Rock my world, make me different, knock me out, make me beautiful — take me someplace else. Creating strategic campaign positioning signatures: premise, promise, expectations and outcomes.
There is a presumption that everything is greener, someplace other than where you are. And once you get over there, the same holds true — it’s better elsewhere. The logic follows that if it’s better over there, then being there, so will you. There is a problem, with the concept of sustainability. With these foundations, you can never be satisfied, ever.
Therein: Marketing 101. The quest for perfected being as a perpetual need / brand state.
Judann Pollack explored that idea, of positioning and life-changing ideations in marketing extravagance in an overview earlier this past month. The proposition of any marketing premise, and by implication, promise, demands change. If there isn’t any change, then what’s the point of considering marketing. It is, indeed, about getting from here, to the proverbial there, the finding, the acquisition, of things.
Being a marketer, I realize that virtually everything I do, strategy and design, is about having more. And that I must, in a way, get to the proposition of creating added needs (and states) for my clients and their clients. As a maelstrom of needs, it’s quite complex. Storytelling and the swirl of community networks is only part of it — really, it’s about what is relevant and resonant to the person, who relates to another person’s visioning, in the presentation of the brand story.
Thinking about positioning that we’ve written, I only go so far, to the nature of life-changing evocations; more, for me, it’s about delivery and authentic fundamentals. That might be, “Let Your Nature Begin®” for the legacy of a family development group, undertaking an extraordinary property evolution. Tableau Software’s “seeing is believing”, signing their rapid fire visual, browser-based software — for wowing analytics (and analysts). There are others, explored.
But in forever altering our lives, as we leap the chasm to newly adopt, we are taught, potentially, the great lessons in living: flow, for example, with Pre (“elaborately illustrated in a beautifully shot — but totally overwrought — spot featuring hundreds of harmoniously choreographed dancers on a hillside.”) In examining some of the opening moves on Bing.com, there are bombastic expansions on the potential life-changing modeling, (change your life, use your time to decide better…) and even our failed inattentiveness to the falling world around us, “it will deliver us from information overload that seems to have distracted us from realizing the economy was collapsing.”
There are others, that aver amazing change.
Surely, some have:
1. APPLE | “1984”: the Mac — promising that 1984 wouldn’t be “like ‘1984.’”
And others, in the dissipation of time, shall not — even, to evanescence:
2. SATURN | “Spring in Spring Hill: Saturn, the beginnings” — “a different kind of car company; a different kind of car”. Gone.
3. WINDOWS 95 | “Start me up”. To quote on a quote, Judann Pollack, AdAger notes “Ad Age’s Bradley Johnson called it (the $200 million Weiden & Kennedy launch program) “the most hyped product in computer history.” And speaking of starting me up, it’s still here. Vista followed, another $500 million — “Wow starts here!” aligned with deep archetypes of transformation like the fall of the Berlin Wall and Woodstock’d nation.
And, to the opening theming from the kick off to 2009, Microsoft and enterprise, yet another spin on life, business, and you — and how they’re inextricably linked. You, true blue and Microsoft — noted here, earlier. Still looking for the truth.
4. AMERICAN EXPRESS “Are you a cardmember?” This being a translated evolution from “My life. My card.” And the real theme here is that your life, and the powered changes that calibrate your day are linked to your card — the AmEx card that will represent “more of a call to action,” said John Hayes, chief marketing officer at the American Express Company in New York. The others, while compelling, to the ethereal and contemplative tenor of the “My life” campaign, featured celebrities like the director M. Night Shyamalan, Robert De Niro, the surfer Laird Hamilton and Ellen DeGeneres discussing their philosophies of living; (and the change, implied, therein the card “holding”. The “My life” campaign “really wasn’t working,” said Robert K. Passikoff, president at Brand Keys, a research company in New York that studies brand and customer loyalty. “We do believe this brand is defined by the people who use and carry the card,” said Diego Scotti, global head of marketing at American Express, and the “My life” campaign “worked well in getting people to say, ‘I want to be part of this group,’ ” referring to the celebrities. “Now, we want to go into more depth about what you get out of membership,” Mr. Scotti said. “What has changed is the stories they tell will be connected to product, in an authentic way.” Are you a member? Membership begins with the right card.™
5. NIKE, Nike Air
Given the scenario yesterday, the memorial of Michael Jackson at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, it’s interesting to recall the fact that the Weiden & Kennedy campaign did maximize the masterpiece “Revolution”, the Beatles’ call to battle. Battle ensued — the Beatles’ binged, creating a suit that dragged for a time, to 1989. Change my world, change my life — revolutionize, my world.
You say you want a revolution
Well you know
We’d all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well you know
We’d all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out
Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright [x3]
You say you got a real solution
Well you know
We’d all want to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well you know
We’re all doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you’ll have to wait
Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright [x4]
You say you’ll change the constitution
Well you know
We’d all love to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well you know
You better free your mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don’t you know know it’s gonna be alright [x3]
Alright [x7]
The Revolution lyrics are the property of the respective authors, artists and labels, the lyrics in reference are for the purposes of educational and analytical review only.
There’s always an idea that the positioning signature is the big change, the enlarged premise, the longer promise. Sometimes, it’s so simple, it’s unforgettable.
Apple, 1984. It won’t be like 1984, because, after a bit, you’ll be “thinking different”.
The psychic underpinning of “Revolution” is so rebellious that even linking to the song, the lyrics, takes us back to another time, another visioning — a connection with our history and heart (that if the resonance is right) it is unforgettable. Others try to reach there, but if they recall that sense of “vibe”, that links to the heart, then…
that’s another question. Who’s listening?
And who believes the telling?
Embrace me?
tsg | miami
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Being someplace else | fantasy + design: STAR TREK
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