Tag: omd uk
OMD UK has unveiled its Future of Generations research project that, for the first time ever, uncovers generational myths that are deeply ingrained in British society.
Developed by OMD UK’s Insight team and launched at an event at Soho Hotel, the study addresses the changes in attitude towards the youth, middle-aged and the elderly, accompanied by a blurring of traditionally perceived boundaries of age-appropriate behaviour and lifestyles.
The research smashes five generational myths:
- Younger generations are narcissistic and rude – [ctt template=”1″ link=”R_IQd” via=”yes” ]70% of teenagers would argue that they are concerned about social issues in the world, compared to 57% of the population @OMD_UK @OMD_EMEA[/ctt]
- Teens have little influence in household purchases – [ctt template=”1″ link=”74CfU” via=”no” ]Teenagers are involved in the majority of purchase decisions from food (81% involvement) through to cars (one in five indicated involvement)[/ctt]
- The midlife crisis involves buying fast cars, travelling the world and spending the kids’ inheritance – We are seeing a new emerging trend of people starting to be more health orientated when they reach this pivotal time in their lives. [ctt template=”1″ link=”hT8IF” via=”yes” ]Those aged 40-43 show the highest usage of My Fitness Pal after the 16-19-year-old audience @OMD_UK @OMD_EMEA[/ctt]
- Older generations are lonely, isolated and not connected to others – Those of us over the age of 65 are the happiest group overall. [ctt template=”1″ link=”aO3wv” via=”no” ]An average of 57% of people over 65 rate their happiness between 8 to 10 on a scale of 1-10, compared to 42% of the total population @OMD_UK[/ctt].
- The younger generation are much more networked and bigger influencers than the older generation – 24% of those influencing financial decisions are aged 60+. [ctt template=”1″ link=”49Tbt” via=”yes” ]84% of the younger generations arguing that they can learn from the older generation @OMD_UK @OMD_EMEA[/ctt]
The large-scale, innovative study included a six-week online community, mobile ethnography and inter-generational focus groups. Learnings were then fed into an online survey with 3,000 Brits, which included implicit testing to allow OMD UK to uncover perceptions that are deeply ingrained into our subconscious.
Sarah Gale, Head of Insight at OMD UK said: “I’m incredibly proud to launch this game-changing research. It’s the first time that we’ve analysed the whole spectrum of generations within one study and the results are already being applied to marketing and communications strategies for our clients.
Generations forms the next phase of our pioneering The Future of Britain research initiative that’s been at our core since 2013. We’re excited to launch our other studies over the next 12 months that will tackle the issues and topics that continue to shape our great nation.”
The full white paper is available to download here.
Originally posted on the OMD UK blog.
By Joe Wilson
Swamped with student debt, struggling to climb the housing ladder and feeling betrayed by the Brexit result, it’s easy to understand why the finger-pointing rift between the younger and older generations is bigger than it’s ever been.
This growing disconnect came to a head last week when the Twitter-sphere descended into full intergenerational warfare with the emergence of #HowToConfuseAMillennial. The millennial mocking hashtag started as a light-hearted joke about generational differences but soon turned dark when members of the Baby Boomers and Gen X generations began using it as a means of attacking the younger generations on anything from their ‘digital-obsession’ to their ‘apparent dislike of employment’.
The hashtag struck a nerve and before long the fightback was on. Unsurprisingly, on a platform controlled by a millennial majority, this resulted in the posts of their parents and grandparents being relentlessly swamped with replies, many of which pointing out the irony of their use of social media to make their argument.
This generation clash brings to light the significant pre- and misconceptions existing across generations. It is, therefore, a timely occurrence that our The Future of Generations research project launches today, tackling these generational myths head on and finding out what perceptions these groups of consumers actually hold.
Keep an eye out for OMD UK’s The Future of Generations results being circulated soon.
Originally posted on the OMD UK blog.
Could you go off the grid and evade capture from some of the UK’s leading surveillance experts? Hunted was a new thriller from Channel 4 that challenged 14 people to do exactly that, with trained detectives snapping at their heels as they were on the run.
OMD UK’s challenge was to launch the show and ultimately get people to tune in.
The Idea
With one surveillance camera for every 11 people in the UK, the show would make viewers imagine life on the run. OMD UK used this fact to do something that has never done before – they turned media into surveillance equipment and recreated the paranoia of being hunted.
The team brought the ‘invisible net’ of the surveillance power of the UK to life, putting people in the shoes of ‘the hunted’ and showing the difficulty of the task they were facing.
Making it Happen
OMD UK developed a staggering 325 different creative messages that ran across 114 formats on 37 media channels. Each ad was personal, reaching them in places they least expected and surprising them as they went about their day. Every single creative was contextually aligned with each individual media format:
- ATM cash machine screens told you to ‘cut up your card’
- Personalised Starbucks cups said ‘Don’t tell anyone your name’
- Public transport said to ‘hide your face’
- Travel card wallets told you ‘This is a tracking device’
- Receipts warned you ‘you’ve told them where you are, run’
- Petrol stations advised you to ‘abandon your car’
- Beer mats proclaimed ‘you have no mates’
- Mirrors said to ‘change your identity’
- Club stamps told people to ‘give a false name’
- Train panels instructed you to ‘leave town and never come back’
- Public telephones warned you to ‘never call your family’
- Public toilets told you to ‘leave no trace’
- Roadside panels advised you to ‘be prepared to eat anything’
[slideshow_deploy id=’5500′]
Results
There were over 19,000 tweets about Hunted on the build-up to the first episode and OMD UK smashed their campaign targets.
By Patricia Condrova
Shingy is back from his French Riviera adventure and he came to OMD HQ to take us through some of his highlights.
Cannes is exhausting and huge! 15,000 people descend on La Croisette from 94 countries. There are 24 category awards, 43,000 entries considered, 400 judges, 26 Grand Prix winners (la crème de la crème) and 300+ speakers.
The brand of the year for him was Samsung. They were everywhere: events, experiences and these guys were constantly talking about VR.
For Shingy, when it comes to the Cannes Lions Awards, one of his favourite quotes comes to mind “If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.” Here are the campaigns that caught his eye:
After the presentation, I asked Shingy how should a young professional be creative in media and this is what he said:
“They should play with all the platforms as consumers; experiment them all, understand how a brand could integrate with the platform before dragging the brand in to it.
“Understand where the brand should be: not all brands should be on all platforms. Not all brands should have a real time market, it’s about having a relevant market – right time, right place, right messaging.”
Check out a recent article Shingy wrote for Adweek here.
For more fun stuff follow @shingy on Twitter
Au revoir chaps! (Champagne cork popping sound!)
Originally posted at http://www.omdukblog.com/cannes-lions/david-shing-fresh-from-cannes/
By Claire Dean
Airbnb has revolutionised the travel industry, so I was excited to have the chance to hear the CEO and Co-founder Brian Chesky speak recently at the Cannes Lions Festival.
Like many of these disruptive start-ups that appear to explode out of nowhere, there is an inspirational story behind it. And what a great story it was.
So the famous story goes: Brian and co-founder (and good mate) Joe had a dream of starting a business together. They also had a more pressing issue that they couldn’t pay the rent. Knowing a design conference was coming to San Francisco and the city’s hotels were fully booked, they had the bright idea of inviting conference attendees to sleep at their place. They didn’t have any spare beds, just a few air mattresses. They decided to serve breakfast too. And so the name Airbnb was born.
When you hear this story, you tend to hear about the idea and then the bit about the company being worth USD $25 billion. But there was nine years of hard work in the middle between great idea and success.
What I learned at his talk is the same lesson I find myself learning again and again doing what we do: coming up with a good idea is the beginning, not the end.
As I listened to the things that took those ambitious young Americans from idea to success, I realised that these wise words were applicable to our industry too:
- Victory comes to the tenacious: Is it a coincidence that the media agency known for ideas also has tenacity as one of its values? I think not. I believe tenacity is the most important skill in getting a good idea over the line. If you believe in an idea then fight for it!
Thomas Edison is famous for saying that a good idea is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. Brian and Jo demonstrated relentless tenacity.
“We tried CNN and they didn’t answer, so we tried the local papers and they didn’t respond, so we called the local bloggers….”
My favourite quote from Brian was “If you launch and no one notices, then just launch again”. Airbnb launched FOUR times before they got traction.
- Disruption is possible through exploiting a weakness. If you want to change the game, find something broken to fix. Airbnb was so successful because it gave people something they wanted and weren’t getting from the travel industry. It worked because it came at a time when the other options in the travel category were lacking cultural relevancy. In the same way, some of the best ideas, like Dove Real Beauty and Always: Like A Girl, are the ones that disrupt conventions in a category that is no longer culturally relevant.
- Sell the intangible– Sell the tangible and you make one sale, sell the intangible and you get a customers for life. Airbnb isn’t just selling a bed and a roof over your head, they are selling belonging. Brands are getting better at telling consumers who they are, why they are here and what they believe in. This really resonates with consumers. It is a trend that is not going away. Get on board or get left behind.
- Identifying emerging cultural trends will give you an edge. In November, Airbnb will be announcing some new developments. Chesky didn’t give too much away but he did indicate that they will be looking more at the end-to-end experience, rather than just offering a bed. They are looking at cultural trends to guide the future of their business: Two key emerging cultural trends they are using to shape their future business model: In the future we will be more mobile and people are more interested in experiences rather than owning things.
OMD UK’s mission is to earn our clients’ brands a greater Share of Life by being Culturally Connected. Chesky put fresh perspective on why being Culturally Connected is important for ideas and business models alike: if you want to create something that will succeed in the future, you need to know what the future looks like.
Originally posted at http://www.omdukblog.com/cannes-lions/coming-up-with-a-good-idea-is-the-beginning-not-the-end/
By Claire Dean
One of the best things about The Cannes Lions Festival is stumbling upon gold. There are the big blockbuster talks that you have scheduled in your calendar ahead of time. Then there are those you just wander into, not quite knowing what to expect. The Innovation Lions Shortlist presentations were one of those. And one of the most memorable sessions of my week.
The Innovation Lions are like no other category. They are the only category where those who are shortlisted are asked to present their work to a jury in person. Luckily for me, delegates at Cannes can go along and watch these presentations.
Here is the official word on what the category is about:
The Innovation Lions celebrate pioneering technological creativity. Entries need to demonstrate the relationship between a big idea and radical tech; that is, bespoke solutions that fulfil an unaddressed consumer need or deliver a product, service or brand message in a newly-invented way.
Ok so these all involve creating a physical innovative product which might be outside of the standard ‘media’ agency brief. But given that ‘creating something physical’ was an emerging trend this year across all categories, it is very relevant to what we do. At the very worst, they will blow your mind and inspire you.
Here are my top picks:
- The Next Rembrandt. J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam brought the artist back to life by creating a deep learning algorithm capable of producing 3D printed paintings in the style of Rembrandt. The AI creative genius analysed his 346 paintings to ‘learn’ his style before creating ‘The Next Rembrandt’, brought to life through an advanced printer which printed 13 layers of paint based UV ink. Who said AI can’t be creative?!
2. The Field Trip To Mars: Kids in New York were treated to the first school field trip to Mars. Piling onto a school bus, the kids thought they were taking a regular school trip. In reality, the clever people at McCann New York, turned the windows of the bus into screens, creating the world’s first group VR experience. Oh what magic. You can’t watch the video without getting goosebumps.
3. Edible Six Pack Rings. Plastic six-pack rings found on six packs of beer end up in the ocean and are harmful to wildlife who try to eat them or worse, get caught in them. Saltwater brewery and their agency We Believers created an alternative:
“We ideated, designed, prototyped and manufactured Edible Six Pack Rings. A six-pack packaging design made with materials that instead of killing animals are edible. By using by-products of the beer brewing process such as barley and wheat, this packaging goes beyond recycling and strives to achieve zero waste. The Edible Six Pack Rings are the first ever 100% biodegradable, compostable and edible packaging implemented in the beer industry.”
This was part of a growing trend for brands to do something good for the environment or society and set the benchmark for the rest of the industry.
4. Sun Hats: DDB Colombia created Solar Powered Sun Hats to give to Colombian workers in order to teach them about solar power. An innovative and effective way to reach audiences who are in places where no media reaches them and are often illiterate. What a clever way to add value to people’s lives whilst overcoming insurmountable barriers to communicate with this audience.
Originally posted at http://www.omdukblog.com/cannes-lions/highlights-from-cannes-innovation-lions/
By Claire Dean
What a week in Cannes! Yes, there was Rosé. Yes, there was inspiring work. We even brought home a few Lions of our own. But most of all I enjoyed hearing wise words from the industry’s smartest people.
One of my favourite sessions was the daily morning session hosted by The Economist called “Wake up with the Economist”. The panel featured three different CMOs each day and was Chaired by Daniel Franklin, the Economist’s Executive Editor.
The CMOs featured in the Monday session were:
- Atilla Cansun, CMO Merck Consumer Health
- Jorn Socquet, Vice President of Marketing Anheuser Busch
- Neil George, Vice President, Emerging Markets, Beiersdorf.
Here are five key learnings I took away from the discussion:
- Creative ideas can come from anywhere. Listen to the people who spend time with your business: your staff, especially the young ones who bring in fresh eyes, consumers themselves, your suppliers and your retailers.
- Consumers of the future want to buy from brands with values. Consumers of today are interested in brand purpose and respond to more emotive, human, right brain messaging. We need to move away from purely rational left brain ‘efficacy’ messaging and evoke an emotional response.
- Taking no risk is the risk itself. As an industry we need to be braver: CMOs don’t take enough risks – and their agencies need to push them to do so. We don’t want to have difficult conversations with our boss. Our job is to do what is right, not what is easy.
- Unlock the untapped value of social media: Budweiser uses social media to apologise when something goes wrong. Nivea uses it to test ideas early on with their core fans. Realise social media is not just another channel, it’s a rare chance to interact with your brand advocates.
- Microsegments will be the audience targeting challenge of the future. 2017 and beyond will show a long tail of extreme micro-segments. How do you deliver personalised messaging to extreme micro targets? This will be our challenge in the near future.
Originally posted at http://www.omdukblog.com/cannes-lions/wake-up-with-the-economist-a-review-from-cannes/
By Milton Elias
Another Cannes Lions festival has now come and gone. Plenty of inspirational sessions featuring celebrated speakers, plenty of yacht parties, and inevitably, plenty of rosé have made the rounds in the South of France. As a Cannes Lions newbie, I initially hoped to dabble in a bit of all of these. However, the honour of being selected as a Mobile Lions judge this year meant that my Cannes experience ultimately consisted of long days of intense discussion in a windowless room as opposed to celebrity keynotes and rosé fuelled evenings. Nonetheless, I loved every minute of it and came away feeling truly inspired by where mobile technology continues to take our industry and the work submitted from all corners of the world.
With over 1,200 entries submitted into this year’s Mobile Lions from across the globe, it was clear from the onset that there would be A LOT of discussion in the judging room. With a diverse group of industry leaders from over a dozen markets that included creative and specialist agencies, clients, and developers, there would inevitably be plenty of viewpoints and consequent debate. Over the course of five days and nearly 60 hours of judging, we talked, laughed, and debated. We argued for pieces of work that personally spoke to each of us, against work that may have seemed questionable in regards to its creativity and originality, but above all, we celebrated the beacons of mobile creativity that collectively inspired us. Without a doubt, the overall quality of the work was impressive and indicative of how far mobile can take us as marketers, and more importantly, as people connecting with others in our daily lives and for the greater good.
From using location as a trigger to personally invite people uploading photos on Instagram to go inside the Sydney Opera House with tailored experiences, to the use of Bluetooth technology incorporated into a swimming cap for visually impaired Paralympic swimmers in Samsung’s Blind Cap, the winning work was diverse and it was powerful. However, across all 62 Mobile Lions awarded, the campaign that stood out as worthy of the Grand Prix was the New York Times VR project, which has demonstrated how a 165 year-old traditional media brand can use mobile to bring virtual reality to the masses and immerse them in factual story-telling in a way that traditional journalism previously couldn’t.
Fittingly, this year’s theme at Cannes was ‘Thank You Creativity’ and the quality of work personally inspired a sense of gratitude as it made it clear that there has never been a more exciting time to leverage mobile as a creative medium.
A list of all Cannes Mobile Lions winners can be found on the Cannes Lions site. My views on wider trends across this year’s Mobile Lions can be found here.
Originally posted at http://www.omdukblog.com/cannes-lions/tales-from-the-mobile-lions-judging-room/
By Ann Wixley
My inspiration from this year’s Festival of Creativity in Cannes came from experiencing people who were the Real Deal.
‘Real Deal’ness was heard in every word of Condé Nast Artistic Director Anna Wintour’s elegant presentation. Activist Cindy Gallop and legendary film director Oliver Stone physically embodied it, raging against the machine. Under Armour Founder and CEO Kevin Plank and Droga5’s David Droga are creating it in the Under Armour brand. Kate Stanners, Global Chief Creative Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi and Christopher Bailey, Chief Creative and CEO of Burberry, gently took listeners behind the scenes of being one. Tim Armstrong, CEO and Chairman of AOL Inc. shared how he leads with it.
We can learn from them, both from a personal point of view and as marketers.
Brands, like people, have to be the Real Deal to be great. As Kevin Plank put it, “Brand is everything. People instinctively recognise this passion, honesty and purpose. It’s compelling.” Or as Christopher Bailey described Anna Wintour: “Anna is never, ever half-hearted. It’s always personal.”
So here is my composite of Cannes-canniness.
- Everything counts
- Anna Wintour talked about “using all your gold”. She suggests looking with fresh eyes at one’s processes and resources to find latent value that can be put to good use. For example, the length of time journalists take to research and develop a feature can be viewed as costly, however seen through her ‘using all your gold’ prism, it yields multiple stories offering a compelling run of articles leading to the final story. This shift helped Condé Nast titles embrace the immediacy of digital whilst increasing the value of their final print output across Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Vogue. Anna quoted David Remnick, New Yorker editor’s mission, of generating stories of “immediate interest but lasting significance.”
- Under Armour’s philosophy is summed up with their #IWill hashtag Kevin shared how this sense of tenacity and commitment informs three behaviours encouraged in internal meetings –
- What did I hear? – Listen to each viewpoint.
- What do we think? – A point of view is required, seen through their brand lens.
- What are we going to do? – Make a choice, and decide actions.
- Cindy Gallop, who set up Cannes’s Glass Lion Award and who had several high profile speaking turns at the Festival, did not stop there. She set Twitter alight picking up on the unconscious gender bias in The Case for Creativity, a book by James Hurman distributed to all Festivalgoers, which only quoted male creative and marketing expertise. Cindy also called out an awarded entry for its casual sexism; resulting in it being pulled from the festival.
- The value of sheer Bloody Mindedness
- Each of them is driven by a mission and a belief system. This gives them certainty: the certainty to embrace uncertainty – an essential part of the creative process to get to something new. A clear mission offers a fixed end point, a long-term goal, which allows for flexibility and the necessary trial and error along the way. Sheer bloody mindedness keeps them on track. As Tim Armstrong said: “Success is messy. You need to cultivate the ability to live with it if you want creativity to flourish.”
- Kevin Plank: “A brand is not a brand if it doesn’t have a point of view.” According to David Droga, founder of legendary creative shop Droga5, it is this belief that makes Under Armour such an exciting business to work with. It offers clarity, direction and the ability to make sure that everything from product to philanthropy comes from that single brand source. As Kevin put it bluntly: “We don’t do fluffy ad spots that don’t have a point of view.” Cue their Cannes Lions Film Craft Grand Prix this year for ‘Rule Yourself’ with swimmer Michael Phelps.
- Oliver Stone demonstrated his belief in another way. When asked which were his favourite films, his response was: “Every single one. They all matter. Well, they matter to me.” Qualifying that with: “Hopefully audiences feel what I felt when I made them.”
- The case for Grand Ideas
- Anna Wintour made the case for ideas: “of time and heft, fuelled by high ambition. Big challenging stuff matters. You can’t shortcut your way to creativity. Effort and attention pays off.”Our job in the creative industries is to dazzle our audiences – push them past where they’ve been. A perfect case in point was Vanity Fair breaking news with their cover story on Caitlyn Jenner – developed in secret over three months and written by contributing editor Buzz Bissinger, with a shoot by legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz.
- Anna dared us to be different in the pursuit of grand ideas – like Amy Schumer redefining a more human and personal style of comedy; James Corden reinventing late night telly and harnessing Youtube with his quirky friendliness; Beyoncé creating a visual album with Lemonade (almost a feature film in itself.) These are people redefining the game, coming from a place of sincerity and creativity.I could hear Cindy chime in here on gender equality, “Women challenge the status quo, because they are never it”.
- Tim Armstrong flipped the telescope on big ideas, talking about working “on a molecular level” – one individual to one message at a time, and sweating the little things in your business.
- Kate Stanners described the need for shifting to ‘an altitude view’ as she progressed from department leader to agency leader. This helps her create an environment where grand ideas flourish, with a focus on both the work and the people: “My job is to work on the big stuff and the nasty stuff. And the good stuff? You are not big enough until you can give ideas and their attribution away.”
The Real Deal may sound unattainable, so I will end with a final quote from Kevin Plank, on Under Armour’s success: “I never thought it couldn’t happen. Why not us?”
Why not us, indeed?
Originally posted at http://www.omdukblog.com/cannes-lions/the-real-deal-what-i-learnt-at-cannes-festival-of-creativity-2016/
This year our very own Chris Mitchell and James Reeves headed to Cannes to take part in the highly prestigious international Young Lions competition, representing the UK to compete against some of the best of the best to solve a live 24-hour brief. Here’s what they had to say about the experience.
Cannes Lions 2016 has for us, UK Young Media Lions, come full circle. At noon on Friday the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon was joined on stage by the CEOs of the “big six” communications groups, to announce a new initiative called “Common Ground” in support of the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Of all the 17 sustainable development goals, Omnicom Media Group has chosen to focus on education. Somewhat coincidentally it was with a focus on this particular goal that our week began as we were briefed competing with 42 other nations to tackle the challenge of education for the most vulnerable within 24 hours.
Despite having tackled a British Red Cross brief on the subject of the European refugee crisis to be awarded UK winners, we remained daunted by the scale of the brief. However, in equal measure we were also excited as the inspirational environment of Cannes was quickly teaching us media can save lives, as well as sell, entertain and inform.
We unfortunately didn’t win but, upon reflection, there was much to take from the process of competing;
- When faced with something we know the least about we are forced to be the most curious and seek out new information. Regardless of arriving an award worthy answer or not, this process of seeking new information as means to an answer will always be beneficial.
- Deadlines limit the luxury of dwelling, force you to be direct and trust yourself.
- When you think there is nothing there will be something. With some seriously asserted effort you are forced to think laterally, ask why with more force and connect dots that weren’t initially obvious.
- Good ideas can crop up from any source at any time, but practising the process of idea generation will increase the propensity for great and help you identify which path to take along the way.
- And of course, never forget to enjoy it. It is our job to be creative and there is nothing more fun than that.
Originally posted at http://www.omdukblog.com/cannes-lions/a-cubs-view-of-cannes-uk-young-media-lions/