There are few better ways to start your day than with a sweet treat. So we were down at Google HQ early this morning handing out sweet crepes while promoting Toyota Yuko.
To celebrate Google Green Week, Toyota Yuko are sending a lucky Googler and 2 friends on a road-trip to remember in a Toyota C-HR Hybrid to discover the greener shades of Ireland. So we thought it would be great to treat everyone to a sweet breakfast while creating that road-trip atmosphere outside their HQ in Dublin. Armed with some deck chairs, beach balls, a Crepe van and a boom box, off we set, on our mission to start the morning on the good foot.
To find out more about Yuko Car Sharing click here.
Pieta House is the current charity partner of our client Aviva, and was chosen as Charity of the Day to be supported and promoted during a major match in the Aviva Stadium. Our main objective was to create awareness for the charity and their helpline number. It was to be promoted across social media channels but was also to be screened during the Ireland v England RBS 6 Nations final.
Given this context, we used the analogy of rugby, the battle between two teams and the metaphor of light and darkness to illustrate the issues surrounding suicide and self-harm and highlight the help that is there.
Thanks to the wonderful work by Piranha Bar, the director James Doherty, composer Steve Lynch of Stellar Sound Ltd, Noel Storey in Beacon Recording Studios and the voice of Gerry O’Brien, we were able to create a moving video, that spoke to those who had, or are having, suicidal thoughts, their family members and those that work in Pieta House.
The incredibly talented Subset brought a little bit of London to Smithfield this week, with the introduction of a breathtakingly massive mural of grime artist Stormzy, ahead of his Dublin show in the Olympia.
We love a day out here in Javelin. So, when we got the chance to send some of the team to the opening day of Offset, the annual Irish creative conference, we jumped at the chance. It was a learning experience, so here’s what we learnt:
Creativity is a muscle
It’s not that everyone can’t be creative, it’s just that some people choose not to use it. We are all creative in a way, the hard part is finding what that way is. The risk is that some can get caught with, in the words of Jean-Paul Goude, “their ass between two chairs”. He chose to follow a career in design and illustration over his love of dance simply because he was better at one than the other. If it takes 10,000 hours to be an expert, why quit before you give it a go?
Trust. Motivation. Ownership.
Those words, in that order. That’s what Nils Leonard, former Creative Chairman of Grey London, said is needed for an agency to create more effective work. By building trust with a client, an agency is able to work with the knowledge that their expertise is respected. By working together with trust in the agency, everyone has their voice heard, regardless of their age or position, to create the most effective work for the client. This in turn builds motivation. A motivated work force is a more effective unit. That’s common sense. With trust and motivation, the agency takes greater ownership of their output and is willing to stand by it. And so is the client, and the circle continues.
Don’t sell yourself short
Illustrator Rod Hunt spoke, at length, about how hard it can be for creatives to get their work spotted. He said it’s one thing to work for little, but never work for free. That undervalues yourself and your field. Echolab’s Gavin Little echoed the same thoughts (pun obviously intended). Pro Bono work is different and should be jumped at. This is a chance to do work for the public good. But when a big company asks you to work for free, tell them to jog on.
Jean-Paul Goude missed a beat
It’s not often you get to critique one of the most celebrated creatives in the world. Unless you’re a critic. Then you do it all the time. Regardless, Goude’s retrospective movie titled “So Far, So Goude” wasn’t the best pun going. Jean-Paul, if you’re reading this, here’s a few suggestions for the next film.
“The Goude, the Bad and the Ugly”
“Goude Boy Gone Bad”
“Feel Goude Lost”
“Do not go Gentle into that Goude Night”
“Goudefellas”
“A Few Goude Men”
All in all, we have a lot to thank the organisers of Offset for. If you are interested in learning more about Jean-Paul Goude, Nils Leonard, Rod Hunt or Gavin Little, make sure to visit the handy links on their names.
Good direct marketing can deliver very good, even extraordinary results. Campaigns that use smart data planning, that are creatively executed with talent and charm, and that are strategically delivered can have a business-changing return on investment.
Here in Javelin, we treat direct marketing with the creative passion it deserves. We’ve been trusted with more than our fair share of great briefs, many of which have been amongst our most interesting, awarded and commercially successful ventures.
Here is a snapshot of some of our recent favourites.
Toyota Ireland: Customer Acquisition, B2C
Task “Our cars last for ever, so a lot of what our potential customers see is our older models on the road. We have an incredible new stylish range from the Aygo to Rav4 – we need to show more people our product range and how contemporary it is. How should we bring the range to potential conquest buyers proactively and not expect that they will come to us?”
Answer Data profiling allowed us to analyse the existing customer database and assess who we should really be targeting, whether lookalikes or perhaps a different demographic. Having defined our core audience using the census and our own data, we decided targeted direct marketing was the answer. % points were then assigned for those of the 3500 micro areas that fit our key profile most accurately. We decided to target 10% of the available adult population that fit this profile with semi addressed direct marketing at national street level. Strong creative that married softer brand messaging seamlessly with harder tactical messaging was delivered.
Results Post campaign analysis pointed to laser targeting in our profiling. 31% of those who bought a brand new Toyota in the subsequent 3 months had been in our original target data set – a significant % increase over the 10% of population targeted, and a significant % over Toyota’s typical market share.
Arnotts : Wonder Card Loyalty & CRM programme
Task When Arnotts briefed Javelin to develop the naming, identity and launch for their new loyalty programme, it was a dream of a brief. Accompanied by tear sheets of examples of brands’ work that our client loved as a guide, along with a great set of product propositions, they let us loose to create.
Answer The loyalty programme was unique in its make-up and offering and would leapfrog all other older Irish retail loyalty offerings to be best–in-class – the final agreed naming of the programme as the “Wonder Card” the look and feel and the advertising proposition “Unconditionally Yours” were derived directly from the unique product benefits. No restrictions on using points in the sales, use across every area in the whole store, treats and prizes and points on your birthday, a swift, easy, app experience.
Results The agency identity and design, creative executions for the App, and the direct marketing, digital and advertising launch campaign led to a flood of 100,000 signups in the first 4 months. We were delighted that Arnotts took home the 2015 AIM award for best Mobile campaign, and that Javelin took the Gold Award at the Smart Marketing awards for Best Integrated Campaign, along with a Gold for best Retail Campaign.
British Telecom (BT Ireland) : Lead Generation/Acquisition B2B
Task Launch our new Cloud Contact proposition to major enterprises in the Irish marketplace, and with a budget of €99,000 deliver a sales pipeline to the BT sales teams of €2 million.
Answer An end to end campaign, using data propensity profiling, Qual and Quant research, 3D direct mail, highly personalised landing pages, cascading triggered e-shots, VIP thought leadership seminars, social campaigns via LinkedIn & Twitter, and experiential.
Results This campaign delivered €13 million in pipeline potential, and an actual directly attributable sales figure of €7 million. It also delivered Gold for Best Data Strategy, and Best B2B Campaign at the Smart Marketing Awards.
To start the conversation about DM possibilities for your brand email kyla@javelin.ie for a no strings attached chat.
Just the one, but a particularly well chosen one. (And not one chosen by this writer, so no trumpet is being blown here except for our corporate one.) The mighty new Toyota C-HR was launched with a poster and digital campaign that simply said Want. The one word seemed apt to sum up the appeal of the C-HR, the first foray by Toyota into the urban crossover sector, where people like their cars to come with a liberal serving of attitude. Gratifyingly, more people are opting for the Hybrid variant. And as the imposing new C-HR increasingly makes its considerable presence felt on the street, more and more people will be feeling the want for one. There is an old rule in our business, much honoured in the breach, that the ideal poster headline should comprise of no more than five words. We feel a new rule coming on here.
Recently, our friends at Nielsen went back and had another look at radio, and how it is actually performing vis a vis other media. And it turns out the result is rather surprising. By counting more stations, adding in all the stations packs, direct advertisers, sponsorships, promotions and stings like time checks and traffic updates, radio’s share of total recorded spend goes up. And quite significantly, at that. Their test runs, which have been sense checked with agencies, now show a doubling of spend on radio. Yes, of course, total spend on digital is still rising, but radio, which has been with us approximately since the ark, appears to be in rather better fettle than the received wisdom would have had it. The October report, due out on December 1st, will use the new methodology and it will be back dated to January 2016.
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