With the ever-growing world, we live in it’s no wonder why making a decision about anything is much harder for us. We’re spoilt for choice. Technology is always improving, the way we learn changing and our ability to comprehend and learn skills just increase whenever something new and revolutionary comes along.
The one classic and timeless things we have grown to trust and rely on is storytelling. This can be done in so many ways and through so many methods. The ones that have stood through the test of time. The ones that require very little Hollywood pizzazz and the ones with true meaning. A message you carry with you forever until you get that right opportunity to share with someone else who will appreciate the story.
Advertising is so important when it comes to the brand identity of an organisation. It’s a critical component in creating your brand whilst also introducing yourself to the public. It should not be taken lightly and should be used when deciding which direction, you want to head to as well as the message you want people to be hearing.
We’ve found four very different ways companies have promoted their brand and we explain why we think they succeeded in winning their audience.
BI Norwegian Business School
Let’s be frank, creating a video advertisement to aid in student recruitment is boring. It is! If you think about your purpose, then add in your unique selling points, the awards you’ve won and the reminder that your location is great, you’ve got a video that probably resembles 90% of other university advertisements. It’s safe to say, unique is not so much within the vocabulary of promotional university videos. But we were floored by BI Norway’s advertisement and how they took the process of student recruitment on another level. Have a watch and see if they don’t convince you to apply to their business school. *Please note the competition is now over!
Metro Trains (Australia)
In trying to decide how best to warn people of the dangers of train lines, an idea was conceived. A fun little jingle to get people singing and dancing, whilst also raising awareness of dangers that people would have otherwise not seen as serious.
Bring in the ‘Dumb ways to die’ song. Quite catchy, we’ve sung along a few times until we realised what the song was saying. It’s a fun thing to share with the family and friends, again whilst putting into our heads the seriousness of train lines. This campaign was so successful it has a lot of other spin-offs as well as a very popular game!
Burger King
A little friendly competition never hurt anyone, and we know that McDonald’s and Burger King strongly believe in this philosophy. Despite facing heavy competitions, these fast food champs know how to work together for a good cause. Every year, McDonald’s in Argentina celebrate what they call ‘McHappy’ day, an annual event that sees McDonald’s donate all of the money made from sales of their Big Mac to a worthy cause. In 2019, Burger King opted to join in on their competitors’ event. They halted sales of their infamous Whopper burger in hopes that it would motivate their customers to buy from McDonald’s instead and raise as much money as possible. The result? After the initial confusion and explaining by Burger King staff, loyal customers joined in and sparked a day of people eating fast food for a good cause! We hope it happens every year!
Always
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs
We saved this one for last, not because we thought it was far better than the others, but because it gave us all the feels. Tears were shed and we’re not even that ashamed about it. In this day and age, people are becoming more and more aware of their surroundings and dare we say are becoming ‘woke’. Whilst life for so many of us is better than it was hundreds of years ago, the reality is there are still people living on this earth experiencing great injustices that advanced beings such as ourselves should not be facing. When it translates into advertisements, particularly for a company you may not directly link with injustices, it can become clouded and hard to understand. But Always, a feminine hygiene brand came out with an advertisement that discusses the much-used quote ‘…like a girl…’ not only promoting their corporate social responsibility but also raising awareness for something used so often that people don’t even realise how its connotations are insulting. This sends a powerful message without being overtly in your face.
Those were just a few examples of how the power of storytelling, awareness and advertising can make your brand image clear whilst attracting the attention of some very loyal customers.
So, think about your company’s identity, and see what the marketing messages are saying about you.
ABL Recruitment team
