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Proximity

Making Brands More Valuable To People

From its Toronto office Proximity manages international, national and regional business for some of the world’s largest brands – such as Campbell Soup Company, Rogers, RIM, Spin and Visa. Specializing in global digital, CRM and direct marketing campaigns that bring brands and their consumers closer together, the idea is to make brands more valuable to people and conversely, people more valuable to brands.

Andrea Cook, Proximity SVP managing director says that when you’re working with clients who are willing to test new things, the success can be overwhelming. “A sort of fail-fast mentality has taken hold, that it’s better to try something – be innovative and share the learning with the team. Clients have seen enough success stories to know that they don’t want to be the guy who didn’t take the leap. More than ever before clients want to be on the podium.”

Jon Finkelstein, SVP executive creative director, says having a culture of innovation, responsiveness and being in real time is important for clients so they don’t miss incredible opportunities.

“It’s not about being social, it’s about being reactive and relevant,” Finkelstein says. “Sometimes it doesn’t need to be a new idea or breakthrough idea – it has to be a relevant idea.”

The effectiveness of Proximity’s creative approach can be seen its campaign for Bolthouse Farms. The agency was challenged to launch a new product called Baby Carrot Shakedown – a snack pack of baby carrots with a flavor pocket of all-natural seasonings that you shake onto the carrots. Two popular flavours – Chili Lime and Ranch – were launched.

The goal was to get critical mass and drive sales in the test market without TV. To further complicate matters, the market was the state of Texas, and the client wanted to leverage social media. That meant a campaign with social sharing, but not too much, because the test had to gauge the product’s resonance factor in that one geography.

Proximity solved the problem by focusing in on anybody in the Texas area tweeting about food cravings. They tweeted back a real surprise – a unique customized song (one of the singers was former Canadian Idol winner Ryan Malcolm). Finkelstein explains, “it’s completely unexpected and the recipients of the tweets didn’t even know us until they get this personalized song about how Shakedowns can fit into their life. People started sharing and the conversation really took off.”

The second part of the campaign involved YouTube videos featuring basketball player Matt Bonner of the San Antonio Spurs. Bonner, who just happens to be a friend of Ryan Malcolm, is the centerpiece of the Shaketown spots where he is seen simply eating Shakedowns while two guys rap and dance around him. The fact that Bonner is seven-feet tall with orange hair adds impact.

“This thing really came on fire in the NBA and the basketball space and was even featured on ESPN as one of favourite things the network had seen,” says Finkelstein. “On-air people were making fun of Matt because other athletes rep companies like Nike or Adidas while Matt’s hawking carrots. A lot of people learned about Bolthouse Carrot Shakedown this way.”