10 More Things// Schools Of Thought, Fortnite & OOH

In this edition: Different explanations for how advertising works, why Fortnite is the biggest cultural influence today & a celebration of OOH

Hello! Been a while. I did say this would be sent infrequently but this amount of gap probably requires some explanation… Work got busy. Then geopolitics got busy*. Then I bought a flat. Then I started renovating the flat. So needless to say, reading Marketing Week was very low on my list of priorities. However I somehow have 10 things saved over the last couple months which I mostly have no memory of adding and now need to re-read to add some coherent commentary.

As ever I have been keeping my eye out for interesting things in the industry to report on. At my mate’s stag do I took time out to capture this photo of Disney’s ‘Mufasa’ posted at the Waterloo Imax. See if you can spot why the vent placement made me double take.

*Not that I’m a spy but the amount of interesting world news is reversely correlated to the quality of this newsletter.

Let’s do this!

The Big Stories

Schools Of Thought. I think this post explains a lot of disagreements between media and creative agency folk. There are broadly 4 schools of thought about how advertising work, each will be the right framework some of the time although that doesn’t mean they are all equally as important. Ignoring the 2 schools of thought which aren’t scientific - Brand Relevance and Barriers & Benefits - you are left with Marketing Science and Creative Effectiveness. Massively generalising but most people working in media subscribe to Marketing Science because it’s the thing we can control and is most useful to know for our job. Most creative agency people subscribe to Creative Effectiveness because it’s the thing they can control and is most useful to know for their jobs. Although every good planner knows a bit about both.

I see the importance of Marketing Science and Creative Effectiveness happening at different times. Marketing Science = strategy and Creative Effectiveness = planning. Everyone has a different definition of strategy and planning so I’ll share mine for clarity: strategy is anything that happens before the brief and planning is anything that happens after. Too often we get strategy and planning muddled up, talking about Marketing Science when we should be talking about building amazing work or missing the boat to use Marketing Science to help shape an effective brief.

Fortnite: Single Most Important Influence on Popular Culture. How did it get so influential? Well, firstly instead of charging everyone £10 per month to play, Fortnite went about making money in a unique way: licensing. The first collaboration was in may 2018 to promote ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ which allowed players to become Thanos wielding the infinity gauntlet. Since then there’s been 3,000 collaborations including John Wick, Star Wars, NFL & Spiderman.

Then lockdown happened. Fortnite, quick to realise the opportunity, released ‘Party Royale’ mode, removing the need to virtually assassinate anyone you’re hanging out with and creating a massive concert space for artists. Musicians jumped on this. Massive audience - tick. Easy to produce - tick. Easy to sell merch - tick. “Travis Scott earned $20 million in merchandise sales from his 2020 virtual concert, more than 10 times the take of any stop on his IRL tour”.

“The most-watched stream on Twitch last month was the exclusive debut of Spanish streamer Rubius’ new in-game “Fortnite” skin: players can purchase an avatar modeled after him and wear his cat as a backpack”

A Celebration of OOH

New York Needs Organ Donors. An ad where you just know whoever wrote it had the biggest smile on their face when they figured out the idea.

McDonald’s Hash Browns: Descended From Greatness. Maybe my favourite OOH ad this year. Look how adorable the lil’ hash browns are grouping them together like minions celebrating their ancestry.

TESCO. Ignore the backlash these ads are beautifully crafted and makes Tesco food look delicious.

Gladiator II Piccadilly Takeover. Working with famous IP is a gift which Wavemaker leapt at. Every brand featured is perfect. T.K.Maxximus is genius. Lego’s ‘Finally Something You Can Build In A Day’ is perfect. 10/10.

Calpol’s Someone’s Feeling Better. Lovely use of OOH. Credit to Ed Turner for the photo.

Pick N Mix

Alphaguess. Guess today’s word by learning whether the world you write comes before or after today’s word.

OpenAI’s Search Engine Is Now Live In ChatGPT. Big media news that wasn’t much talked about. Of any media channel, search will be completely transformed by AI (& ecomm).

Specsavers’ Emmerdale Idents. Creative media thinking extending the long-standing ‘should have gone to Specsavers’ into a soap.

The Importance Of A Good Logo. What percentage of people do you think correctly drew the Starbucks logo? Find out…………………….. now: 6%. Only 17% got close.

See you next time ✌️

Alex