well and truly averted.

The press coverage that Tesco achieved at each stage of the campaign showed that the public was noticing and reacting – in a positive way. Research showed that customers thought Tesco dealt with the crisis better than its competitors and Tesco newspaper ads were considered ‘easy to understand’, ‘informative’ and ‘credible’, with half of the customers Tesco spoke to saying it had ‘addressed their concerns’.

Cancer Research UK – We Will

One in two people now survive cancer – that’s big news and real proof that Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is succeeding in the fight against cancer. Cancer Research UK’s ambition is to make this three in four within 20 years. CRUK no longer just believe cancer can be beaten; they are now certain cancer will be beaten.

The mission of this campaign was to convince people that the battle against cancer is not hopeless, with the vision that the proof of progress would inspire participation in fundraising events and drive donations. The objective was to launch this new positive message and give it fame and stature.

The inspirational content, developed with The Telegraph, not only made people think more positively about CRUK, but also made them more likely to get involved and donate in the future.

John Lewis – Fashion on the Front Row

John Lewis Fashion has previously been perceived as out of date, ‘mumsie’ and only for occasion wear. However, with brands including Whistles, Reiss, French Connection and the exclusive Somerset by Alice Temperley range, John Lewis had the possibility of positioning itself as a key fashion authority.

The vision was to produce a truly integrated, editorial content partnership, with a focus on online video. The thinking was that videos would be a perfect way to engage a younger, digitally savvy audience, with content they could share socially. In total, the campaign videos received a staggering 392,949 views and the partnership delivered on all three of its key objectives, which were to modernise the brand, position John Lewis as a fashion authority and appeal to a younger more urbane audience.