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BBDO

The Work, The Work, The Work

The work, the work, the work is not just BBDO’s motto, it’s something every member of the agency lives every day.

“You do get caught up in all the stuff – market saturation, new social media, digital – but the key is to focus on what we’ve always done and that’s coming up with ideas that break through and resonate. If we stick to what we’ve always done, from the age of radio to the age of digital, the idea has always been king and that’s where we at BBDO have always focused our attention,” says Peter Ignazi, agency SVP, co-executive creative director. “It’s the last real differentiator left – the power of ideas.”

Whatever the creative idea, all the campaigns out of BBDO get consumers involved with the brand. Carlos Moreno, SVP and co-executive creative director, explains why it’s no longer about just pushing out brand messages. “If you let consumers into the brand, they become brand advocates and become more passionate about the brand. Bringing them in is only going to benefit the brand,” says Moreno. “Our clients are very sophisticated and they encourage this as much as we do. They see the power in the multiplier effect of getting a campaign out there that people want to get involved in and help us tell their story.”

BBDO put this creative approach to work for its Ministry of Health client whose goal is to reduce smoking among Ontarians. By collaborating with the client and a cross-functional agency team, BBDO came up with a new line of attack to this age-old problem – target “Social Smoking”. The fully-integrated campaign was launched through a series of online videos that compared social smoking to other undesirable behaviours like “social farting”, “social earwax-picking”, and “social nibbling.” The campaign instantly went viral – generating over 2,000,000 YouTube views in the first seven days. The pièce de résistance – at this year’s Cannes Lions Festival “Social Smoking” won a Bronze Integrated Titanium, the first in Canada.

For the Doritos launch of limited time offering, Doritos Inferno, the focus was also on the social space to reach the target, guys aged 16 to 24. Consumers were driven to the Inferno microsite via promoted tweets and banners that also acted as high-impact page takeovers, complete with a flaming cursor. By going to the microsite, users could light up their Facebook status on what appeared to be a highjacked road sign and then share it with friends. The launch was supported by radio and with TV program advisories that warned that the content was “wicked awesome hot”. The result: Inferno surpassed its sales target by 44% and grew the total brand by 19% versus the previous year.

BBDO also built on the success of its 2012 Mountain Dew work with the launch of DEWmocracy, an adrenaline-pumping TV and Facebook campaign launching four of the top US Dew flavours into Canada. Crates of each flavour were packed onto a cargo plane and once over Canada, they were pushed out with a team of skydivers. The spot ends on a cliffhanger, asking fans to vote for their favourite flavour. The winner was revealed in a follow-up spot where one parachute is deployed while the other three hit the ground. At the close of voting, Dew had achieved 110% of its full-year volume goal in just six months.

Ignazi says, “The only way of making something great year after year for a brand is to have a collaborative relationship with your client where it’s all about mutual success. It’s about knowing their brands as well as they do and they feel you’re their partner. Then everybody wins.”