In this edition of Outside In, we continue a blend of What I Heard (WIH) and What I Read (WIR) series – this time with coverage of Cannes Lions 2023 – and with a difference. While the event focuses majorly on Creative and Marketing excellence, we will kind of focus on curating out the inspiring Customer Experience (CX) stories from the same. You might wonder that isn’t it all the same initiative? Creative, Marketing, Digital, Brand, Entertainment, CX… Yes, it is! The lines between these streams of work have completely blended in today’s day and age. With this effort though, Outside In tries to cover the Standout ‘Experiential’ Stories – which will blend all of the above disciplines for sure into a seamless program – that can serve as inspiration from a CX-delivery perspective
As I jump into the wormhole of CX discovery from the world’s best Creative & Marketing initiatives, I am hoping that it will be an ‘insightful’ read indeed… Let’s go!
1) Inspiration 1 – The Resurrection of Barbie, by Mattel
The Barbie story is literally the flavor of the year isn’t it!? Let’s see what they spoke about at Cannes Lions 2023 and beyond…
These are the highlights of a presentation by Mattel’s Richard Dickson on ‘Create to Differ: Invention in the Age of Perpetual Reinvention’ – Reinventing when your brand is already on fire, fuels a whole new creative high. There are 3 key takeaways:
Evolution makes a brand relevant, but purpose makes the brand immortal. Trends will come and trends will go, but values endure
Your brand is stronger for the diversity that it represents, and it inspires. They are using Barbie as a massive global platform to model inclusivity, to celebrate what unites people across generations and geographies
No brand ever really truly succeeds without risking failure. Brands that matter – they can’t be selectively purposeful, selectively authentic and selectively brave. Instead they must be consistently all of those things
Barbie’s story demonstrates that when brands embrace change, the only true constant is actually change. What they’re really doing is reinventing to be the change they want to see in the world and creativity is what makes that possible
Inspiration 2 – Bentley and Adidas Put Creators in the Driver’s Seat
Catch the collaboration/curation story here at:
“Outperforming is about taking risks because you believe in something and know what your customers want. It starts with the design before the execution. By making it happen you will disrupt the market and to achieve this, you may need a creator that will help you to connect with a different cohort who shares the same values of craftsmanship, authenticity and the substance behind the luxury.” – Christophe Georges, Bentley
“Bentley is at the top of its craft and understands luxury and craftsmanship at the highest level as we do. They gave me the freedom to create outside my normal limits by giving me full access to connect with Bentley employees and to understand each other’s craft. When these types of creator and brand collaborations are done for the wrong reasons, it never works. But when it’s like-minded, it makes an impact and its fun, both the creator and the brand can push the limits of what’s achievable together.” – Dominic Ciambrone
Inspiration 3 – Why is this a Swiggy Ad?
A few months ago, Swiggy released an ad titled, “Why is this a Swiggy ad?” It was absolutely confusing. No context, no information, no product placement. Just some random objects and people in space. It made no sense, whatsoever. But, it did do one thing right. It got people talking. Everyone who saw the ad started analyzing the advert and began theorizing and deciphering. The one with the best theory would win a sum of Rs. 1 lakh. Everyone was talking about Swiggy and all of a sudden, the ad was a hit.
In a world where people thrive on 30 second content, the concept had the audacity to be confident that millennials and Gen Z would stare at a post for more than 10 seconds and take the time to come up with theories. The ad spoke more to the tune of each consumer’s memory experience that they associate with brand Swiggy
So, why is it a Swiggy ad? Is Swiggy going to Mars? Metaverse? Is the brand going to accept crypto? Delivering samosa to Elon Musk or to outer space? Will the gulab jamun uncle get a new avatar? All the answers could be right. It’s open-ended. It is a Swiggy ad because it made you think about the brand all along. Clever, cryptic, engaging and digital-first!
Inspiration 4 – Solapur to Sweden – How India Won Spotify the World in 3 Years
Session by Dheeraj Sinha, Leo Burnett and Neha Ahuja, Spotify India
India is a chaotic market wherein the youth lives with their parents till the age of 35, 45, 55 and so on, depending on their choice. It's a country where everybody wants to go to the IIT and become like Sundar Pichai. Therefore, the whole trick is how to take a brand which is avant-garde, cool, young, Swedish, such as Spotify, and make it relevant to a market like India without compromising the core of either
There is a whole youth stereotype on which advertising is built in a market like India and maybe many other markets as well wherein there’s one guy or cast with curly hair, a lot of tattoos and maybe piercings as well, throwing in a guitar, and so on, which gets casted in every ad, and then there is the Indian youth who is hustling between friends, relationships, parents, ambitions, etc. on a daily basis, not just in his or her life, but also in the country, so anything and everything can go wrong
When the teams were thinking in terms of what can music be to India and what can be the end benefit or what can be a larger purpose which can change the world, they figured that music helps one hustle on and it's a grease of life. They thought about hanging the whole brand on that insight or narrative of the cultural truth
While there is a formula that works for India, which is to have TV in the media mix owing to the huge reach and great efficiencies coupled with a mega Bollywood star wherein the product is plugged right at the beginning, the brand had a feeling that it would not work well for them
That’s when they came up with the insight that music actually greases one’s life and helps one manoeuvre through sticky or crummy situations. Then they decided to narrow down a couple of those stuck-in situations in different cities, neighborhoods, etc. basis social listening of traffic intersections and sentimental analysis. And, then they came up with an idea of actually solving all of it by having a playlist for each of the nuances that they found out
The brand was launched with a hyper-contextual outdoor campaign, with 1153 billboard creatives, which organically landed on digital in the country, which built on culture and later even became one. By the end of the campaign with the user base gaining absolutely exponential growth with streaming take place in 7500 cities and 13 languages in just one year
They even decided to delve deep into what India consumes and found out that despite numerous song launches happening, Indians love going to the repeat mode on merely 20-30 songs and that’s when we decided to sort their own category codes with the best in the latest collection. They believed that music isn’t just only for GenZs or only for millennials but for everyone. So, they decided to get the two generations together to understand what music solves for Indian households and what happened after this was exponential user growth again
On the IPL campaign for Spotify (in 2022), the brand and agency had come up with 20 pieces of work and 60 cutdowns in just a period of one month, by going back to some parts of the pitch work that had happened earlier which were mainly focused on how India is about chaos but music really helps people hustle on
After the IPL campaign that the brand actually went on to become the No. 1 music streaming app, from being the eighth player at the time of launch, in just a matter of three years. And, India went on to become one of the largest contributors to Spotify’s global user base
Inspiration 5: Find My Craving Campaign by Hunger Station App
On average, an adult spends approximately 132 hours per year looking at menus online before deciding what to eat, resulting in indecision that often leads to making the wrong choice. According to a recent study, the conscious mind can only process 40 bits of information per second, whereas the subconscious mind can process information up to 500,000 times faster. To help HungerStation customers avoid what psychologists refer to as "Choice Overload", Wunderman Thompson Riyadh used the power of data and AI to tap into users' subconscious minds, assisting them in discovering what they truly wanted to eat
The campaign's centerpiece was the 'Subconscious Order' – a new feature on the HungerStation app that recognized when a person had been scrolling for some time and then helped them determine their true craving. As various cuisines were displayed, a front-facing camera tracked the user's eye interest using advanced algorithms, and then smart AI narrowed down the options and presented a data report of what the user's subconscious mind wanted to eat, along with a list of relevant HungerStation restaurants to order from
Check the story here at:
More Standout stories continue in a Part 2 post next week on Outside In…
References and Sources
1) Mattel Richard Dickson presentation overview by Lisa Han Yayi: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lisa-han-yanyi_change-is-the-only-constant-how-to-re-invent-activity-7089038481259180032-s-89/
2) Bentley and Adidas Collaboration/Curation Story:
and https://www.iris-worldwide.com/news-and-insights/cannes-wrap-up/
3) Why is this a Swiggy Ad: https://www.storyboard18.com/quantum-brief/why-did-swiggy-make-this-ad-12768.htm
4) Solapur to Sweden: How India Won Spotify the World:
5) Hunger Station App Story: https://www.wpp.com/en/featured/work/2023/06/wunderman-thompson-hungerstation-the-subconscious-order
6) Cannes Lions – Google Wrap Up Report: https://info.canneslions.com/the-cannes-lions-2023-official-wrap-up-report/reset-with-ai