Paul Isakson

A Modern Campaign Approach: LEGO® CL!CK

Another one that's popping up again after its initial appearance in early January—a fun and well done video for LEGO® by Pereira O'Dell. The corresponding site is also interesting and entertaining. Given the creative nature of LEGO fans, I like that they've got an place where the purpose is to share inspiring and imaginative creative content.

In going through the LEGO CL!CK posts on Pereira O'Dell's blog, it's interesting to see that they launched this campaign with their iPhone app. Following that was this short film and the site. 

For those of you who have been thinking about the "modern campaign," I think this is a decent example.

It's no longer led with a big national TV commercial -> follow-up with at least two more TV commercials of the same ilk (afterall, you've got to have three to enter it as a campaign for all the award shows) -> supported by print, OOH and maybe radio... oh, and better get a micro site up too.

The modern campaign starts where ever it makes the most sense to start based on the people you're trying to connect with and the behaviors of theirs you wish to influence. It then goes where the ensuing reaction from said people takes it. It's about the brand playing a bit of idea volleyball with culture. One inspires the other and a "conversation" of sorts naturally happens.

That's all I have to say about it for now, but more will probably come up later...

Give Them Something To Believe In

Flickr / Daniel Y. Go

In last year's "What's Next" presentation, this was (a version of) one of the closing thoughts for how brands need to start behaving differently. I was reminded of this a week or two back when the NY Times ran a piece on figuring out how much of your income should be given to donations.

In the article, they shared that Americans donated $229 billion in 2009, with about half of that going to religious institutions. Consider that for a moment.

People openly gave over two hundred billion dollars to organizations because they believed in what the organizations are doing and because of the way helping those organizations makes them feel. Not because of a product they took home to use. Not because of a service performed for them. They gave simply because they wanted to support something that they believed in.

I bring this up because it's part of how I think and talk about the "commit to something bigger than yourself" idea.

The talk around this slide wasn't about committing to adding a cause or charity to your business. It was about committing to being about something bigger than making a profit—it was about focusing on doing good things for the people who buy your products or services, not only for yourself or your shareholders.

As I look back at this now, I still agree with this but I do think it isn't worded quite right. It leans too much towards causes and charity. Not that those are bad things, but we've got several major brands around who weren't built on these principles and in trying to pull them in now, they come across as shallow ploys to try to get more people to buy their products.

I think the way I would word it now would be something like, "Give people something to believe in." It's really about committing to doing things for and with people, and then living out those commitments every day. In doing that, you're showing them that they can believe in you; and as the donations numbers show, people like to support things they believe in.

Maybe still not quite right and certainly needs more work. Would love to hear your thoughts...