Alice Burrell

Tomorrow is World Suicide Prevention Day. And today marks the start of the next chapter in our campaign to unite the nation against suicide. Together, adam&eveDDB, the Campaign Against Living Miserably and ITV are launching Missed Birthdays. A campaign to draw attention to the fact that suicidality amongst children and young people is at a record high. 10 years ago, the single biggest killer of young people was accidents. Today it’s suicide. It has claimed the lives of 6,929 young people. Every single one of those lives is represented by a missed birthday balloon: a simple, powerful symbol of the hope, happiness and humanity that has been so tragically lost. It should make you angry. It should make you feel outraged. But it shouldn’t make you feel hopeless. Because we can all play our part in ending youth suicide, for good. Today, we aren’t asking you to donate. We’re not asking you to sign a petition. We are simply asking you to CARE. C: Check In with the young people in your life. A: Ask if they’re feeling suicidal. R: Remain close and remove them from harm. E: Escalate to emergency services - like CALM’s suicide prevention line or 999 - if necessary. To understand how to use CARE more, please visit care.thecalmzone.net Please share if you see fit; one conversation can be the difference between a life saved and a life lost. Today, tomorrow and every day after, we are #unitedagainstsuicide.

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We have partnered with Mi3 to survey Australia's top marketers, gaining valuable insights into drivers and obstacles to growth. Follow the link to download the report. Let us know what you think. Jen Davidson Anthony Gregorio Paul McIntyre

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In London this Wednesday morning? Will you join us for breakfast? The Marketing Society invites you to join us with our friends Publicis Groupe for a thought-provoking discussion around the ‘Uncomfortable Conversation’ on the evolving landscape of diversity in communications and advertising. 28% of UK adults say they actively avoid brands that don’t embrace diversity but it’s hard to authentically represent diverse communities. Here’s the question for discussion: 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗧𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻? 💭 ◽ Is diversity in comms as critical for product-led sectors vs service-led? Or are there more important elements to communicate about? ◽ Is diversity in advertising now genuine or is it still just a token gesture in some sectors?  ◽ Do diverse ads boost sales or risk alienating customers? JOIN US - in a lovely comfortable setting with breakfast and great company… as well as and some expert food-for-thought from great panellists (now including extra Emma Harris). A time-efficient and enjoyable way to learn and pause to think together. Thought-provoking, useful and a brilliant way to start your day! Date: Wednesday 22 May Time: 8.30 - 10.30am Venue: London WC2A 1JA JOIN US - book your place here - https://lnkd.in/eG7yE672 #uncomfortableconversation #diversity #advertising

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Pret's subscription model wasn't about loyalty, it was about customer acquisition 🫴 I keep seeing Pret's £30 a month subscription referred to as a loyalty scheme; including in their own financial reports. Now, with their latest move to change it up there's a sense that this was a failed loyalty scheme. But if I flip it on its head, I see it as one giant sampling campaign, partly invested in by the UK population! If you want to get people to pay money for something that they're not quite sure on the quality, value, taste, then one of the ways to get it into their hands is to offer it to them for free or at a low price. And if you want them to continue enjoying your product regularly, you can aim to create a habit around your product. You could do this by giving away lots of your product around the same time every day to embed this ritual into your customers' lives. Brands are leaky buckets, and following the pandemic Pret had a mostly empty bucket! To grow, brands need to aim for light buyers, and continuously bring more people in to your brand than your competitors. I see Pret as looking to get a competitive advantage over other coffee shops by getting competitors' customers to make the switch to Pret, thus stealing market share. When they make the switch to their cheaper subscription but with less 'payback', I imagine there's an assumption that all these 'loyal' customers are so invested in Pret that they'll continue to visit and buy. Yet coffee is a commodity. People will generally go to the coffee shop closest to them in their moment of need! Unless Pret has coffee filled with magic, there's very little reason to choose one coffee chain over another. But, I'm optimistic. I imagine Pret will keep plenty of customers, many of whom were not Pret customers before, because of a successful initiative in driving trial. And if I'd like one thing to come out of this, I'd love to see the next financial report refer to this subscription as a customer acquisition strategy, not a loyalty one 😉

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Anyone else focusing in on conscious consumption this September? It started with Oxfam alerting the world to the sheer amount of #fastfashion that lands in landfill with their national #secondhandseptember campaign. September marks a seasonal change in the calendar. Wardrobes are turned over from S/S to A/W and fashion weeks across the world make headlines. You could argue that buying nothing is the most conscious thing to do, but then there is the negative impact that that has on the economy - creative economy, retail economy, local manufacturing economy and local economies. If you buy from local brands designed, brands who have purpose written into their business DNA and secondhand retailers which support the fundraising efforts of important charities, then surely the offset is worth it. #secondhandseptember #consciousconsumption #slowfashion

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A really good piece today in The Media Leader UK from EssenceMediacom UK's Chief Strategy Officer, Richard Kirk. Sharing an unpublished chart (see comments) from our £1.8bn econometrically-fuelled Profit Ability 2 study, he suggests that "spend in paid social for large brands may be treble the optimal level for growth" and that "Linear TV for big brands could be delivering much more with a boost in investment, with online video also offering headroom for growth." Addressing the "Well, obviously Thinkbox would say that" elephant in the room, Richard states: "...the dataset here is collated from brands’ own econometric data, across a series of agencies and auditors. No data capture or analysis has been undertaken by Thinkbox itself. Ebiquity and WPP, brands that trade on their neutrality in media, have done the work and built this tool." #TV #TVAdvertising #Advertising #MarketingEffectiveness Jane Christian, Olga Zaitseva, Dominic Charles, Matthew Chappell, Nic Pietersma Thinkbox | ITV Media | Channel 4 Sales | Sky Media UK

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Some thoughts on Dupe Culture - We live in an aspirational society where climbing the social ladder is more or less possible - With most traditional forms of marking social status faded or fading, we’ve gravitated towards products that tell the world which rung we stand on - The backdrop for this has been zero percent interest rates and an explosion of access to debt, democratizing access to status symbols - With the bill coming due, and the economy teetering at a micro level, people are desperate to write a narrative of their behavior that doesn’t reduce perception of their social status - Dupe culture repositions this social hierarchy anxiety by giving personal agency to people who are “smart enough” to get the utility out of similar products - The irony is that this only reinforces the value of luxury because luxury is about purposeful wasting of utility to display control over resources - The backpack you buy on TikTok has more utility than anything Hermes makes but it doesn’t mean anything no matter how hard you try to position it as a smarter choice - Our refusal to face climate change is in large part tied to our addiction to using waste to signal status - Luxury brands have nothing to fear but Dupe Culture can take a big bite out of mid premium and premium brands that don’t mean enough to people - People buy a fever mirror dream of themselves, filling a god shaped hole

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Search engines are evolving from traditional SERPs to AI-driven experiences that prioritise user intent with 'rich answers' or 'position zero' snippets at the top. Generative AI, like Chat Experience Results Pages and AI Overviews, is set to revolutionise search by offering dynamic, AI-generated answers above traditional results. This shift emphasises natural language queries and poses challenges for brands to create high-quality, comprehensive content that resonates across topics. Success in this new landscape hinges on providing original, valuable content that guides users through their journey, aligning with the future of AI-powered search. David Castle GM of Resolution Digital digs deeper on the matter and discuss' the importance of brands understanding how to deliver genuine value to consumers, not just relevant answers, to stay prominent in the changing landscape of AI-driven overviews and chat-style search results. AdNews Australia #SERP #CHERPS #SEO #GenerativeAI

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In 2019 Cadbury UK launched a masterclass in our first Principle: Distinctiveness. And no, this campaign doesn't feature a sad lass on a bus, or in a petrol station, or a drumming gorilla. And it's not even about purple as a 'distinctive asset'. The launch of their Dark Milk was an impressive exercise in decision making - by being ruthless in deciding who their product isn't for, they could position it much more clearly, and therefore develop a much more distinctive proposition to an older audience. Instead of being a forgettable half milk, half dark chocolate hybrid, this creative gave it a shot at being the chocolate for those old enough to know better. #advertising #marketing

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Media Marketing Compliance helped the Association of National Advertisers study the market for 'Principal' (or 'Proprietary') Media, and the results have landed. The report is incredibly thorough and provides great guidance for advertisers. While not a new phenomenon, PM is increasing dramatically and becoming a much more controversial way for Media Agencies to make extra profit at the expense of transparency into their true revenues. Advertisers should take a firm view on whether this is in their best interests.

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Very happy to have played a very small part in this calling for this to happen, well played B Lab for doing the right thing 👏 I’m a massive advocate for B Corp and a massive advocate for the biggest organisations in (all) industries using the B Impact Assessment ‘tool’ to transform. Yet Havas totally took total liberties here. Having spoken to a number of clients (and employees) of Havas who are rightly shopping about right now - I certainly wouldn’t want to be in their reputational risk or people & culture teams at this moment 👀 And it doesn’t just stop with Havas, network agencies globally are totally under threat. Yes they have size, heritage and media buying power - 🛥️ and can afford a banging boat at Cannes 🛥️ - but if forward leaning clients don’t want to be associated to you because of your client list, and your best talent is jumping ship - surely the best strategic business direction is to take advise from an organisation like Clean Creatives and get your house in order. But what about the stability of employment for existing employees? I can’t imagine the outgoings of a network agencies IT costs, let alone their primo location global offices - but ‘not taking the brief’ doesn’t just protect the agencies reputation - built from hundreds of thousands of hours of brilliant strategic and creative minds collaborating to drive remarkable communications - it also protects the hundreds if not thousands of jobs that will be lost from ‘natural churn’ and clients hitting the eject button. Big news for B Corp, big news for agencies. #Agency #Greenwash #BCorp

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Just starting to watch the Olympics coverage, switching between BBC, European coverage and Japanese coverage across channels. I can’t avoid but to be appalled by the massive gap between the quality of content production, content editing, narration and insightful knowledge from the TV hosts and reporters. I can’t believe how poor the quality of content and coverage by Japanese platforms is, not to mention the incredibly broken digital experiences. How can it be so bad? Just watch BBC vs TVer side to side and anyone would quickly realise how terrible the content, narrative and quality is over here. Any channel or platform in the west (and probably many other Asian countries) delivering so poorly would be out of business in no time! Definitely an entire industry ripe for disruption! What do you think? Any insights into how this continues to be the norm in Japan? I’m certain that talent, great directors, reporters and content producers exists, so why is this accepted as the quality standard?

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The power of creativity and originality. With risk comes reward.

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As part of our research in the lead-up to this webinar, we partnered with Opinium to explore consumer perspectives on the use of humour in healthcare. Without giving too much away, our findings helped understand where humour can be effectively applied, the contexts in which it should be used, and which types of humour might best convey a brand's message. Register here to learn more: The Power of Humour in Healthcare - https://lnkd.in/eUn9ew4X #healthcare #comms #communications 

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Brands drive economic growth - and let's face it the UK needs as much of that as it can. This is an article by my colleague Rob Allen about how we can ensure the success of British brands. #BritishBrands #immersivebranding #branding

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In an industry obsessed with finding efficiencies, budget savings and increasingly carbon savings in Production all credit to #Vogue for photographing ten very different locations in ONE day and using one of them as their September front cover! Who’d have thought a title like Vogue would be using a Virtual Production Volume stage for photography. Efficiency of cost, talent use, logistics, insurance, health and safety. Credit to the whole production team #Vogue and Bazz Luhrmann. There are many benefits to using VP, looks like the clever ones are capitalising on them.

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Did you know 45% of people say they are more likely to notice a catalogue sent in the post than a marketing email? If you're in the planning phase for your Christmas activity take a moment, grab a cup of tea and discover more fascinating more stats and benefits for catalogues in our blog. ➡️

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From the Unspoken to the Spoken- McDonald's UK New work from Leo. This work still builds on the idea of the "language" around the anticipation of going to McDonald's but it moves from the unspoken to the spoken by exploring the different names and nicknames the fans give the brand. No food, no meal deals, no restaurants are shown- it's just the spoken code of the anticipation of a visit to McDonald's as told/shown through the scenes of the spoken moment with kids. It's another example of a brand recognizing that despite the insistence of its legal department, people will call a brand what they want to call it and those names aren't trademark violations, they're terms of endearment. Cultural observation and acknowledgment can be powerful when done right. It's also interesting to note how very different this spot is exceptionally from the "Raise Your Arches" spot- gone are the high product values, expensive director, etc, and in comes a more doc-style reality-based approach. I wonder where that came from?

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