Sydney, Australia – With lockdowns in Australia slowly being lifted out across many cities, supermarket chain ALDI has launched its newest campaign, inviting Australians to make their Christmas preparations more creative, exciting, and with gusto.
Part of the campaign includes a 60-second TVC depicting Australians seemingly getting bored or frustrated in preparing for Christmas-related things such as wrapping gifts, setting the table for Christmas dinner or dressing the chicken for cooking. Then, with the popular track ‘Sandstorm’ by Darude, the ad shifts these ‘mundane’ preparations into something more exciting, and ‘party-like’.
https://youtu.be/Y3odEye91Lg
“ALDI wants Aussies to have the Christmas they deserve. A completely overcooked Christmas. From birds inside birds, to ridiculously low-priced French Champagne and award-winning hams, ALDI is proving that you simply can’t overcook Christmas this year. We know Australians deserve it, and they deserve it at the best possible prices,” the company said in a press statement.
Mark Richardson, director of marketing at ALDI Australia, said that they wanted to tap into post-lockdown excitement and show what many of us are feeling: this year is the year to go a bit bigger for Christmas.
“To do this, we’ve created an emotive and upbeat Christmas campaign that is centred on the joy of letting loose. We hope that the ‘You Can’t Overcook Christmas’ call to arms, together with ALDI’s prices and phenomenal range, will energise shoppers to create the best possible Christmas for family and friends this year,” Richardson stated.
The campaign is a collaborative effort that has seen the participation of creative agency BMF, production company FINCH, The Kitchen Creative Group, and Bantam Productions.
The integrated campaign, targeting 5 million grocery buyers, will run across key media channels of TV, radio, outdoor, digital, social, catalog, and POS.
Singapore – Global action star Jackie Chan was recently announced as top e-commerce Shopee’s newest ambassador in August which was launched as part of the platform’s 9.9 campaign. Shortly after, Chan makes a comeback to viewers’ screens for the platform’s 11.11 campaign.
In light of the backlash from some advertising and creative professionals on Shopee’s current ad for 11.11, MARKETECH APAC reached out to social listening platform Digimind to learn about how the mass audience perceives the latest campaign.
On October 25, just a few days after Shopee released its 11.11 ad with the international star, Singapore-based marketing expert Richard Bleasdale stirred quite a conversation on LinkedIn by sharing a post about the ad, describing it as the “worst ad ever made.” Soon, the post drew quite traction, serving as an invitation for other creative and marketing leaders to share their verdict on the ad–which was a unanimous disappointment over Shopee’s chosen creative direction.
The general audience, meanwhile, had been split on their perception of the ad. According to Digimind’s analysis, some had found the 11.11 campaign endearing, while a fraction showed displeasure over the latest campaign mixed with some neutral liking.
The main narrative of the ad in question was Jackie Chan fighting off bad guys ‘magically’ through the power of Shopee’s ‘big discounts’. For every press of the actor on his phone, discount bubbles pop up such as “$60 CASHBACK ALL DAY,” sending an enemy down and defeated.
Screenshots from Shopee’s latest 11.11 ad
Apparently, the negative sentiment by the mass audience drew some parallel with professional opinion, which is Shopee’s seeming failure to leverage Chan’s martial arts prowess. Following Bleasdale’s post, MARKETECH APAC formally reached out to some of the advertising professionals that commented on the post.
A consensus among the creative leaders was Shopee’s perceived faulty decision to favor a fictional story of ‘powerful’ discounts rather than spotlighting the ambassador’s renowned action-comedy branding.
A leader from ad agency Cheil Singapore described the ad as an “orange mess,” while an advisory board member from martech DAIVID said the ad could have been an opportunity to have “some whacky martial-arts impossibility” performed by the ambassador.
Digimind had rounded up some definitive comments which had been in agreement with the said professional flak.
Negative and neutral comments on Shopee’s 11.11 ad gathered by Digimind
One tweet said, “I guess Jackie Chan beating up people with a tap of a button is all [we’re] going to get in a Shopee ad.”
While another wrote on Twitter, “[Jackie Chan] did a [Shopee] ad, my life is ruined.”
Other hostile comments pointed out other ‘less-than-perfect’ elements of the ad such as Chan’s seeming wrinkle-free appearance and how the ad looked like a ‘deepfake’, which is the digital alter of a person’s face.
“I’m laughing, they [airbrushed] Jackie Chan’s wrinkles…,” one netizen tweeted.
While another one said, “Tell me why I’m so convinced that the Shopee ads with ‘Jackie Chan’ [are] [deepfakes]…”
According to the report, there were a total of 309 mentions in Southeast Asia, excluding promotional content, about Shopee’s 11.11 ad from the period of October 17 – 31 across leading social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter.
The study found that Malaysia conversed the most around the campaign with 40% of the mentions coming from the market, followed by the Philippines (30%) and Indonesia (20%).
Information from the study also showed that the inaugural Shopee ambassadorship of Chan for 9.9 in August garnered higher traction on social media than the sophomore campaign of the star for 11.11. There had been a 4530% fall in the total volume of mentions for the newer campaign compared to the previous 9.9 over the same period from August 19 – 31.
Shopee’s 11.11 ad was released on YouTube on October 18 across its covered markets in Southeast Asia. Thai viewership of the ad eclipsed the platform’s other markets, registering over 39 million views as of writing.
Digimind’s analysis covered the markets of Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and India.
Australia – Due to the scare of health and environmental hazards of most commercial bug repellents, people tend to resort, although unverified, to natural remedies – with some even surprising to see people agreeing to.
This is the theme of the new campaign by Reckitt’s hygiene brand Aerogard as it presents the value of its new ‘100% plant-based’ insect repellent, Aerogard Naturals.
The campaign, which was created in partnership with creative agency Host/Havas, aims to introduce the product as a new ‘force of nature’ that is both effective and safe, in a series of four 15-second spots, designed for TV and online.
The spots feature the ‘Murphey Family’ and the alternative attempts they used to avoid bugs with common and not-so-common natural remedies, such as onions, mozzie bands, and fly swatters, as well as essential oils.
Saurabh Jain, Reckitt Hygiene’s marketing director for ANZ, said, “The creative from Host/Havas brings to life some familiar scenarios, with a touch of humor spritzed throughout, which will resonate with all.”
Jon Austin, the executive creative director at Host/Havas, commented, “It was great to work with our partners at Reckitt Hygiene to showcase a genuine force of nature when it comes to natural pest repellents. I’m looking forward to busting out the Aerogard Naturals as we launch into summer.”
The campaign has been rolled out on 7 November 2021 across TV, online, and social.
Singapore – Advertising company Taboola has announced an update to ‘SmartBid’, an AI-powered technology that helps advertisers maximize their campaign performance even more autonomously.
The update, known as ‘SmartBid Dimensions’, now allows advertisers to couple contextual and demographic data with more user dimensions on readers – data points which uniquely connect content, consumers and interests, and are sourced from the company’s 500 million active users and 30 billion clicks annually.
The original SmartBid software was first introduced in 2018, which uses readership pattern data from global campaigns that reach more than 500 million daily active users and deep learning algorithms to adjust advertisers’ bids, to drive actions an advertiser wants to accomplish.
Prior to the new update, SmartBid took advantage of Taboola’s scale and size, including its curiosity graph – the connection between reader interests across content – to make decisions on behalf of the advertiser when it came to auction price.
“It is so important to help advertisers succeed, because advertiser success is directly correlated to publishers’ success and it keeps the open web thriving. SmartBid is one of the most sophisticated A.I. technologies in the world, now providing advertisers an autonomous autopilot-like experience, where they can keep their hand on the wheel, but let the car drive on its own,” said Adam Singolda, CEO and founder at Taboola.
In hindsight, SmartBid analyzed a site’s performance, and used that as a main signal to adjust the price an advertiser should pay. For example, if a site drove less conversions for an advertiser, SmartBid would adjust the price lower and vice versa. That still meant that advertisers had to be somewhat leaned in, to take into consideration more granular circumstances such as geography, time of day, day of week, platform, operating system, creative, and dozens more.
Singolda adds that what makes their company unique from a data perspective is that they sit on a ‘curiosity graph’, which understands what people do when they finish reading an article. He adds that this data shows a much more authentic version of consumers versus what they tell social networks about themselves.
“That helps SmartBid make accurate predictions, and as of now will help our advertisers to go beyond human capabilities to reach better results, while being even more hands off. I’m so proud of our algorithm teams for working hard to make our advertisers, publishers and open web successful,” he concluded.
Sydney, Australia – Corporate affairs agency Bastion Reputation has roped in Jim Carden, former corporate communications specialist at broadband access network NBN Australia, to be its principal consultant for campaigns and digital reputation.
Carden brings decades of experience across the business, government, and not-for-profit sectors in Australia. Aside from his previous role at NBN Australia, Carden has led corporate work for brands including Qantas Airways, BHP, and Brisbane Airport Corporation, as well as Transport for Victoria.
Bastion Reputation believes that Carden’s breadth of experience across industries will ensure the agency’s reputation as a national leader in corporate and public affairs campaigns. For the role, he will be overseeing the critical practice as part of Bastion Reputation’s full-service offering.
The agency shared that Carden has already rounded out an experienced team of principal consultants and heads of practices, covering media and public affairs, organizational and stakeholder communications, and issues and crisis, as well as training and capability.
Clare Gleghorn, Bastion Reputation’s CEO, commented that they are pleased to welcome an experienced and well-credentialed practitioner like Carden, as they look to address their most difficult challenges in an increasingly complex world.
“Jim will be a fantastic asset to our team of senior leaders who are able to provide the experienced and specialist support which our clients demand as the corporate affairs partner of choice for leading brands. I am really looking forward to working with Jim as he continues to grow our campaigns practice including building on our nation-leading capability in the digital reputation space,” said Gleghorn.
Australia – Following the recent launch of Riverina Dairy Co.’s new range of flavor-infused cheeses, the dairy brand has released a new campaign series, aimed at convincing consumers to create an adventure in the kitchen.
The campaign, which is created in collaboration with independent agency Paper Moose, features a series of micro-narratives that highlights the brand’s new range of cheeses by bringing food to life – such as summiting a mountain of basil pesto fetta and hiking across spicy jalapeno halloumi slabs, among others.
Riverina said that each spot was filmed entirely in-camera, utilizing miniatures of varying scales coupled with sound design to transport the viewer’s imagination to intrepid culinary scenarios.
Karen Prebble, the head of marketing at Riverina Dairy Co., shared that they needed an agency partner that understood the importance of standing out from the crowded dairy aisle while growing their category at the same time.
“Paper Moose was the perfect fit to bring our fresh-thinking new fetta and halloumi range to life,” said Prebble.
Jeremy Willmott, Paper Moose’s creative director, commented, “What better way to showcase Riverina’s ‘daring’ range of flavored cheeses than a daring miniature adventure set atop your dinner. Who says you can’t play with your food?”
The campaign has already rolled out on 1 November across online, social, and print, as well as retail.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – RHB Premier, the premier banking services arm of RHB, has launched its newest integrated campaign which aims to convey its belief in applying the century-old bank’s tried and tested financial wisdom of the past to the wealth and investment landscapes of today and tomorrow.
Titled ‘Golden Wisdom’, the campaign depicts two renowned custodians of Chinese art – traditional calligrapher Ong Chia Koon, and contemporary visual artist Jaemy Choong, who unknowingly go head-to-head in bringing to life three wealth management concepts using their own respective art forms. As they both finished their artworks, both of their works were dramatically combined to create artistic masterpieces that were greater than the sum of their parts.
The two artists, meeting for the first time throughout the whole co-creating process, then came to a realization that the wisdom of yesterday can indeed guide one today to the success of tomorrow.
The campaign, made possible by creative agency FCB Malaysia, aims to mark the bank’s long-term aspiration to become the bank of choice for affluent Malaysian Chinese.
Abdul Sani Abdul Murad, group chief marketing officer at RHB Bank, noted that as the ‘Golden Wisdom’ campaign marks its first-ever brand campaign, they did not only stop at embarking on something that no other financial institutions in Malaysia had attempted before, but also establish the philosophy behind the bank’s approach to wealth management and investment.
“I believe we’ve achieved that with the help of Chia Koon and Jaemy, two personalities from different ends of the artistic spectrum who managed to leverage on their respective past and present techniques to co-create something that neither of them could achieve alone. To me, this collaboration is a true encapsulation of our brand belief of ‘Together We Progress’,” Murad said.
Aside from their appearance in the film, the three Golden Wisdom artworks – which feature fusions of traditional strokes and modern touches – were then used as print advertisements, social media content, and other communication materials for RHB Premier’s suite of wealth management products.
Speaking about the creative process, Tjer Wang, creative director at FCB Malaysia, stated that selling the idea of ‘Golden Wisdom’ during the pitch was an exciting experience for them, because it was such a refreshing, bold, and ambitious take on a subject that is generally perceived as uninteresting due to financial institutions always choosing to ‘play it safe’ when it comes to premier banking communications.
“And if I’m going to be totally honest, that was also the reason why our excitement quickly turned into nervousness after we had won the pitch. Pushing the envelope of creativity to introduce a brand that’s as well-regarded as RHB Premier could only end in two ways — a complete disaster or a resounding triumph. But thanks to the good people at RHB Premier who never stopped believing in us and the idea, and the amazing efforts of our production partners in Restless Productions and GT Records, this campaign came out a winner,” Wang added.
Meanwhile, Ong Shi Ping, co-owner and chief creative officer at FCB Malaysia, commented, “What we’ve achieved with ‘Golden Wisdom’ is building a sustainable platform for the bank to continue introducing their wealth and investment products around a compelling and unique story behind the brand’s philosophy. So, ‘Golden Wisdom’ marks the start of a long and exciting journey for RHB Premier, and you can expect to see a lot more audacious work from the brand in the near future.”
Shanghai, China – Chocolate brand Dove in China has launched a new campaign aimed at driving top-of-mind awareness and a new consumption occasion by targeting an area where pleasure is too often forgotten – in the workplace.
Led by advertising agency BBDO Shanghai, the campaign was produced with neuroscientist, Paul Zak, a professor at Claremont Graduate University, in order to incorporate expert consultation at the storyboard and planning stage, specifically the use of immersion neurological response testing to make iterative choices for the final two films.
Titled ‘Put Pleasure First’, the campaign is composed of two stories that were set against two low emotions– ‘disappointment’ and ‘stress’ in the workplace. It features Dove’s brand ambassador, Zhou Dongyu, who finds herself on these occasions, but rather than being let down, playfully decides to create an ‘oddly pleasurable’ video out of the things that made her disappointed or stressed.
The brand experience is completed by a series of special packs, featuring five different taglines that express pleasure attitudes towards low emotions at work, giving shoppers instant encouraging messages to have a piece of Dove and put their ‘pleasure’ first.
Harry Chen, BBDO Shanghai’s group planning director, shared that workplace low emotions are becoming such a ubiquitous phenomenon in China as the competition and pressure have intensified in recent years.
“Dove has always been a brand that stands for pleasure, so we felt we had the opportunity and responsibility to help Chinese people cope with these low emotions a little bit better and experience more pleasure,” said Chen.
Meanwhile, Arthur Tsang, the chief creative officer at BBDO Shanghai and the global creative lead at Mars, noted about the campaign’s strategy of banking on videos for the campaign, that while Chinese office workers don’t look to chocolate as a stress-reliever, they do on videos.
“We asked ourselves, can we interrupt their break sessions with videos that can make them feel the pleasure of chocolate directly? That’s what we call ‘Oddly Pleasurable’ videos, short audio-visual experiences that can scientifically bring a pleasurable feeling of satisfaction and relaxation, much like the sensation of eating Dove chocolate,” said Tsang.
On social media, Dove has also released a behind-the-scenes documentary, chronicling the making of the whole ideation, production, and neuro testing process, while on Douyin, a re-edited Zhou Dongyu film was released to encourage consumers to experience the content.
Moreover, Dove has launched more videos that leverage the actual chocolate product with influencers on Weibo and Douyin, which also encouraged consumers to create their own oddly pleasurable videos.
Sydney, Australia – Fintech lender Plenti has partnered with advertising agency Howatson+Company to launch a new campaign that aims to inspire Australians to stop putting their big ideas on hold and instead make them real.
Plenti assists Australians with loans through smart technology. Its proprietary technology platform provides automotive, renewable energy, and personal loans to help bring their big ideas to life.
Titled ‘Destroy Your Dreams’, the campaign nods to the fact that most Australians are using ‘inspiration boards’ on social media sites including Pinterest and Instagram, to plan their dreams, and it remained just that, living inside boards and not brought to life.
In addition to the ad film, Plenti has released a suite of product films, social assets, and is facilitating a ‘Destroy Your Dreams’ consumer promo.
Daniel Foggo, Plenti’s CEO, commented, “We’re excited to be launching a major brand campaign and customer competition that highlights how Plenti can help people achieve their dreams. It highlights just how exciting it is to bring people’s big ideas to life as we continue to build Australia’s best lender.”
Meanwhile, Samantha Saunders, the head of marketing at Plenti, believes that the brand is young and still relatively new to the consumer marketplace.
“We needed a cut-through brand campaign that would resonate with our affluent customer base. As a modern lender, with modern customers, we were prepared to take risks with the creative, so long as the work reflected who we are and where we’re going,” said Saunders.
Gavin Chimes, Howatson+Company’s executive creative director, shared, “This campaign is about shaking people out of their complacency and inspiring them to take action. And by creating it, we got to fulfill one of our very own dreams, blowing stuff up in an ad.”
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – For this year’s Deepavali celebration, the Festival of Lights celebrated on 4 November, Malaysia’s Petronas presents the message of embracing ‘love’ and finding ‘positivity’ during the pandemic through a new animated web film.
The new film is a loose adaptation of the ancient Indian epic of Ramayana that draws parallels between the experiences Malaysians are facing during these trying times with the battle against darkness. It urges the citizens to have ‘faith’ and ‘power’ in this journey towards recovery.
Titled ‘Akka’, the web film features the main character Dheeya who goes on a journey of self-discovery. Along the way, she learns valuable life lessons that ‘love’ is also an act of responsibility. The film also shows how the values of ‘anger’ and ‘frustrations’ can be turned into a positive light through acceptance.
Datin Anita Azrina Abdul Aziz, Petronas’ senior general manager of group strategic communications, said that the pandemic remains a challenge for Malaysians this festive season, but it is also a time for ‘unity’ and celebration within the community.
“We at Petronas wish all Malaysians celebrating this Festival of Lights, Happy Deepavali. May light and love always prevail,” said Aziz.
In addition, Petronas also launched specially designed kolams – a form of traditional decorative art drawn using rice flour, which are being displayed at the Lingkaran Karak and Mutiara Damansara Petronas stations until 8 November 2021. The kolams, created by local artist Lashanya Rangoli, depict scenes from the web film.
The film is available for viewing on Petronas’ official YouTube channel and Facebook page.
Petronas has had animation as its main creative direction for its past brand films such as for the commemoration of Hari Raya, Thanksgiving Day, and Malaysia’s Independence Day.
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