Did You Steal That Ad Idea?
Insights on marketing, business, branding, products, design, founders, and culture.
GM everyone. Happy Friday.
Have you ever stolen something?
Stealing is a spectrum. Some of us like enter in the product code of cheaper fruit at Whole Foods, or take a branded pen after signing a restaurant tab.
I like to play a game called umbrella roulette. Where you go to a restaurant and drop off your umbrella in the front, then try and leave with a better one on the way out.
Picasso said good artists copy, great artists steal.
The creative team at Loewe took that line and ran with it.
News
Loewe just put out their own spelling bee inspired ad. The new ad features Aubrey Plaza attempting to spell Loewe with Dan Levy officiating. This comes just a week after SSENSE’s spelling bee inspired ad, which featured kids dressed in designer clothes attempting to spell words like Thom Browne and Rick Owens. I thought the SSENSE ad was so genius. While I am sure Loewe’s ad was in production before SSENSE’s dropped, there definitely was some behind the scenes copying going on here. I find it funny when two brands use the same ad idea so close to one another. Its like when Hollywood drops two identically premised movies in the same year. In this case, the SSENSE ad is way better.
British Airways just dropped a subtly genius new billboard campaign. Created by Uncommon Studio, the campaign features photos of passengers peering out of British Airways airplane windows. Their logo is nearly cropped out of the photos. These photos evoke the feeling of thrill going to a new destination, and really evoke an emotional response. I’ve been seeing growth marketing people freak out with suggestions to add a QR code, or copy, and question how this reaches KPIs. I am here for OOH marketing that doesn’t concern itself with constant metrics tracking, but evokes a feeling in someone; something you can’t track well. People are inundated with codes to scan and copy to read, if you’re a brand as big as BA, you can get away with just reminding people of a positive emotion, and tying your brand to that feeling. Props to the studio for convincing them this was a good idea.
Shares of Kering fell 14% this week. The luxury conglomerate issued a profit warning stating Gucci sales have slumped 20% YoY. Many analysts are questioning if consumers are tired of faux-luxury and are only looking to spend real sums of money on brands that have more craftsmanship. This isn’t investment advice, but I think Kering could see a rebound in the coming years. Don’t count them out just yet.
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserWhy is it so hard to just buy a normal drink? The Atlantic wrote a deep dive on the emerging CPG beverage space. Why is it that every grocery store has so many drinks now offering a slew of dubious health claims? From adaptogens, relaxation, so on and so on, every new drink is offering something in a can designed by a creative studio in Brooklyn. I can’t hate, this industry is lucrative for founders, designers, and creative strategists (ahem) but I do agree with the premise of this article. In a sea of choice, I love to stick to the basics… water, coffee, dirty martini.
Have a great weekend!
Who Do You Know? is a daily newsletter covering marketing, business, branding, products, design, founders, and culture.
Its written by Jake Bell, a content marketing and brand strategist in NYC.
To get in touch visit www.jb.studio or email jake@jb.studio