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How to Creatively Stand Out in Saturated Markets | Aeolian Sands - Ep10

March 21, 2025 • duke+mir • Season 3 • Episode 4

In this episode of Aeolian Sands we discuss creativity. What is creativity, how can it be harnessed, and how have brands used it to stand out? We explore the essence of creativity in marketing, practical ways to spark and apply it, and showcase some of the most iconic brand campaigns that used creative thinking to capture attention, disrupt industries, and build lasting connections with audiences.

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Ever wondered what makes Arabia tick? Aeolian Sands is our regular podcast that uncovers new insights into the Middle East. Join us for our latest deep dive.
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About duke+mir
duke+mir is a communications agency that supports founders and business leaders in the Middle East. Our team of expert advisors build effective brand strategies, creative campaigns and deploy measurable marketing tactics for a range of world-class businesses and challenger brands.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 0:12

In this week's episode, we're going to be talking about everything to do with marketing and communications. We're going to be talking about our favorite campaigns that have really inspired us over the last 12 months or so, and all to do with creativity as well. And one of the most creative people that I know, me glad to have you along for the ride.

Unknown: 0:29

Yeah, I'm excited for today's episode. It's going to be a good one. Yeah, we're going to be

Jon Ivan-Duke: 0:33

talking about favorite campaigns. We're going to be talking about how to set budgets for campaigns, or things to consider for what makes a creative creative campaign as well. But one of the hardest things for me was actually trying to decipher which creative campaigns I wanted to focus in on the most, because there were just so many great ones from all around the world. Yeah,

Unknown: 0:53

it was really hard, and there were so many last year. But then also this year saw some fantastic work. I so I kind of went against the norm. I picked a brand to dissect, and then I'm going to talk about the campaigns that they did,

Jon Ivan-Duke: 1:07

before we get into the favorite campaigns. I thought we could touch upon creativity and what it actually means to be creative. And when you look at the dictionary definition of creativity, it's the use of imagination or original ideas to create something, or inventiveness. How would you describe creativity?

Unknown: 1:27

Well, I think for me, being creative is to is to be brave. And brave is a really kind of big umbrella term, and that's that's bravery in terms of the position you take. It's brave, bravery in terms of either finding a novel or unique way of using an existing tool, technology, surface, medium, right to to get your idea across. And brave could be not being afraid. I know it's very cliche, but not being afraid to fail, and often brands and businesses are so held back by the burden of success that that failure is not an option. And I think to allow really great brands and businesses allow space for creativity, and they understand that with creativity comes failure. So how do we take, how do we take a measured, qualitative, quantity, quantified approach to factor in the element of failure within creativity? It's

Jon Ivan-Duke: 2:29

such a good point. I really like the fact that you've made this point, because I certainly see it as a drawback of certain you know, if you're in a position as a marketing director or a marketing manager, you're so intently scared, perhaps, of upsetting the people at the very top that you don't take that chance. And I came across a great phrase. It was just on a forum somewhere. I don't know who this is attributed to, but it said, creativity is looking at the world and seeing what could exist instead of what's already been done. And that's what I love about doing creative campaigns, doing things in a different way, but if we look at it in a more rational way as well, because I think it's natural for people who are creative like ourselves to think, well, obviously creativity should make sense, right? But there's more, more rational things to look at. 78% of college educated adults wish they had more creative, more creative mind. But I would look at that and think those 78% of people who wish they had a more creative mind, maybe they're just not taking enough time to nurture it, because we are inherently born with with the ability to be creative. I truly think that, I think some people are perhaps a bit more inclined towards creativity than others, but I think it's also something which has to be nurtured. You have to practice it just like any muscle. The other thing that I saw was that CEOs rank creativity and creative problem solving as their number one thing that they value in colleagues. So it just emphasizes the importance of actually investing time in becoming creative, and

Unknown: 4:06

obviously, as you know, kind of after the 50s and then up to the 70s, traditionally, you'd see CEOs or captains of industries coming from a finance, a banking, a management focused background, right? But as the role of communications has is, you know, expanded where it's not just kind of your traditional TV out of home, but it's everything from social, digital content, video content and now even applications in web three, the metaverse, right? More and more you're seeing top C suite executives at these big business and brands being marketing people or comms people, because it the inherent value of a business is no longer just the assets that it holds, but it's also the value of brand.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 4:57

And what you said there in terms of how people. Other are interacting with brands as well. People are spending more than half of their time looking at online content now. And when you think about the sheer volume of content that has to be produced as a brand, as a business and even individuals as well our impersonal brands, you've got to stand out. You've got to do something a little bit different that perhaps other people aren't doing, and that's where creativity really comes into play. Also, when I was looking at some of the figures around this, and looking at that rational argument around creativity, trying to look at it from a slightly different angle, the World Economic Forum does a ranking of the skills that are required for having future success, and creativity was ranked somewhere around seven or eight in 2015 that rose to number three in their list in 2020 and I think it's only going to get higher. I think creativity is really going to be what helps people stand out from the artificial intelligences of this world, yeah,

Unknown: 6:01

but I think there's also, you know, on the other end of the spectrum, there's also the commoditization of creativity, right? Things like generative AI, artificial intelligence, you know, being able to create images, being able to create content. So it's a double edged sword. You know? I think business people are trying to put a business frame to creativity, and sometimes creativity just needs to be for the sake of of of art, of fun, of humor, right? Not everything needs to have a result. If you know, some of the most memorable things that we see from brands, from businesses, from movies, right? They're all related to an emotion we feel. And I think that's also as powerful, you know, if somebody there are, how many artists created their art, and their art wasn't worth anything till 40, 5060, years later, right? So sometimes even an idea now, it may fall flat, but it may come to life years from now. Yeah. I

Jon Ivan-Duke: 7:04

mean, think, think about somebody as famous as Banksy, you know, he was doing it for the love and the passion of these kind of things far, but far before he was famous. And, you know, I think, as you say, it has to come from a position of passion from from the very beginning. So, so what does make a great campaign, in your opinion, in terms of a creative campaign, just to take it from, you've got the, you've got the creative idea is it's a fantastic creative idea, or a creative, creative strand. What makes a great campaign? What is it that will help resonate for people you know, testing into into creativity.

Unknown: 7:42

Well, I think it starts with a really strong understanding of, like, a undeniable truth, right, or something that you've noticed, underpinned by why, why should people care, and why you're doing this. I remember this, you know, this campaign where it was McDonald's and Burger King, right? So either you're, either your team Coke or your team Pepsi, either your team Coca Cola or your team, sorry, either your team McDonald's or your team Burger King, you could be, you know, whatever, Nike, Adidas, name it, right? You take a side, you pick a side. So we know people are really loyal. So Burger King did something ingenious. They're like, hey, on the International Day of Peace, let's extend an olive branch out to McDonald's and ask them to come together for peace. So they encouraged Burger King fans to go to reach out to their enemy, buy a Big Mac and combine it with a whopper to make them a whopper. And they bought billboard space right next to a McDonald's store with an olive branch extending to the store that you know, let just for one day. Let's bury the hatchet and come together for peace, right? So just a really simple, easy to understand, visually, amazing story and and, you know, the the people who took this campaign forward was where the actual audience, right, actual fans, and people who go and eat at these at these restaurants, the the agency behind it, or the strategist was genius, because he played this out like a chessboard, all right? If McDonald's said, yes, we'll come together for a day and make the macquaper, right? Win, right? We got our enemy to join forces with us. If McDonald's said, No, we're not going to come together, right? Do I really want to be a part of a brand that's not gonna stand for peace, right? So, so, you know, I

Jon Ivan-Duke: 9:45

think, I think it's very, it's very Sun Tzu, Art of War, yeah,

Unknown: 9:49

but you have, but that's, but these are, these are time tested, age old, you know, tricks that human nature, you know, is not changing the way other things. Change, like technology, right? We are human at the end of the day. We have, you know, a hierarchy of needs. We need Association. We're driven by cultural nuances. We want to be liked. We want to feel within a tribe. And all of these things came together to make a great campaign.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 10:14

But it also, you know, at that point, it when you when you're working for the likes of McDonald's or Burger King, or you're already at the top of the tree. So in order to stay at the top of the tree, you almost have to be even more creative than the than the sort of innovators and the challenges coming through Absolutely. So it's a really high pressure role. So tell us about we obviously selected some some campaigns which we liked. You have picked out a brand that you want, yeah, so tell me, what's the brand Well,

Unknown: 10:45

you know, whenever we do so, you know, we do brand workshops, right? And specifically, that's kind of, I think the first step that every business should take right is really to identify perfect and crystallize their DNA. What do they stand for? Right? If you were to if a brand was to be a person, right? Where was he born? How did he grow up? What kind of friends did he have? What movies Did he watch? Right? A brand is a living thing, even though it's yes business, but Right? So one of the kind of examples that, you know, we we share to kind of illustrate the importance of this is, and this is from, you know, it's not, I'm not claiming the thought process. I'm not claiming it's from, you know, that famous admin, Rory Sutherland, where he said that, okay, you know, where we want to take on Coca Cola, right, top of its game, right? We want to create a new beverage. What would you do? A rational thinker in the room, your business, management, finance, CEO, right? Or founder would or product founder would be like, we'll make the can bigger, we'll make the price cheaper, we'll make it taste better, right? But then there was one brand that said, we're going to make it taste horrible. We're going to put in a smaller can. It's going to be three times the price. And that was Red Bull, right? So they took a novel, and again, the frame and perspective, they took it took a novel approach. I still

Jon Ivan-Duke: 12:14

want to know, though, I buy into that 99% the one bit I question about that is whether the people at Red Bull said, Should we make it? Make it taste disgusting?

Unknown: 12:23

But at that time, no one had a frame of reference outside of the outside of Thailand and Southeast Asia where the brand was acquired from the actual formula for the drink, right? Yeah, it tastes horrible. It's only after our getting used to the taste. You know, that's when we kind of, now it's become and it's not only that. It's because of the amazing marketing that they do. If you see, it has nothing to do with the drink at all. Of course, it's just rebel. It's just throw a guy out of a plane, make him jump off the bridge, fly a plane through a tunnel, like it's just insane. And it just it. It ultimately showcases the unlimited potential of human beings, if you push yourself. And that's what the brand stands for. And it's ingenious, yeah,

Jon Ivan-Duke: 13:10

and I look, I love, I love Red Bull, I think it's an incredible brand. And I love all of the sports activities that dove and, you know, it takes somebody brave initially, to make that decision and go down that line and take the route they see the success that they've managed to gain from it. Yeah, yeah. So,

Unknown: 13:29

so now I think I'm going to include another case study for my future brand workshops, because this is a brand that I've been following for quite a few years, and, you know, I was really excited to kind of look at it, and they're really interesting takeaways from this. And then I think, you know, and then I'll kind of go through the campaign. But, you know, without revealing it again, this person wanted to take on a very entrenched, cutthroat industry, the beverage industry. It started in 2019 in LA from $2.8 million in sales to$45 million in sales in 2021.$230 million in sales in 2022. This year, this company is now worth 1.4 billion. All right, wow. It was founded by a guy called Mike Cesario, and he was not a product guy, and he was not an engineer, and he wasn't a beverage guy, he was an ad guy, and he was actually a creative director formally at Netflix, all right. So I think what makes this really unique is rather than building a product first and then finding ways to market it, similar to, kind of our brand DNA, kind of bringing it back to that is that he had an idea, and he really wanted to figure out, how does he give this idea, this brand, a personality? How does he take an alternative look at what he wants to take on, ie, the water. Their business. So he started a brand called Liquid death, right, which is today worth $1.4 billion yeah, and he, how did he do that? So he started first, which everyone should do when they're thinking about their brand, is he studied the market ruthlessly, and he really kind of wanted to know who his audience was, right? So if you think about water, water brands, right, what you, what do you? What are, what's like? Nothing exciting about but what are the visuals, Glacier, Mountain Springs, healthy, running in a in a park, right? That's all water on the shelf. That's all water right? Beaches of mountains flow exactly right, beautiful looking people, right? That's the obvious way to go, isn't it? That's the obvious way to go, and most of the time they're in plastic bottles, right? So he his idea was simple, I'm gonna make it canned, right? And I'm gonna aim it at a demographic that that water doesn't appeal to, ie, Gen Z, all right, so no plastic. It was canned. It wasn't a typical can also, right? He went with a tall boy format to mimic the likes of energy drinks or craft beers. The naming liquid death, provocative, memorable, strong recall, yep, look the branding like a punk, punk rock band, skull imagery, leather tattoos, studs, you know, Mohawks. Tagline, murder, your thirst. All right? So he really, kind of took this really strong position. And that goes back to creativity, where you say, be courageous is taking a position, right? I'm sure it was pretty hard to get investors excited about the business at that point, right? When you're saying, Yeah, I'm going to take on the Pepsis, the Coca Colas, the Fiji's and the vases and the evians of the world. But

Jon Ivan-Duke: 17:05

then, you know, when it comes down to it, investors know as well as anyone that a brand has to be differentiated from their competitors. And you know, when they're analyzing these things, they see all of those competitors, like, you say, in one box or tangent, and this one going the complete opposite way you can, you can definitely see why somebody you know, from an investment perspective would think, yeah, this guy's, this guy's onto something here. Yeah, I

Unknown: 17:32

mean that your, your big investors said no, but he did find like minded souls in alternative investors. So, you know, NFL, football players, basketball players, people who are not your typical investor because they understood or they associated with the authenticity of the brand. Well,

Jon Ivan-Duke: 17:52

actually, it's funny. You say that because I think that sports stars are now becoming very, very important investors. We've seen it with various people in it, from from basketball, from from soccer or football, NFL. They're becoming incredibly important because of the the both their image and their their wealth. So image wise, they're being the face of these brands. And you know, from from an investment perspective, they're making millions of dollars. Where are they going to put that cash? Well, they become very, very influential investors, too. And we're seeing that for across all sports, all major sports. And you know, these stars getting involved with projects, which sometimes it outstrips their their sporting careers. And you know, rightly so. You know, it's a great that they, they propel themselves from one successful career onto another,

Unknown: 18:50

yeah. So going back to liquid debt, you know, comms create, use creativity to solve a business industry challenge. Studied the market and understood exactly who the product is for. Came up with killer positioning, design and packaging right. Paired it with a strong sense of identity and messaging tailored to Gen Z, humorous, authentic, anti brand, off beat, environmental activist, activism, you know, fu to the man, yeah, Gen Z drink 20% less than millennials, all right, but they didn't want to feel like they didn't want to feel left out because they care about image. So they didn't want to be feel left out when they're partying or hanging out with their friends. Hence, a can of a tall boy can of water that looks like you're drinking a craft beer, right? Unconventional content and campaigns. That's how they launched the brand digital first went straight to YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, creating really dark humor ads and formats. Produced viral videos mockumentaries. They created a fictitious heavy metal band to promote the brand. The stores where that stock liquid death, they call them death dealers, rather than, you know what dealers, so you can actually, that's how you learn where you can buy liquid death. And they've come up with some fantastic campaigns, and every campaign just reinforces their message. So their kind of CSR Environmental Action Campaign is called death to plastics, right? So again, just very, very grungy, you know, punk rock, death to plastics, call to action to do better for the environment. Different campaigns or ads that they did, an activation they did is called sell your soul. For every soul sold, ie, every soul every time you buy a creative liquid death, every soul sold would be a pledge towards a cleanup action, deadliest stuff on Earth. They had these really kind of famous orchestra players pouring liquid death using profanities. Big Game was their first big format TV during the Super Bowl, it shows these young kids rocking out, painting their faces, drinking these cans almost shocked, like very jarring footage. And then they showed like a pregnant lady also then shot gunning this can. And then it was later revealed that the tagline was like, Don't be scared. It's just water. I love this one. Cutie polluties, they created a range of stuffed sea animals, all maimed, bloodied and murdered by plastic pollution.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 21:43

Wow, that's pretty bold injury, isn't it, right? Another

Unknown: 21:47

really good one, loving homes for plastic All right, if you went onto the website and you ordered using the code loving homes, they would ship you the crate of water, of liquid death. But then they'd also give you postage stamps for you to take a bottle of Coke and Pepsi a plastic bottle, put the stamp on it, and it would be shipped to the Coke and Pepsi headquarters in the US, basically saying that, you know, keep plastics off our oceans, landfills and beaches. I love that critics. So there, obviously there were a lot of haters as well. In their YouTube comments, they convinced two of their haters that people who regularly posted with hateful or critical comments to do a blind taze test. So they invited them to LA and they had all the waters. Fiji, vos, Evian, everything, right? Smart Water, etc. And it was a blind taste test to find out which is the worst tasting water. They basically said we're the worst tasting water, right? So they flipped on its head. Murder your meditation. They created a 10 hour YouTube video where it's just really serene imagery, but it's like a really deep rock voice, right? So it's like, you know, you can do it. And it's like motivational speaking, like, send your significant other a message saying, you up, make sweet love and then get back to get back to thirst rehydration tea for trucks. That was another great one when they launched a new product. So it was iced tea. And it's basically a, you know, your regular Joe American with a big pickup truck saying that, you know, I don't want, I want to, I don't want to serve the man. I don't want to go to my job. I'd rather be home work on my truck, because that's what I like, right? Liquid death iced tea, and he's pouring it into his car. This is perfect. It's gonna totally f up your engine. Hence I get to stay home and work on it longer and spend time with my family.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 23:49

So you said this company is a $1.4 billion company. It's built its whole value based upon brand and creativity. So from

Unknown: 23:59

from from that people don't even know where the water source from, the

Jon Ivan-Duke: 24:03

probably the tap. But you know, even if it is, it's fantastic. And ultimately, you're, you're you're meeting the you're meeting the customer in a totally unexpected place. And the question I have is, where you know when, when you walking around here in in Dubai or in the UAE. Where do you buy liquid death? And you can't,

Unknown: 24:26

I don't think it's here yet.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 24:28

So, so this brand has built this. This is a US, started

Unknown: 24:33

in primarily us, primarily us. And if you see, like all of their all of the people that are featured in the ads are not a list celebrities. A lot of them are your famous comedians turned podcasters, right? So, you know Whitney Cummins, they have a lot of the guys from like Steve o from Jackass, yeah, the, you know, the machine Bert, whatever his last name is, I can never pronounce it. Yeah? Exactly. Exactly, right? So a lot of like off beat, if you watch a lot of these podcasts on YouTube, liquid death is always there. They're always drinking from liquid death. Yeah, right. They understand their audience. Their audience isn't watching, you know, a beautifully produced 30 minute episode of something on YouTube right from from a traditional media outlet. They're watching long format. They're they're living the life of of these, of these different people that they follow, right from comedians to to style makers to creative artists, for example. By the

Jon Ivan-Duke: 25:34

way, if anyone from liquid death is watching, we have plain plastic glasses. And you know, if you want to send us some, some bottles for us to be sponsor them, Peter to have you on. Okay, so, so liquid death sounds like a, you know, fantastically creative business, but one where somebody has taken a real chance, but they have built it from scratch, from creative, from brand. What about businesses where perhaps they're older, perhaps their heritage, perhaps they've been around for a while, and they also now need to inject some creativity into what they're doing. It's going to be a difficult thing for businesses who perhaps they've they're already, you know, maybe even bigger than a $1.4 billion company, but they have to risk it to get the biscuit

Unknown: 26:29

100% and they have an uphill challenge, because if you're that big and that well known, you're known for a reason, and people already have an idea of who you are. So someone for you know, when they take jabs, they can take jobs at Coke. They've got nothing to lose. But now, how does Coca Cola come back? Right through creativity, through campaigns, and as you mentioned, right? That's a bigger, bigger challenge. Yeah,

Jon Ivan-Duke: 26:56

look, I've worked for a heritage brand that was pretty much at the pinnacle, footsie company, huge, multi billion dollars, bigger than liquid death. And you constantly having challenges coming in. And it was always a battle for me to talk to people a bit higher up the chain in the C suite and save them. Look, you're, you're getting sniped and you're, you're getting slashed, and it's a, it's death by 1000 cuts, and you're at the top, you're not going to die overnight, unless you do something absolutely astronomically stupid. Yeah, but you can, you can get brought down and gradually knocked down that ladder, unless you get out there and you do creative things. And, you know, looking at some of the creative campaigns that mentioned some some big brands earlier, one of the creative campaigns that I was looking at was was, you know, one of the biggest brands in the world, but I thought it was a very interesting one, and you can dissect it in so many different ways, but it from last year. This was a sort of big campaign from last year, and it was grimaces birthday. And I'm sure you saw it. It was taken from this, this idea of bringing back a nostalgia character and adding a product line that was based around all sorts of things. It was meals, and it was also the grimace shake, and it was a grimace shake, which got everyone's attention, and it went viral. And now McDonald's claims that they had nothing to do with it going viral, and they attributed, and when you look at the head of the guy there, said that it was attributed to a tik toker, and the end of the day, it was all set up for it. So even if they didn't press that button, which I think they probably did, but even if they didn't press that button to push the user generated content, well, they have, haven't they? Because they've created the whole campaign. They've created the product line around it. They've brought back a nostalgia character, which, you know, perhaps the younger people don't recognize. Perhaps the older ones are like, Oh my gosh, right, I remember this. What this character from when I was a kid. It's all teed up perfectly for that user generated content. And you know the if you haven't seen the campaign, I mean, what rock were you living under? But it was this idea that, and certainly the videos which captured everyone's attention, was that people would drink the groom a shake and say that they were fine, and then suddenly there would be a horror scene. They'd be collapsed on the floor with a shake dribbling out their mouth, or whatever it happened to be. And this was, this was very interesting, because not only was it a successful creative campaign, he looked at the results at McDonald's after this, and it led to very, very strong earnings and in huge performance from McDonald's. This is a big company already. And they managed to generate even more out of it. Billions saw it. Millions engaged with it. And most critically for the business, millions went and bought this, this product to generate revenue. So I thought it was a brilliant campaign, in many ways, from from kind of, I guess, baiting that, that UGC, the baiting the user.

Unknown: 30:23

What do you think made it so sticky? I

Jon Ivan-Duke: 30:25

think, I think that the aspect of of nostalgia for older customers, and then what's this character for the younger ones? But also, when you, when you think of these characters, people like characters to share. If you look at the history of brands. They've often been, you know, mascots, yeah, things that people recognize. You know, they've moved. They were moving away from that, that idea of being just Ronald McDonald and bringing back some of these peripheral characters. I thought it was, I thought it was very clever in that regard. I think also, what's,

Unknown: 31:00

what makes what, I think, what made it gain a lot of traction for UGC, similar to, like the the McDonald's versus Burger King idea, right? Is the ability for, when you say user generated content, it was easy for the user to create that content, right? Yes, it was as simple as going and buying a Big Mac and a MC Whopper was as going as simple as buying this product to do these videos at home, right up for it. And it was let people, you know, unleash their creativity. How are they going to do their video with that product? Right? How are they going to assemble their macquaper, or whatever it is? I think that's very important as well.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 31:38

And I think that must have been very hard to sell in is, look, we are going to put the power in the hands of the people. We're going to allow the creativity of the people who come and buy our products. And when you're McDonald's, you have a big advantage, right? You've already got billions of people around the world who buy at McDonald's on a regular basis, so you've already got a massive audience, and it just takes a few to get really creative with something to for it to go but the people within McDonald, McDonald's knew that. They knew that by by setting things up in a certain manner, by creating those visual cues, by having the great branding of the product and the packaging and all this goes with it, as well as bringing back the characters themselves that they were team themselves up for, for people to just unleash their creativity, which I thought was brave and clever, yeah, I

Unknown: 32:33

mean, but again, I'm sure that's the one that we saw, right? I'm sure there were nine others that they tried and didn't work also.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 32:40

And that's, and that's 100% right? Is that, that you know, for all the ones you remember, there are going to be a number that you don't and, and that's where it takes. It takes a brave person to firstly invest in it, but it also takes a brave person to kill something. If it's not working, why keep pumping money into something? And it's a it's a very good point. When it comes to creative campaigns, you can, you can put the put the money in the effort into it. And if it's not sticky, you do have to make that call that this one isn't working. Let's switch or switch tact. It doesn't have to be a complete 360, no, 180, or whatever it is, it can be a slight diversion into a different direction, but you do have to make that brave call. Now, one of the other campaigns that, for a totally different reason, I loved, and you may or may not have seen this one. This is probably one which may have slipped your radar, but it is a campaign for a company called Yorkshire tea, which is very popular in the UK. And this particular campaign was called pack your bags. The reason that this campaign was, in my opinion, such a good campaign, was that it was based on a truth you said it before. The best campaigns are hooked on a really undeniable truth, and the undeniable truth that they played on here was that people take tea bags on holiday with them. Now that might seem absolutely bizarre, but you ask any British person, and they will say, Yeah, my grand did this, or my aunt does that, or my uncle, yeah, he doesn't feel interesting. And it's because they don't like the taste of of other brands of tea, so they take their favorite brand. Now, it doesn't have to be York City, but

Unknown: 34:34

in this case, it was Yorkshire tea, the the one with the most market share in the UK. It's definitely

Jon Ivan-Duke: 34:38

up there. I'm not sure if it's the top or not, but, it will be definitely up there in terms of market share, and it play, obviously plays upon the idea of British people loving a cup of tea. So you've got that aspect in there as well heritage. But they took it on its head, and they said, Well, okay, so you Gorani. Tea. They all know to buy Yorkshire tea. They're not who we're trying to appeal with this campaign. So what they went, what they did was they were looking for youth. How can we get young people to start drinking more tea and get into having that habit? Because it does become a habit is you have a cup of tea in the morning, perfect, or whatever it is, during your day, with some biscuits. So what they did was, it was, it was a great campaign. It was lucky generals were in there, and I think ninja tune as well, and this artist called Skipton Alfie, okay, and what they did was, they told this story of this young guy going on holiday to Ibiza. What on earth has this got to do with Yorkshire tea? And he goes on holiday, he tells a story. So to start with, it's a relatable story. He's packing his bags. Everyone when they go on holiday, they have to pack their bags. But in this instance, the play on words, pack your bags. It's packing his Yorkshire tea into a suitcase, and it's this journey of him taking out the unnecessary items. So he's throwing out everything. And he throws out everything out of his suitcase, apart from the York City and his passport. So he packs it all up, and he goes on holiday. And then there's the journey of him getting on the plane, and he being served on the plane with the air hostess. And then he gets to the nightclub in Ibiza, and the bouncers sort of stopping him from coming in. And then there's the girl he's chatting up. And, you know, she's, she's, I mean, they don't go into it very, very subtly. They have a cheeky way of interacting as to this girl and him are going to go back to back somewhere, but it's not rude, but it's very, very catchy, and it's very family friendly, and this, and you know, you look at the actual campaign itself, and there's been tons of spin offs and people talking about it and comments, but it's unexpected, and because it's The unexpected, and it's aimed at a totally different audience. It got people were calling it a song of the summer last, last year, and it's, it's had more than 2 million views on the official page, and then tons on the unofficial pages as well. But I just love it. And you know, for that one kind of thing, if I was, if I was saying, what, what is the one thing I love about it, it's the element of truth. It's that, that authenticity, the story that they're telling and and playing up that truth to its extremes. And I thought it's a fantastic campaign,

Unknown: 37:30

yeah, no, that's, that's really interesting. I love those kind of I love those kind of ads. I saw this and, sorry, going off on a tangent. I decided, like, a brain wave, another truth with, like, Muslim mothers, all right, for, and I don't know if this is also in like, Arabic culture, whenever you're, like, about to travel somewhere, right? So you're leaving, let's say you're flying off for your for your job, or on vacation, whatever, they'll always recite some prayers, but it'll always be like whispering, and then they're just gonna and then they blow all over your body and face, right? As in, to give you a protective layer, you know, list stream should do an ad or a toothpaste brand or something, but, yeah, you're so right. Like, it's just these little quirks that people don't really notice till a great brand brings them to light, right? Yeah.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 38:23

And, you know, I think if we're playing upon that, that aspect of truth, what people find authentic, you can also take that another way. So if there's something very authentic, you can also flip it on its head and have something that's fake, and see how that works into a campaign, which leads into my third one, final one, which I wanted to bring up today, which was a campaign last year from orange in France, and telephone company. Yes, the telephone company, although I'm sure they probably wouldn't describe themselves as that, they'd put they'd probably be like, Oh, we, you know,

Unknown: 39:03

telephone, I was gonna do an action then, and I was about to offend every one of our French customers.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 39:10

No, but, but, yeah, telecoms, communication, conglomerates, conglomerates, we'll go with that. So this, this campaign. I absolutely loved it. I thought it was fantastic, because it got me. It actually, it was one of those that, you know, people so many campaigns where I just see through it straight away, if they're trying to dupe you or I just didn't with this. And that's why I loved it, because it really, it really hammered into me. And I think it played upon my own, my own emotions and and that's what a good campaign does, really. And this particular campaign, if you haven't seen it, it's well worth checking out. It starts with a video of what looked like male footballers kicking the ball around and scoring these absolutely wonder goals. And. You watch the whole video, and in orange, it says, we always cheer on label right. And then here comes the sort of punch, and it's like, But these weren't the famous male footballers that you've been watching. Wasn't Killian mbappe, it won. It wasn't Antoine Griezmann. It was actually female footballers. And they show this cut to VFX, a deep fake, AI sort of thing, yeah, where they've actually used a program to superimpose male footballers on top of the what actually was clips of women footballers doing some fantastic moves, wonderful passes, great shots, you know, fantastic free kicks. And it was just a wonderful way of showcasing that equality that you know, if you're, if you're, if you're going to cheer on Killian mbappe and Anton Griezmann in these major tournaments, then you should also be cheering on women's football team in the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, which was what it was tied around and orange. Big supporters of the French Football Federation had identified this opportunity that perhaps women's football not seen particularly amongst amongst men. They would go to the pub, they would tune in with their friends and watch the male football games, but they weren't actively participating in watching women's football. And what they were trying to showcase with this was, you've just seen all of this and thought, Oh, what a great goal. So it's taking people's preconceptions and completely screwing them up into a ball and throwing it, you know, into the distance. And I just, I love that aspect of of taking what was, what is an upwardly trending thing, in the fact that it was a women's sport, very, very upwardly trending industry and sector, along with AI deep fake, again, something an area where a lot of people are investing time and energy, but also getting very interested in so you got two areas which are which are trending upwards in terms of interest, and taking that together and putting it into an incredibly intelligent campaign. Yeah,

Unknown: 42:17

I really like that for I mean, the way I kind of received that video or that campaign, right? What I liked is, as you mentioned, you know, diversity, equality, gender equality is very trending, and you have a lot of brands that are, you know, whether authentic or inauthentic the delivery of their campaigns, most of the times come across as inauthentic, as cringy, right? This was a very kind, very surprise, surprise and delight moment, right, which is also a very kind of, very simple tactic with then coming up with ideas for creativity, right? How do you surprise someone? And then how do you give a positive reinforcement after? So the way I received it was that, you know, I was reminded that my true passion is not about the player or the gender of the player. My true passion is for the love of football, and I can have as much fun regardless of who's playing. I would have as much fun going to a local football pitch and watching, you know, five, nobody's play. Or I'd love it watching the World Cup final, whoever, men, women, doesn't matter. That's the way I received it, which I actually appreciated, because it was just an honest, it was an honest, you know, viewpoint of what really, what the importance of sport and how it brings people together, and

Jon Ivan-Duke: 43:48

it was also convincing, you know, when it when it came down to it, you know, now. And I probably would have been in that bracket of not really watching too many women's football games, whereas I would probably always watch the the England men's team, for example. But now it really sort of makes you wonder, and it makes you think, well, actually, yeah, they've got a great point. It really made me change my behavior. And that's that's something that takes a lot to do, you know? And I think that's why it was, was super powerful as well. But yeah, look, when it comes to coming up with creative campaigns, it's probably quite difficult for somebody who hasn't done it before. What would be your top tips for coming up with a really powerful creative campaign? If you were to sort of nail you down in your top tips,

Unknown: 44:42

I think, for any creative process to begin with, and this is another exercise that we do, is that we get too focused on quality first, right, the quality of an idea. And that. It hinders the creative process. So first start with quantity, right? So take one idea, and then see how many different versions of that same idea you can take, right? Okay, the ball. Let's say it's a ball. It can be small, it can be heavy, it can be rough, it can be multi colored, you know? It could be huge, as big as a hot air balloon. So that's taking one idea, right? And kind of seeing how many different iterations of that one idea you can do, and then the other is kind of distinctive. How do you take one concept and do completely different things to it? All right? You know, it's a it's a pair of jeans. The jeans can be worn as fashion. The jeans can be, you know, unstitched, and used as a parachute. Just go as crazy as you can. And I think that's the first step of, let's say, ideation when it comes to creativity. But before you get to that point, I think it's really to understand who do you want to speak to? Right? What's What's something very unique and true to them, right? And then you kind of brainstorm around this idea. And then the next step is then, actually, then you've got this huge, let's say, board of ideas, both distinctive ideas and relative ideas. Then you start focusing on quality, all right? How much to like your your grimace, example, right? How are we going to leverage the resources we have? How are we going to make it as easy as possible for people to create these videos themselves? You know? How are they going to share them? Where are people going to see them? How easy it is for people to access the product. Can we make sure the product is available for people to take that action? So I think that's kind of what that process would look like, I think,

Jon Ivan-Duke: 46:43

and I think what you raised there is it's that's why sometimes campaigns will look lucky, but they're planned and they're geared for success. And one of the things, one of the lessons that I had, I did a workshop a number of years ago, nearer the start of my career than now, and it was a fantastic workshop with a gentleman called Trevor Morris, who is a complete genius when it comes to campaigns. And he has this sort of acronym, which is post our okay? And there's been various other versions and iterations of these kind of things. But this, this workshop I did years and years and years back was such a defining moment for me, because it helped shape what were perhaps scattergun creative ideas into some form of structure. And I think structure is very important to have when it comes to a creative campaign, because lots of people can come up with an idea, but they can't really justify it. And if you can't justify it, you can't sell it into the people who sign off on budgets, yeah. So when it comes down to it, what's this acronym? Well, the first part is positioning. So where are you at now, and where do you want to get to? The second one is, is objectives? Setting, setting, the objective of what is that you want to achieve. What who are the audiences you want to touch? What are the personas the s for strategy coming up with something that's really going to resonate with the the audiences you're trying to hit, the tactics that you're going to deploy? What are those tactics going to be? How are you going to do them? What's What does it look like in terms of success? And then, I think critically, is that the last two, because these are the ones which will get you the sign off on these kind of projects. A is for admin. So what are your budgets? What are your resources that you can you can play with, what are those things that you can draw of internally. What are you going to need to use an external agency for, or an external person for? And then our results? How are you going to measure it? What is it that is going to be the measurement of success for this campaign? And I think probably creative people are probably quite good at the PO and the S and the T. They're probably good at that the A and the R is, is actually a critical part in what's going to get you through most doors in terms of selling that idea to a prospective client or selling that idea to to an internal person, particularly when it comes to getting the approval of the guy in finance.

Unknown: 49:25

Yeah. I mean, I guess so, yes. But I think, like really strong teams understand the strengths of all different disciplines and skill sets, right? So I would, you know, a creative team, their i Their role is to be as crazy as possible, right? Wyden and Kennedy Unilever, they had the Unilever account. What's that brand called? Old Spice. Was a dying brand, right? And Unilever said, look. It's a dying brand. We're gonna shelf it. This product's going nowhere, right? It's not relevant in today's time. And why didn't Kennedy's like, look, just give it to us, and they just gave it to their interns. Literally, they just gave it to their interns, and their interns just came up with the most crazy, stupid, outlandish identity and visual system to it, right? Right? Which revived the brand. So if we were already thinking about admin resources at that stage, and that's why you have great creativity, then you need a strategist, right, and a tactical planning team to give it the legs and the hands, right? Was this? That was this, the Terry cruise on, yeah, Terry Crews and that ridiculous guy, ridiculous guy, on that horse with that, you know, chiseled chest, like it was just the weirdest people who know, Old Spice never would have even, like, you know, related that to the brand, because they're like, it's dead. Who cares? We can do whatever we want with it. So, so, yeah, I completely agree. I think surround yourself with a with a strong mix of people, I think that's what's important, right someone to and that's been, I've been lucky in that way that I, yes, I am highly creative, but I'm highly commercial as well. So I understand how to speak to creatives, to get the most out of them, right? Because you need artists. You need people who think out of this world, and don't think in boxes and and channels and strategy and tactics. You know, I can, I can speak the language of of those people in the middle that are responsible for, let's say, laying the the pipes to get that beautiful oil all across. And then I can also speak to the guy who's going to sign the check. And I think that's very important if you want to get a great campaign together.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 51:45

Now, obviously, that we raised about getting a great campaign together, you do need money. For a lot of campaigns, you do need money. It's not necessarily the case. I've done plenty of free ideas in my time and low cost ideas, but how much should I be spending on my marketing and, you know, I think when it comes to marketing budgets, there's no hard and fast rule of thumb. You know, if you're a liquid death, I'm sure your marketing budget is going to be very, very, very, very high.

Unknown: 52:16

Now, yeah, yeah, zero when they started.

Jon Ivan-Duke: 52:21

But, you know what's, what's the rule? And as I say, there is no harm fast rule. But the kind of, what a lot of people base it on is, is 10% of your revenue, and if you're growing, then you take the average from last year's figures, and you put it with your projections this year, and you can get to 10% of of what your expected revenue is going to be. And if you're a brand new business, and there are lots of brand new businesses that think, how much should I be spending on marketing? Firstly, we work with a lot of tech companies and they there's a tendency with tech companies to put it all into the operations, because they need to build the product, and without solid marketing, they're not going to hit any of their targets, and nobody's going to know about their product or technology. So if you take the same rule, if you've got seed funding of, let's say, $500,000 it's absolutely fair to put$50,000 of that into brand creation, branding building, your brand messages, your channels, and some maybe a bit of top line research as well, to understand more about your market so that you know that the tech product that you're building is going to hit the mark. And obviously then a launch campaign, you need to be able to hitting, hit your customers. You need to know who those customers are, and hit them strong with with some smart, creative ideas and$50,000 might not sound like a massive budget, but you can do a lot with that towards getting your brand off the ground.

Unknown: 53:56

So if I was a business, okay, let's say I'm not funded. I'm a business, and just for, to make it easy for for everyone, you know, $100 is my revenue. How does that $100 kind of break up in terms of and, of course, marketing is a very big term, right? So how, what percentage of that $100 should I allocate to marketing and within marketing, right? What are the different kind of tactics or tools that I could use? Yeah,

Jon Ivan-Duke: 54:25

that's a great question. I mean, to start with, I would allocate something maybe between 1015, 20% even, towards market research. The more that you know about your customers, the more that you know about the people you're trying to appeal to with whatever product it is that you've got or service and

Unknown: 54:46

that that's helpful for not only marketing, but also product development. Everybody, everyone, right for the for the business and the whole, yeah, everybody,

Jon Ivan-Duke: 54:52

if you've got insights that you can base stuff on, then that's going to be very valuable. It's often an area which people don't spend on, but it's. Foundations of success for a lot of great campaigns, I'd probably then say, well, look, digital marketing is incredibly important in day and age. And as we said earlier on, 50% of people are spent, sorry, 50% of time is spent online looking at online content. So naturally, you've got to be putting a fair amount of budget. So 3035, maybe even 40% of your budget needs to be going towards digital marketing tactics. So what are you going to do with the rest of it? Well, public relations is a fantastic way of getting things out there for not a massive amount of money, using tactics like that, you're going to get into media that that might feed into to your social media channels, as well as public relations,

Unknown: 55:45

direct marketing, gorilla, right, go, gorilla and

Jon Ivan-Duke: 55:48

that. And that's where the 30 the rest of the 30% of the pie comes in. What are you going to do with it? And I would, I would pump it all into into creative, creative campaigns, and add a little bit in for measurement as well. So five to 10% of your budget, if you because, you know, if you do have to report in for people and say, Well, what was the success of this campaign? You need the measurement tools to be able to do it. So, you know, taking that$50,000 you've got market research, you've got digital marketing, how much can you actually allocate into it? Maybe somewhere around 30% 40% if you're lucky, into into creating those truly creative campaigns. And that that 40% or 30% or however much it is that you're putting into those creative campaigns, that's going to be what delivers brand. It's going to be what creates and shapes the brand. And it's also going to be what wins over your customers far more than the digital marketing that's going to that's going to hook people in, but what's going to make people love love your brand, or fall in love with it, or really want to engage with it? That's the creative source

Unknown: 56:55

I was at seamless the other day, in an endless sea of payment providers and technology businesses and banks, and you couldn't really tell the difference, right, in a sea of bottled water, you know, I was looking for a punk, uh, tall boy of probably tap water, but, but that would have stood out. So, yeah, definitely, it's

Jon Ivan-Duke: 57:20

a great way to bring it to a close. Obviously, follow us on all of the social channels, and thank you very much for listening to what has been, hopefully a very insightful episode of Aeolian sands. You.