In the latest installment of “Ahhhh Ffffffix Auto” Cundari created digital videos without showing any damaged cars to allow the audience to develop their own story in the theatre of the mind.
It usually isn’t long before new clients at Cundari notice a real difference in the thinking and the work which gets shared in the boardroom. Clients such as Siemens Mobility, Italpasta, Yellow Tail and Fix Auto noticed a much greater range of work based on the agency’s Connect the Dots briefing methodology and the development of the brief through the agency’s Integrated Strategy Hub (ISH).
It’s an evolution of the briefing process that agency founder Aldo Cundari helped shape and mould into a system that produces noticeable results for clients. Campaigns are built with insights from the ISH where team members working on social, brand, media, analytics, and even the executive team weigh in on every element of a business challenge. “If my strategist is the only person generating strategies,” Cundari says, “they’re all going to have a similar endpoint”. The Connect The Dots briefing system builds the work based on strategic insights and cues taken from everyone on the team, including newest additions social content strategist Gargi Ghugare and VP media Snehal Ramdin.
The creative team and designers don’t just follow a single stream of focus. Rather the brief presents 6 different ways in rooted in insights around the brand, target audience, competitive insights, business, and marketing opportunities. Creative teams flesh out those that feel the richest creatively, then share with the entire Cundari team and Connect the Dots between ideas, insights, and people. “We’ve presented [one client with] three concepts that came out of that methodology,” Cundari explains, “and the client said it felt as if three different agencies presented the work.”
Cundari created digital shorts using a cheeky reference that got Bai on consumers’ radar – the result was 53% awareness in just 6 months for a product new to the Canadian market.
Take Cundari’s Bai police lineup videos, a cheeky way to make an antioxidant drink memorable on social media. Or the agency’s ‘theatre of the mind’ video of a teen crashing his grandfather’s Jaguar for Fix Auto. Then contrast those punchy, tongue-in-cheek spots with Cundari’s heartwarming reboot of Italpasta, the first new national TV commercial created by the pasta brand since the 80s. This approach doesn’t just boil down to locking a bunch of ad professionals in a room until they come up with the perfect concept for a client’s brief. It also means getting under the hood of a client’s operations. “We do the work as an extension of the client’s marketing and brand teams,” says Adair Altimas-Keith, VP group account director at Cundari. “You can’t write the ‘Connect The Dots’ brief if you don’t understand the business holistically.”
Spending a lot of time with clients also includes using data to hone in on a target audience. For Italpasta, understanding the most current data about the pasta company’s target audience helped Cundari Group develop creative for its national campaign.
The research, Aldo Cundari says, “showed the agency just how central a role pasta plays in the memories of consumers. It’s not just a meal,” he adds, “but it’s part of the connection point.” This became the way for the Cundari Group to pull on cross-cultural notions of tradition and family. “It was a great way to define who they are and what they sell,” Cundari says of Italpasta. “They do sell pasta, but they are interconnected with relationships as well.” These techniques, along with decades of experience and a plethora of talent, are getting results. Last summer, Cundari snagged a contract from Siemens Mobility away from its American ad agency.
For Italpasta’s first campaign since the 1980’s Cundari focused on consumers’ deep-seated emotional connection with pasta as a way to elevate the brand and build brand preference.
The agency also landed a large production assignment with the LCBO – and Cundari Group is currently in the early stages of a relationship with Brazilian juice giant Natural One for its Canadian market debut.
“We’re excited about this opportunity,” says Sean Barlow, CCO at Cundari. “We’re continuing to build a talented in-house production team, so the clients feel they are maximizing their launch budget. And it’s great to see CPG companies’ belief in making an emotional connection with consumers as their way to enter the Canadian market.”
CONTACT:
Aldo Cundari
CEO
aldo.cundari@cundari.com
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