Ideas We Love Issue no.10
'An embarrassment of riches' (featuring Nike, Red Bull and McDonalds)
Hello. How are you? You look well. Have you been away?
This week Matt is off enjoying himself and can currently be found plastering the lift network of St. Anton with stickers promoting the newsletter. Our Head of Analytics eagerly awaits the spike in subscriptions and engagement that his guerilla tactics will inevitably lead to. He’s also taken the opportunity to spend some time conducting research in the wine cellar at The Hospiz Alm.
When we started this project, we said we would aim for a frequency of ‘weeklyish.. life and workloads permitting’. Time together to discuss the work we enjoy has been scarce this week and given we’re operating with a skeleton staff, there is a temptation to exercise our right to skip a week. However, that felt like a bit of a cop out. Especially when there have been some really lovely ideas landing in the last few days.
So. Instead of the usual deep dive, here are three of the things that have caught our eye in the last 7-10 days. All of which have a very distinct everything communicates kinda vibe to them….
Nike’s Air Max Day Carboot Sale
It’s the tenth edition of Nike’s Annual Air Max Day ‘celebration’ - which is being marked in the UK this year with a ‘car boot like no other’. An event fusing shoes, sounds, second hand clothes and a whole host of brand collaborators from Nike’s brand neighbourhood. This is a great example of a brand playing with the idea of the ‘closet sale’ that we highlighted a few weeks back.
We love Air Max Day - it’s a sales promotion in brand builders clothing. It’s also a great example of a ‘long idea’ too. What longevity has allowed Nike to do is slowly move the event from being one orientated purely around shoes to being one which engages and mobilises a community of sneakerheads. In many ways this event is incredibly reminiscent of the stuff that craft beer company Beavertown used to do with their Extravaganza events. A lesson in what ‘redefining’ the competitive set might allow you to do.
RedBull’s ‘Worlds Fastest Drone’
Working with production outfit Dutch Drone Gods, Red Bull released a video last week pitting a drone that flies at 350 kmh against their new season F1 car driven by Max Verstappen. Some absolutely incredible footage alongside some real ‘will they won’t they’ jeopardy, this is a lovely example of how the clarity of the brands ‘extreme’ positioning can be pushed and pushed and pushed. You could imagine the ‘Red Bull Drone’ becoming an entity similar to the Goodyear Blimp, a by-word for extreme photography in sporting and cultural occassions where performance is paramount.
This idea is a trojan horse for Red Bull’s F1 team ahead of the new season of F1 starting. We get a glimpse inside the factory, we see how their technology is applied to the drone to improve performance, reliability and speed. The flying lap at the video’s climax is a thing of beauty: this is advertising that generates attention in it’s own right rather than just rents it.
McDonald’s - Welcome to WcDonald’s
Last but by no means least is this recent idea from McDonalds that saw the chain rebrand a number of their restaurants from McDonald’s to WcDonalds, a move that leans into a long-running joke found in anime and Manga movies dating back to 1980.
The campaign consists of a wide range of elements: From a series of animated shorts on Youtube, to in-store and in-app activations, to limited edition products and accompanying on pack promotion...
The strength and appeal of the idea is clear - a well established visual style to use in communications, the ability to stretch into product and NPD and license to engage a whole community of Manga and Anime fans. This is a big central idea that does everything from building brand affinity to driving short terms sales. Proper ‘full funnel’ marketing.
We love how McDondald’s doesn’t take itself too seriously and has the confidence (and brand strength) to willingly remix and re-engineer it’s brand assets to cut through in food and pop culture. We both grew up with the Happy Meal Movie tie ups and in some ways, this just feels like a much more lux version of that style of thinking. McDonalds are on a hot streak at the moment: continuously using nostalgia and humour at a time where there is not loads of good news around. We’re Lovin’ it.
Until next time
It’s been short but sweet this week but hopefully you won’t hold that against us.
Cheerio
Tom and Matt