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Bring me sunshine…

Posted in Advertising, Media, Marketing, Creative, Branwell Johnson, Latest reporters' blogs March 6th, 2009 by Branwell Johnson

A smile may cost nothing – to the smiler – but is worth its weight in gold to clients and agencies trying to keep potential customers from spiralling into recession-led gloom.

It might be stating the obvious but Justin Billingsley, the ever effervescent Orange brand marketing director, hammered home the point at this week’s ISBA conference. As he put it “when smiles are scarce their value increases.”

As an aside, that’s probably why a bunch of ads from 118118 to Virgin Atlantic to Aero are being sound tracked by upbeat songs filled with fond memories from the 70s and 80s. Play ‘em back to back and it sounds like a Now That’s What I Call Music compilation. One insider told me that JWT pitched a slightly more quirky tune for Aero but the Jackson 5 won out.

Billingsley also pointed out that “redundancy brands”, as Marketing Week called ‘em in a recent feature , may come out of the downturn as the losers, as customers will carry a bunch of negative associations once the good times roll once more. These are the brands that are making money back guarantees or similar in case of redundancy.

He referred to the Hyundai “got your back” campaign and said: “Whenever you are driving the car in the future, you will remember you got it because you were scared.”

A good point, let’s hope the economic situation improves enough that Billingsley’s theory can be tested!