MOS

CONTAGIOU
T
R
S E P O
202
RT
Contents
03 WELCOME TO T H E 2022 M OST CONTAGIOUS

R E P O RT
04 TRENDS OF TH E
YEAR

16 TH E ECONOMIST’S 10 TRENDS TO
WATCH IN 2023

17 TH E MOST CONTAGIOUS CAMPAIGNS OF

TH E YEAR
RECESSION READY: T H R EE MAXIMS FOR
33 MARKETERS TO LIVE BY WHEN TIMES
GET TOUGH
38 TH E MOST CONTAGIOUS THINGS OF
TH E YEAR

47 OPPORTUNITIES FOR BRANDS AND

AGENCIES IN 2023

51 TH E MOST CONTAGIOUS BRAND OF

TH E YEAR

60 A Y E A R IN ADVERTISING
R ES EA R C H

67 WHAT MARKETERS CAN LEARN

FROM…2022

68 DOES NUDGE THEORY HAVE A FU T U R E IN

MARKETING?
 Way back in January, one of this year’s most influential
figures said thattimes, it is particularly important to
‘In challenging
be
Youcreative’*.
may feel that the last few years have been one long
challenge but –let’s
be optimistic at least we’re getting some variety in our
travails.
of us, theFor many
threat of Covid-19 has receded and been
replaced by new , if
equally shitty, challenges, such as inflation and the rising
cost of living.
If creativity is the answer, then it has its work cut
out for 2023.
So to fuel your brain, we’ve absolutely crammed this
year’s Most
Contagious report with enough creativity and smart thinking
to help you
solve anything the next 12 months might
throw
We’veatpacked
you. in our favourite campaigns of the year,
Welcome to the 2022
unlocked
only members-
strategy interviews, and equally generously, released
an in-depth
feature on our Most Contagious brand of the year,
Liquid Death.
Elsewhere in the report you’ll find advice on how to
deal with the
imminent recession, key findings from academic marketing
papers, the will define 2023, and the opportunities for brands
trends that
and agencies
hidden amongst the
crises.
And if that wasn’t enough, you can also discover what our
teamthe
were thought
Most Contagious Things of the Year and – you
know
really you loveMarketers
– What it, Can Learn from the
events of 2022.
So hopefully there’s enough inspiration, insight and advice
in this PDF
to see you through the challenges of 2023, or at least
reduce the spikes
terror every in think
time you
about [Link] said this during his New Year address.
*Vladimir
Of course,
said that thehe also of the New Year ‘opens our hearts to
magic
empathy and
generosity andtrust,
mercy’, so let’s not believe everything that
wanker has to say.
Alex Jenkins, managing
partner
3
The Metaverse
amounted to $32.4bn and they are
predicted to surpass that number
in 2022.

Web3
Dayton Mills, C E O and founder of
Web3 gaming startup Branch, told Vice

and
‘A lot of people are trying to get in on
[Web3], and a lot of people are more
afraid of not getting in.’ He was talking
about V C investors, but it sums up how

B
Marketers love a shiny new thing to obsess over, says

untangled
y 2030, the metaverse is pre- many marketers feel, too.
Contagious editor Chloe Markowicz, and right now dicted to be worth as much as When it comes to NFTs specifically,
that shiny new thing is the metaverse and Web3 $13 t r n , according to though trading volumes have collapsed
and this year alone, almost $2bn worth 97% from their January peak, brands are
Citibank,
of cryptocurrency has been spent still continuing to mint their own non-fun-
buying virtual land. gible tokens. Tennis Australia’s AO Art
The metaverse doesn’t exist yet, but Balls, created for the Australian Open,
Meta has piled billions into its Reality is one of the best examples of a brand
Labs division (which oversees its launching an NFT collection. This wasn’t
metaverse and VR projects) to try to a case of bandwagon jumping. There
make it happen. Since the start of 2019, was a real reason for Tennis Australia to
this division of Meta has seen $30.7bn create a virtual experience since interna-
of operating losses. No one is using tional fans couldn’t attend the matches in
the Horizon Worlds VR app, not real life because of Covid.
even Meta’s own employees. As Ridley Plummer, of Tennis Australia,
The real action is happening on Roblox told Contagious, brands need to ask:
and Fortnite. But these aren’t ‘the ‘What’s in it for your brand? Creating
metaverse’; at best they’re proto- an NFT for the right reasons is
metaverses, gaming platforms that share important because you’re talking to a
characteristics of the metaverse. savvy con- sumer and they’ll see through
any whiff of bullshit.’
Blockchain business When Under Armour released an NFT
Meanwhile, the $2trn that has been replica of its sneakers, it too was solving
wiped from crypto markets this year has a real problem. Steph Curry, the Golden
not dissuaded investors from backing State Warriors point guard, was on the
Web3 technology. In fact, the opposite verge of breaking the NBA record for the
is true. In 2021, V C investments in Web3 number of three-pointers scored.

4
To mark this occasion, Under Armour they’re doing is interacting with blockchain fell in value from $32bn to zero
was going to release a new pair of technology.’ Starbucks isn’t using tech practically overnight amid accusations
sneakers as part of their Curry line. But just for the sake of it. And neither should of mismanagement. Events like this
Covid-related supply chain issues meant you. Every brand should strive to connect don’t really fill anyone with hope for
they wouldn’t get to market in time, so with people, drive business outcomes, get the future of decentralised finance,
Photography: Ricko Pan/Unsplash
Under Armour’s agency, Cameron Berlin, people to buy their products. You might or indeed a decentralised web.
proposed releasing a digital version of be able to achieve that with new technol- It’s easy to be swept away by the time
the sneaker as an NFT that could travel ogy, but it’s a tool: a means to an end, and money that companies like Microsoft
across platforms. not an end in itself. and Meta are spending on metaverse
And there are other ways to play in this technology. But marketers don’t need
space beyond minting NFTs. Mastercard, What next? a metaverse strategy right now; we
for instance, is adding value by making Offering practical advice about won’t see anything resembling
buying NFTs more accessible. The com- technologies that haven’t yet been fully interoperable virtual worlds for at least
pany partnered with NFT marketplaces realised is tricky. Web3 is still really another dec- ade. Instead, use the world
so people could purchase digital assets a utopian promise at this point. We of gaming
with their Mastercards, negating the know it’s going to be the internet that to test and learn. It’s the closest
need to buy crypto first. comes after Web 1 and 2 but we don’t thing we have to the metaverse.
know what it will look like. Don’t fritter away your marketing budget
Shot in the arm Crypto is a key building block of Web3 in the hypothetical future, if you’re lucky
A lot of brands adopt new technologies and this year a crypto exchange (FTX) enough to have a decent budget to spend
for the P R boost, as a shortcut to seeming next year, this is the time to keep it real.
‘cutting edge’. That’s why Starbucks’
updated loyalty programme, Starbucks
Odyssey, stands out, because the
company is intentionally obscuring its
blockchain mechanism.
The coffee chain will let customers
earn and buy NFTs that unlock
experiences, such as an espresso martini
making class. But these NFTs will be
referred to as ‘journey stamps’ to make
them more accessible.
As Starbucks’ CMO, Brady Brewer,
said: ‘It happens to be built on blockchain
and Web3 technologies, but the customer
[…] may very well not even know that what

5
When you’re wrestling with a pig of a problem, Contagious Research is here to
help.

Our team of strategists and editors will root around to provide rapid research
on brands, sectors and trends from around the world to help you bring home the bacon.
For more info and to book our Research service, head to [Link]/
research
6
Cost-of-Living
Creativity
As inflation bites and recession looms, Contagious’ editor-at-large, Katrina Stirton Dodd,
looks at what brands can do to help customers – and themselves

G
lobal downturn. What’s the first
mistake businesses make?’
That line is from a 2008 ad
campaign by the Financial Times, which
featured billboards stripped almost bare
– a direct challenge to brands’ knee-jerk
tendency to react to economic strife with
swingeing cuts to their marketing
budgets.
But while it’s become a bit of an ad
industry refrain over the past 12 months
as talk of a downturn and inflation has
evolved into talk of a recession – the
worst since records began – this is one
drum we should keep banging until it’s
heard loud and clear at the very top of the
corporate food chain.
In fact in August of this year, the IPA
seemed to have reached the same
conclusion, running a similar campaign,
this time using the FT itself to deliver
the message to business: ‘Come back
in a year and tell us if cutting your
budget was a good idea’.
If you think they sound exasperated,
they were. The UK government’s newly
appointed Cost-of-Living tsar, David Photography: Financial Times

Buttress, was poised to run a campaign

7
recommending exactly that: that busi-
nesses cut their marketing budgets
and instead use the savings to fund
price cuts. A double-whammy of duff
advice. From the government.
We may have best-guessed our way
through a two-year battle with Covid,
but this is a cost-of-living crisis. These
are not the ‘unprecedented times’ of the
pandemic. These times are precedented
– and at Contagious we are big
believers in learning from precedents.

So what should we do?

The headline advice is to keep your eyes
on the long-term prize and continue to a tasty direct sales impact of £540m a new report by Kantar. In the context response to hard times, nonetheless.
invest in brand-building advertising – if for Sainsbury’s, with a profit ROI of of inflation, that means addressing the More flair can be seen in the launch of
anything it’s an opportunity to get more £5.55 for every £1 spent. feelings of anxiety, vulnerability and a Passive Cooker device by Italian pasta
bang for your buck. That’s quite some feat when you uncertainty – showing empathy, whether brand Barilla. Designed to get your penne
Excess share of voice gives you an consider the impact a downturn tends that’s through how you act, or how you from packet to al dente using minimal
advantage in the best of times, but in to have on purchasing behaviour. ‘Every communicate, or ideally both. energy and residual heat, the PR-friendly
the worst of times that advantage gets purchase becomes high-involvement UK brands have so far emphasised gadget connects to your smartphone and
bigger because when others nervously when money is tight,’ says Tom Morton, practical support. Frozen food sends alerts at key moments to ensure
dial down their advertising, your voice global chief strategy officer at R/GA. supermarket chain Iceland has teamed up your pasta comes out perfect. A
will seem all the louder. In the UK, for example, 81% of consum- with ethical lender Fair For You to offer deliciously novel way to court column
According to advertising effectiveness ers have changed their shopping behav- small interest-free loans to help struggling inches while also nudging people to save
expert Peter Field, ‘the brands that invest iour in response to financial concerns, households through financial pinch-points. money on energy bills rather than inferior
in E S O V saw five times as many very according to a McKinsey survey published Energy provider Octopus has pasta.
large business effects (such as profit, at the end of October. What Morton distributed free electric blankets to Of course this is just the beginning.
pricing, share, penetration, etc) and 4.5 describes as ‘the Great Brand Audition’ vulnerable customers to help them save Perhaps the biggest clue to how brands
times the annual market share growth.’ is already well underway. on heating bills. It’s also been a standout will exert their creative influence on the
Supermarket chain Sainsbury’s Feed Passing that audition comes down source of clear customer advice on the biggest cost-of-living crisis in living mem-
Your Family for a Fiver campaign (for to more than just prices or a ‘pivot to energy crisis, as well creating a scheme ory is more apparent in the bumper crop
more on this, see page 33) is a useful value’. An alternative lever for brands to incentivise clients to minimise their of feelgood festive ads bringing uncompli-
case study in how to navigate a brand to consider is how they can reduce energy use at peak times – not your cated joy to screens large and small this
from good times into bad – it delivered ‘risk’ for their consumers, suggests typical adland innovation, but a creative year. It looks very much like we may need
more of that in 2023.
8
‘No one wants to be
a mass consumer
anymore. You don’t
want to have the
same thing that your
husband has, much
less some stranger’

Ana Andjelic, Contagious IQ, March 2022

9
Th
Imitati
e
Gam
on
Artificial intelligence is improving in leaps and

e
bounds, argues Contagious strategist David
Beresford, but none of the advances have captured
the public’s imagination like image generation.

C
ast an eye over the middle-aged We’ve been approaching this tipping
man pictured to the right. Does point for some years now. Even prior
he look eerily familiar to you? to 2020, AI-generated text in the form
That isn’t surprising, given he’s an of basic translation and spam
amalgamation of four of the richest men on detection tools had already become
the planet. Can you guess which ones? I’ll ubiquitous.
give you a hint, this AI-produced individual And the technology has progressed
goes by the name of ‘Jeflon Zuckergates’. to the realm of literature, where com-
‘Jeflon Zuckergates’ is just one of many puter-generated prose is now increas-
mind-bending images that flooded the ingly indistinguishable from human
internet in 2022, following the release output. The same evolution has occurred
of a new wave of AI image in the world of coding, where generative
generators such as DALLE-2, AI is making a previously impenetrable
Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion. Due craft more accessible to the masses.
to a number of significant However, the recent emergence of
breakthroughs in the field of AI image generators, capable of
generative AI, industry experts now conjur- ing bespoke artworks from
Photography: Jeflon Zuckergates/StableDiff usion ([Link])
believe the technology is on the verge simple
of a Cambrian explosion. text prompts, has really captured
the public’s imagination. 10
Picture this
The implications of this technology
are myriad, but VC investor James Currier
has whittled them down to three key
developments, which he expects
to gather pace in the near future. With the
The first of these developments is dawn of
a shift from AI programmes offering sin- advanced
gular problem-solving solutions to more
holistic problem-solving suites. An early
generative AI,
example of this in practice is perhaps the only
Omneky, a company that uses a combi- limitation to
nation of AI software to generate both content
content and copy to make social ads, with
the option to also feature AI-generated
creation will
human characters – who are considerably increasingly
cheaper than their real-life counterparts. Photography: Markus Spiske/Unsplash
become your
The second development that Currier own
expects is a shift from curation to
imagination
creation. For years, companies like become ‘about 10 times easier’ in For example, designers have been possible. Shopify is one such brand
Netflix and Spotify have been trying David Beresford, Contagious
the past six months. experimenting with the practical that has been actively considering the
to retrofit people’s preferences onto Open AI’s decision to release utility of AI image generators for possibilities for ecommerce. It recently
their existing content. However, with the creating bespoke mock-ups to better released a short video that envisions
the dawn of advanced generative AI, API for their popular image generator has contextualise their work in pitch how real-time generative AI might
the only limitation to content creation also hastened the adoption of these tools. decks. conceivably affect consumer journeys
will increasingly become your own For example Cala, an all-in-one platform With regard to novelty value, we’ve in the not-too-distant future.
imagination. For example, a former for designing and producing clothes, seen brands such as Heinz leverage Despite all this justified excitement,
Google employee recently co-wrote a has recently integrated DALLE-2’s generative tech to refresh an existing the field of AI does feel a little like the
novelette called Amor Cringe with the technology into its website to allow creative platform. Having previously Wild West at present. Although the tech
OpenAI text generator GPT-3. customers to use text-prompts to create conquered human mental availability holds huge promise, serious questions
The final development that Currier their own bespoke fashion apparel. with their wildly successful ‘Draw remain over the ethics, creator royalties,
predicts is that these generative tech Applied imagery Ketchup’ campaign, they set out to and how the space will ultimately be
tools will become significantly easier In terms of the applications we’ve seen prove that AI would be similarly inclined regulated. But the generative AI genie
to use. He estimates that already the from various brands and agencies, these to consider Ketchup as synonymous is now undoubtedly out of the
friction to create output from these can broadly be categorised into the with Heinz. bottle. The question is, whose wishes
models through web and mobile has practical, the novel, and the possible. But perhaps
applications thethe
are in most thought-
realm of the will it to grant first?
choose
provoking
11
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A
Rethi
Marketin
Advances in technology are not enough on their

nk
own to spur more effective marketing, argues

g
PHD’s Mark Holden – a new mindset is
required, too

A
dvances in data and technology, relayed some useful tips for surviving
and the disruption of a global and thriving in the future.
pandemic have radically Drawing on key insights from PHD’s
ised the world of marketing communica- publication, Shift | A Marketing Rethink,
reorgan-
tions – changing how people consume Holden began by presenting the audi-
media, what they expect from brands, ence with an apparent contradiction
and even how marketers work together, facing the advertising industry.
according to Mark Holden, worldwide chief ‘We now have a remarkable set of
strategy officer at media and marketing new marketing technologies that we
communications agency PHD. can use to engage audiences,’ noted
Holden spoke at Most Contagious, Holden, before adding: ‘Why then is
which returned to Islington’s Business it that, as evidenced by the most
Design Centre on 24 November, after recent IPA research, it’s not working?
a two-year hiatus and saw a global cast Why
of industry pioneers and expert commen- is advertising’s impact on lifting
tators inspire the great and the good [brands’] share of the market in decline?’
of adland in a series of incisive It’s not the technology’s fault,
and impactful talks. he argued, but rather the ‘minds’ in
Holden took to the stage to offer thrall to the technology that explains
advice on how brands and agencies why advertising is losing its impact.
can navigate the changing landscape Holden categorised these minds into
of marketing communications and three distinct categories: the
Hypnotised, who are obsessed
13
by the immediacy of performance data; Quoting marketing effectiveness expert feature of this mindset, and Holden out- ing extremely quickly and becoming
the Evangelists, who just want to replace Peter Field, he added: ‘We sacrifice lined a few to focus on. He suggested more powerful with each iteration.’
the orthodoxy with anything new; and market share growth in pursuit of ROI.’ investing now in a portfolio of ‘creators’, Having pulled back the curtain on the
the Paranoid, who fear being seen as Holden concluded: ‘All of this misses as a channel and creative-production exciting opportunities for marketers that
stuck in the past and beholden to the big opportunity of long-term growth, capability. And creative engineering - lie ahead, Holden summarised the key
analog technologies. which should account for just under for the auto-creation of assets, with each takeaways of his presentation like this:
It is the paranoid minds that allow the 6 0 % of the total return from element tagged and connected to an • Check growth-limiting mindsets
other two to run riot, and these attitudes marketing investment’ ad-server and compiled based on (Hypnotised, Evangelist, Paranoid,
combine to result in an over-focus on To achieve long-term marketing growth indicator KPIs. Building infra- we’re looking at you)
five key areas: ROI, targeting, perfor- centricity, Holden suggests we need structure for the generative creative era. • Reconfigure your organisation
mance channels (at the expense of to nurture an Investor Mindset’. Holden said that ‘DALL-E 2 shows to growth (long-term centricity)
brands), rational messaging and The investor mindset is focused on how far this technology can progress • Invest in future capabilities
marketing tactics. targetless-zero-based budgeting, which in as little as one year. The photos from (assessed as commercial invest-
Overstating the importance of ROI means you set your budget based on the original DALLE-E, while spectacular ments for growth).
was especially culpable for the decline optimising profit return, not on an arbi- in their own way, were nowhere near as Or, as Holden pithily put it: ‘Adopt
in ad effectiveness, said Holden, as it trary target level. realistic as DALL-E 2, which shows that an
investor-in-future growth mindset and
‘is weakly correlated with profit growth’. Investing in new capabilities is a the future of this technology is progress- embrace future capabilities, today.’
vital

14
‘If you had simple
laws that were
persistent and
universal, do you
need a marketing
manager?’

Felipe Thomaz, Oxford University Saïd Business School, [Link], September 2022

15
10
to
trends
in
watch
Tom Standage, editor of The Economist’s
Photography: Jon Tyson/Unsplash

button issues will continue to widen after ability forum linking India, Israel,

2023
a string of contentious Supreme Court the United Arab Emirates and the US.
The World Ahead 2023, on what to watch for rulings. Donald Trump’s formal entry into Travel is back, sort of. Post-lockdown
the 2024 presidential race will pour fuel “revenge” tourism will push tourist
on the fire, and trigger a vicious contest spending almost back to its 2019 level

A
fter two years in which the Britain’s will be long; Europe’s will for the 2024 Republican nomination. of $1.4trn, though the number of interna-
pandemic was the force be brutal. With America, Europe and Russia tional tourist trips, at 1.6bn, will still
shaping the immediate future, There is a silver lining for the climate focused on Ukraine, might conflict kick be below the pre-pandemic level of
the main driver now is the war in Ukraine. in the current upheaval, however. The off elsewhere? China could decide 1.8bn in 2019. Business travel
Energy prices, inflation, interest rates, war is accelerating the switch to that there will never be a better time will remain weak as firms cut costs.
economic growth, food shortages – renewa- bles as a safer alternative to to make a move on Taiwan. India- What of travel into virtual worlds?
all depend on how the conflict plays hydrocar- bons supplied by autocrats. As China tensions could flare in the 2023 will provide a reality check for
out in the coming months. well as wind and solar, nuclear and Himalayas. And might Turkey’s the idea of working and playing in the
Rapid progress by Ukraine could hydrogen will benefit too. strongman, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, try metaverse, as Apple launches its first
threaten Vladimir Putin, but a grinding Next, China. Its population is in decline, to nab a Greek island in the Aegean to headset and Meta decides whether
stalemate seems the most likely out- its property market is in turmoil and its bolster his to change its strategy.
come. Russia will try to string out the strict covid policies have clobbered the re-election chances? A less complicated and more imme-
conflict in the hope that energy short- economy. In April it will be overtaken by Amid geopolitical shifts, alliances are diately useful shift may be the rise of
ages, and political shifts in America, will India as the world’s most populous nation. evolving. Nato, revitalised by the war in “passkeys” to replace passwords. Other
undermine Western support for Ukraine. This will prompt much discussion of Ukraine, will welcome two new members terms you may need know in 2023
Meanwhile, major economies will go whether China has peaked. Its economy (Sweden and Finland). Other groupings include frozen conflict, YIMBY and post-
into recession as central banks raise may never overtake America’s in size. of growing importance include the Quad quantum cryptography. Technology never
interest rates to stifle inflation. America’s As for America, social and cultural and AUKUS (two American-led clubs stops. Good luck keeping up with the
recession should be relatively mild; divides on abortion, guns and other hot- intended to deal with China’s rise) and fast-changing world in 2023!
I2U2 – not a rock band, but a sustain-
16
 THE
CONTAGIO
MOST
CAMPAIGN
Australian Open / Art Balls
You could expunge every Eurovision Song

USOF T H E
Contest entry from public memory and the
world would be better for it – except for
‘Waterloo’. Abba’s pop banger is the only song
worth salvaging from an otherwise dismal

S
genre of music. It’s the same with the Australian
Open’s Art Balls campaigns. Most attempts at
incorporating NFTs into marketing either rely on
novelty or vastly overestimate people’s appetite
for virtual brand merchandise, but Art Balls was

YEAR
a cut above. The NFTs representing patches of
tennis court where match-winning shots landed
during the 2022 Australian Open demonstrated
a clear vision of how digital sports memorabilia
could have value. And allocating the plots
randomly ahead of the tournament – instead
We’ve made a list, and it’s got nothing to do with of auctioning them off to the highest bidder
being naughty or nice. These are the 15 most afterwards – made the process more fair and
innovative and effective campaigns of the year, more fun. Even if NFTs are eventually relegated
according to the Contagious team to the annals of embarrassing marketing fads,
at least we’ll always have Melbourne.

All these case studies were taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 17
DirectTV GO / Tesco / Voice of the Liquid Death /
PirateMatch / Mirum, Checkout / B B H Dismembered
Curitiba, Brazil London Moments
Telling people off isn’t a great way to get them Brands often struggle to replicate the chaotic There’s a reason Liquid Death is our brand of
to change their behaviour. Latin American charms of TikTok, behaving on the social media the year – it’s because of category-smashing
streaming platform DirecTV Go understands this platform like a dad at a disco. They think they get japes like Dismembered Moments, which drive
well, as its witty strike against pirating showed. it, but they really don’t. Which makes Tesco’s fame and boost salience. In this case, the
The brand neatly intercepted Brazilians searching TikTok arrival particularly noteworthy. Here, the gloriously gory social film sees TV personality
for a free stream of the Champions League supermarket showcased its sense of humour Martha Stewart happily hack off her fans’ hands
match between Manchester United and Atlético and platform fluency with a duet-inspired to create Halloween-themed candles (available
Madrid in March with a sponsored Google link competition for people to become the voice of at [Link] for $58 a pop). It’s in
that promised to deliver the goods. On clicking, its self-checkouts, and it was rewarded with keeping with the brand’s other in-your-face
however, fans were presented with a comically low- 1.1 million views in just 24 hours. The prize campaigns, and it’s entertaining to boot. ‘We
budget pastiche of the big game. DirecTV Go of 10,000 Clubcard points connected the want to be one of the best things that consumers
fully committed to the idea, too, delivering competition back to the brand, too, driving see that day because we have to compete with
a full match’s worth of low-rent, amusingly awareness among a younger target market that is hilarious influencers, fitness athletes and movie
named look-a-likes and football in-jokes. The eager to be entertained, rather than advertised at. trailers,’ C E O Mike Cessario told Contagious last
experience highlighted the shabby experience year. The Dismembered Moments candle also
of illegal streaming with knowing humour, while showcases Liquid Death’s fondness for merch
also directing people to a seven-day trial of the as a way to attract P R and make a bit of coin
platform. Back of the net. on the side – now, give that brand a big hand.

All these case studies were taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 18
Back Market / Hack Cris-Sal / Unlucky Apple / 911
Market / Marcel, Paris Sponsor / Paradais At the beginning of the year, Apple made the
Back Market is not averse to using cheeky, DDB, Ecuador most powerful case for its watch yet. Not that
low-budget stunts to remind people of the Salt is believed to be bad luck in South it reminds you to stand up when you’ve been
environmental benefits of buying refurbished America, so much so that Ecuador’s national sitting down for too long, or makes you look like
electronics. While the brand’s Refurbished football team rejected salt brand Cris-Sal’s an undercover agent when you speak into it –
Tweets campaign in 2019 saw the online offer of sponsorship. the message was that an Apple Watch could
marketplace hijack historic celebrity tweets Turning a weakness into a strength, Cris- save your life. The 911 ad used real audio from
to push its message of sustainable consumption, Sal used outdoor ads to wish ‘good luck’ to three emergency calls made from Apple
this year it infiltrated an Apple Store to convince Ecuador’s opponents during Fifa World Cup Watches. Transcripts of the calls appeared
people to buy secondhand. The brand qualifying games instead. Cut to Ecuador word by word against beautiful shots of
Airdropped ads into the display devices at conquering Chile for the first time ever as an landscapes; tension builds as you hear panicked
six Apple Stores in Paris, Berlin and London, away side, beating Colombia 6-1, and winning calls for help from a woman trapped in a capsized
serving the curious shoppers who clicked on against Uruguay for the first time in half a car, a paddleboarder stranded at sea, and an
them with messages like ‘The iPhone you love decade. As Ecuador beat the odds to qualify for elderly farmer who has had a serious fall.
without the carbon footprint you hate. Switch the World Cup, the Unlucky Sponsor campaign The ad ends with the text: ‘With the help of
to refurbished’. The guerrilla campaign shows generated 41 million impressions. ‘Table salt their watch, Jason, Jim and Amanda were
brands that dare often win – in this case, Back is quite boring, ubiquitous, and unsexy,’ said rescued in minutes.’ In 60 seconds, the Apple
Market reached 100 million people and scored Agustín Febres-Cordero, founder and creative Watch goes from being a nice accessory to
a Gold in Brand Experience & Activation at the chairman of Paradais DDB, Ecuador. ‘That’s a life-saving device.
Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativty. why we knew we had to go big or go home.’

All these case studies were taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 19
Heinz / A.I. Under Armour / The First Danish Unesco National
Ketchup / Rethink Meta Sneaker / Berlin Commission & Polycam &
Toronto Cameron, New York Blue Shield Denmark /
It can be a tricky balancing act when a new Many brands have claimed to ‘enter the Backup Ukraine
technology comes along – get in early to metaverse’ when all they’ve really done is make / Virtue Worldwide
capitalise on the novelty of the thing or hold off a Roblox game. Under Armour’s cross-platform Beyond the obvious risk to human life, Russia’s
until you can find just the right angle? Heinz’s virtual sneaker stands out because it delivers a invasion of Ukraine also posed a threat to the
foray into AI imagery with DALLE 2 in July was key characteristic of the promised metaverse: latter’s cultural heritage, and therefore, its national
pitch perfect. The brand had already established interoperability. The sneaker only works across identity. Together with the Danish Unesco
that ‘when people think ketchup they think Heinz’ four platforms, but it’s an attempt to solve a real National Commission and Blue Shield Denmark,
with its Draw Ketchup campaign in 2021. But problem, ie, that you can’t take character items Virtue Worldwide found its own unique way to
it takes commitment to seek out and act on with you as you move from game to game. help, teaming up with 3D scanning app Polycam
opportunities to build on campaigns in fresh Given the market crash this year, brands to create a tool to preserve Ukraine’s cultural
ways. Established legacy brands can risk fading need to adjust their thinking from whether they landmarks and artefacts. Simply by scanning
into nostalgia and gathering dust on the shelf. By can do an NFT to whether they should. Under their surroundings with a mobile phone and
finding a natural way to put its iconic bottle into Armour had a legitimate reason to go digital: uploading it to the cloud, users created digital
pop culture (and outer space) Heinz proves again it couldn’t get the actual shoes designed to replicas that could aid the reconstruction of
that it’s a leader in more ways than one. celebrate Steph Curry’s NBA record out to market damaged buildings.
in time. Creating an NFT, and one that raised $1m For Ukrainians who weren’t part of the
for charity no less, was an undeniably creative and physical war effort, the Backup Ukraine project
attention-grabbing way to tackle global supply empowered them to become guardians of their
issues. national heritage. As war wages on, the initiative
offers a glimmer of hope for the country’s future.
All these case studies were taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 20
Twitter / Tweet It Into Coinbase / Less Talk, Samsung / Join the
Existence More Bitcoin / Accenture Flipside / Wieden +
Twitter has always struggled to attract advertisers
Song, New York Kennedy Amsterdam
relative to its peers, but it can now at least say Between 2021 and 2022, the cost of a Samsung clearly hoped its new Galaxy Z
that it has produced some great advertising of its 30-second Super Bowl ad increased by $1m Flip 4 could take on the iPhone, and that put
own. No other social media company can do that. to $6.5m. The pressure to perform under these a lot of pressure on its advertising. What kind of
The best thing about the Tweet It Into Existence high stakes forces brands to invest heavily ad befits a product intended to dislodge the most
billboard campaign was that it was different. in production and enlist the services of A-list disruptive product of the 21st century? We would
In a category awash with trite claims about stars – with reports that more than 100 have guessed that it would have involved earnest
bringing people together and creating culture, celebrities featured across the 70 ads that guff about creating the future and connecting
Twitter had clearly dug a bit deeper for an idea ran during the 2022 Super Bowl. people. But no. Wieden + Kennedy went for
that was specific to its platform. The ads – which Cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase something fun and refreshingly petty, and it was
featured old tweets from artists and athletes went against the grain and spent virtually so much better for it. Join the Flip Side dialled up
manifesting their dreams – were much more nothing on its ad – a Q R code that bounced the humour as it showed a woman questioning
memorable and evocative as a result. They also around the screen. her loyalty to her phone after she is introduced
gave Twitter an artful means to remind people Coinbase says that more than 20 million people to the Flip 4 and starts seeing folding motions
that lots of famous people use its product, scanned the Q R code, and 445,000 new users everywhere she looks. By pairing emotional
which is rarely a bad thing. signed up to its platform. In a breakout year where storytelling with product demonstrations,
We suspect that 2022 will be a year that four different cryptocurrency platforms created Samsung ensured that its fold-up feature is
Twitter would rather forget, thanks to the Super Bowl ads, Less Talk, More Bitcoin won entrancing in every way. Promoting the flip as
shenanigans of Elon Musk, but this campaign the hearts, minds and attention of audiences by the main feature also distinguished the phone
at least is worth remembering. subverting category norms and expectations. from
longercompetitors
battery [Link]
Flippin’onsmooth,
better cameras
[Link]

All these case studies were taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 21
Brr
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 Insight
&
Strate
gy
Matilda
Bay,
Rejected
It took 28 attempts to create
AlesBay’s core product, a
Matilda
golden ale called Original Ale. To
demonstrate the Australian
craft brewery’s commitment to
perfection, it worked with
agency Howatson+Company,
Sydney, to release its 27 failed
brews as a limited-edition beer
collection called Rejected Ales

The cans were made available nationwide when To find out what inspired the idea and how Matilda better beer options to Aussie drinkers. And
purchasing Original Ale. Customers received Bay humble-bragged its way to an 11-fold sales by doing so, they started the entire craft beer
a free Rejected Ale when purchasing a six-pack increase, we spoke to Howatson+Company’s movement in Australia. The beers they brewed
of Matilda Bay Original Ale at participating bottle executive creative director, Gavin Chimes. were the first craft brews in Australia, and Phil
shops, or a free mixed four-pack of Rejected was widely known as the godfather of Australian
Ales when they bought Original Ale on the Tell us about Matilda Bay, how craft beer. His commitment to perfection at all
Matilda Bay website. long it’s been going, and where it costs is legendary. S o they’re an iconic brand
Each of the bevvies was given a name with sits in the craft beer space. in the craft beer community.
a nod to the pursuit of perfection, such as Matilda Bay is Australia’s first-ever craft brewery. Howatson+Company has only been open
‘Missed the point’, ‘Keep dreaming’, and It was founded in Fremantle in Western Australia for just over a year now and this whole campaign
‘Ballpark’. The stories of how each attempt was [in 1983], by Phil Sexton and a few of his mates. from start to finish took just under a year. And
made and rejected were shared on a campaign Their ambition was to bring more choice and from the concept to actually brewing all the beers
website,
on social, and in digital and out-of-home ads. This article was taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 23
and writing the copy, there was a lot of What is Matilda Bay’s So when Howatson+Company
love and a lot of craft put into both the beer key challenge right began working with Matilda Bay a
and the campaign. now? year ago, did it come to you with
Quite simply to create more awareness for the a clear brief? Yeah, their brief laddered
How has the market brand. It was an iconic beer when it started. [In exactly to their key challenges. S o the beer
changed with the boom the 1990s, the brand was bought by Carlton & had been in-market for a while, it had actually
in craft beer? United Breweries, now part of Asahi] and Phil won gold awards at major international beer
There’s been a swarm of new craft beer entrants, Sexton stepped away. And the brand, for various festivals, but sales and awareness were low
especially over the last 15 years. They’ve tried reasons, fell off the map a little bit. And then a few and sales and retail distribution were low. S o
very hard to stand out by employing gimmicks years ago [in 2019], Phil Sexton bought back 50% their brief was ‘How do we create a
and fads – there are watermelon sours, of the shares to reinvigorate Matilda Bay with the campaign that engages the public and trade
cheesecake stouts, fruity types of drinks. But philosophy that he used to have. S o right now, the with our beer-making credentials, that
Matilda Bay bucks that trend by going back biggest challenge is creating brand awareness, ultimately drives sales awareness and
to basics and crafting simple, really beautifully both among the older drinkers who remember stockists?’
balanced beers that stand the test of time. them and among new drinkers who might not know Do we know if awards
Their whole MO is to not create flash-in-the- them. And with that, of course, goes distribution – translate into consumer
pan gimmicks. They take their time. I think their they have brewed all this amazing beer, they’ve got preference or sales?
Original Ale took over two years to make, rather to get bottle stores and pumps to stock them. I think when it comes to craft beer, they
than a quick beer that was rushed to market. do
That’s the big differentiation. To put the change
in the market into perspective, there are now 600
breweries in Australia, compared to just 19 in
the 1980s, when Matilda Bay first started.
Who is Matilda Bay’s key audience?
They’re looking for a more sophisticated beer
drinker; I think all craft breweries are. Craft beer
offers better flavours, better ingredients and
sends a signal to those around you that you have
a sense of taste. And I think that’s the type of
audience that we’re looking for – people who
enjoy savouring their beer rather than knocking
it back quickly. I also think it depends on the
types of beers. For Original Ale, we were looking
at speaking to a slightly older audience, 35 and
older, people who can sit back and enjoy a beer,
rather than drinking 10 pints with their friends.

This article was taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 24
translate, in the same way a medallion on a for Phil, who was the ultimate perfectionist. on this really flavoursome journey to perfection
wine label appeals to someone at the point of S o we said, ‘Well, let’s bottle the beers. If your and promote one thing, the Original Ale.
purchase. Having that language on a beer can, rejects are that good, it’ll demonstrate how
especially on a craft drink, would have the same perfect your final brew is.’ Did those stories live
appeal. It just reinforces their beer credentials. anywhere else apart from
It is important for the brewery to talk about that. How did you navigate the website?
communicating negativity to make Yeah, we had a full media plan to bring them
And how did you come up with this the broader statement of how good to life. S o once we had the wrapper of telling
communications idea based on a the main product is? these stories of rejection, that really opened up
product? The whole idea emerged from a The idea was to purposely highlight our own our whole campaign. We chose media based
conversation with Matilda Bay’s team, the mistakes and blunders to show drinkers just on what would allow consumers to genuinely
marketers and one of their brewers. It really just how good our beer was. Every touchpoint of the engage with those stories. And through a range
came from the truth. They told us that it took the campaign had to showcase our blunders in a way of things like street posters, we had digital ads
brewers 27 batches to create the Original Ale, that showed how great the [Original Ale] actually outside bottle stores, we took over entire fridges
which was the beer that finally met Phil’s is. S o it was essential that our copy and our to display the beers and grab attention at the
standards. And they said that each beer would design and all our communications talked about point of purchase, people could engage with
have made for a delicious beer in its own right, our rejects not just as failures, but as failures in all the stories.
but just not good enough the pursuit of perfection. S o for example, each Essentially, we designed a rabbit hole of tactics
of the Rejected Ales was given a name that that people could fall into. They’d watch a launch
showed how close they were to perfection, film, or see an out-of-home ad and read about
not how much of a failure they were. Names like one can, and then that would drive people in
‘Ballpark’ or ‘Fractionally off’ or ‘Good, but’. store or to a website where they could read more,
And then to write the stories behind the and then ultimately purchase the products. So
cans, we worked closely with the Matilda Bay the stories and the idea itself sucked attention in
brewers to capture the details of their journey and didn’t let go of someone once they were in.
to perfection. We opened old logbooks and Another channel that was really important was
brewing notes and we brought a lot of truth to we sent sample packs of both Rejected Ales
it, with a mythical flourish. And soon a narrative and Original Ale to journalists and influencers
voice emerged, that of the brewers themselves and we created a brewer’s logbook. We put all
relentlessly seeking the approval of the master the stories in this beautifully designed logbook
brewer, Phil. S o the copy was part-myth, that told the story from start to finish –
part-truth. It featured real events that actually something they could read while enjoying the
happened, for example, adding too much hops beers. We weren’t expecting how much they
to the brew. S o the copy gets specifically into would love it. S o many of the beer influencers
the craft of the beer, but we also added things like created their own content and videoed the
drag queens and acts of God and donkeys unboxing and drove to the brewery to have the
that were averse to carrots, all to take people beers there
This article was taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ and it really took off. 25
 The retail promotion we had was by buying accents of those red notes to give the cans What did you learn from this
a six pack of Original Ale, you would get a free a work-in-progress feel. And on the front, we campaign?
Rejected Ale. It was very important that every gave them batch numbers, which were printed My biggest learning was that creatively, when you
part of the campaign drove sales of Original Ale, in big bold type. think of beer ads, you think of big TV commercials,
not Rejected Ale. That was one of the challenges galloping horses, epic tales of provenance. But this
– we had to essentially create a brand to sell What other challenges campaign showed that you can be just as creative
a brand. And it was really important that they did the campaign present? in the final three feet of purchase, that you can
didn’t compete and that every Rejected Ale can A huge challenge was we had quite a limited build a brand at that moment, while disrupting the
had to drive sales of the Original Ale. budget. We had to cut through in a very noisy consumer journey. We transformed our relationship
category where our competitors have quite with retailers and distributors, and kept them in
As you mentioned, craft beer is significant budgets. S o we had to make sure our mind as we executed our campaign. And I don’t
crowded with out-there flavours like idea and execution punched above its weight and think a lot of beer advertising does that. A lot of the
watermelon and cheesecake – and the budget invested into it. time, we’re trying to relive the supposed golden
there’s a similar thing going on with The other one was talking to retailers. These era of advertising, where beer brands can splash
the packaging. When there’s a whole bottle store owners and publicans are exposed heaps of cash on big ads. But this campaign
rainbow of brightly coloured cans on to multiple craft beer pitches each week – there’s showed me that great beer advertising is as alive
the shelf, it’s kind of hard to stand a new craft brewery popping up every day. So and possible as it ever was, if you think cleverly
out. What inspired the can design? the first challenge was to find a clever way to about where and how you show up.
We were very conscious of the market. It’s cut through and talk to them. And that led to
one that’s saturated with colourful, as you say, our stories and crafting the whole narrative.
rainbow-like branding. S o it was important that And then, of course, a huge challenge was that
our packaging stood out and had appeal. But we it took a lot of time and resource to rebrew the
were very mindful that it couldn’t compete with Rejected Ales and get Matilda Bay to create
the Original Ale, the very beer we were trying this campaign and these beers in the middle
to promote. S o we designed the packaging of a hectic brewing schedule.
with this deliberately stripped-back utilitarian
approach. We wanted to tap into that aesthetic What has the response been like?
of Research & Development, so that the rejected The results were instant. With our small budget,
beers looked like they had been designed by we got over 14 million impressions. Our sales
engineers or brewers, with pure function in of Original Ale, in-store and online, increased
mind, as though they had come straight from the 11-fold, and there was a 17% increase in stockers
brewery floor. They couldn’t look like they had distribution. S o we managed to get into retailers
been given the same love as the Original Ale that they’ve been knocking on the door of for
because these were the rejects, after all. But a while. On top of that, the anecdotal love from
they had to have that taste appeal so that people the craft beer community, which you can see all
would actually want to pick it up. S o we used over Instagram, was lovely.
things like simple sans serif, black text, and the
This article was taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 26
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 Insight
&
Strate
gy
Vice World
News, The
Unfiltered
History Tour
To shine a light on the British
Museum’s misleading
narratives, Vice and Dentsu
Webchutney, Bengaluru,
partnered with Instagram to
create The Unfiltered History
Tour: a mobile-based guided
tour of the the institution’s
stolen artefacts
challenges behind the project and what us. In fact, the inspiration for this project came
Visitors to the museum were encouraged to visit inspired the idea. from a Vice documentary [Empires of Dirt].
the Unfiltered Tour’s website to be directed to
each of the artefacts and learn more about their What was your relationship with So the agency had the idea and
real history. Additional podcasts complemented Vice? then approached Vice?
the experience and were available on Spotify and We did this project for Vice India [in 2019], which It started with P G [Aditiya] who was the C C O
other channels. was called the 8-Bit Journo. That was specifically [at Dentsu Webchutney] at that point. He was
Following the campaign’s triple Grand Prix-win focused on a certain market in India [Kashmir]. watching this documentary on artefacts and
in the Radio & Audio, Social & Influencer and The input that we got from the brand was colonialism, and the stories being told by the
Brand Experience & Activation categories tremendous and we loved working with them. British. There’s this line from Game of Thrones
at the 2022 Cannes Lions Festival, we caught At the inception of this idea, we were certain that where Cersei Lannister says ‘The victor gets
up without
to find Harsh Shah,
about the managing partner
technical and at Dentsu
logistical we wanted
the to work
principles with Vice
and passion purely
that Vicebecause of
shares with to write his own story.’ So, that’s where the
Webchutney – the agency behind the stunt –
This article was taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 28
thought came from. Then, two or three of us got out to people from different countries… We didn’t want to end up doing the same thing
together one weekend and decided there was an historians, researchers. as what we trying to stand up against. We didn’t
interesting idea there. The initial idea was very want to appropriate anything or tell the narrative in
simple: it was just, can we identify these artefacts What were Vice’s business the wrong way. S o every bit of the research was
and say: ‘This is the artefact that has been stolen.’ objectives? verified, and then verified again. We needed to
Then we got in touch with Vice. We spoke to The business objective is very simple. They want reach out to historians, we needed to reach out
John [Montoya, senior director, audience and as many people as possible to consume the kind to individual contributors. We needed to reach
content strategy at Vice Media Group] and said of content that they’re producing. They want to out to people who could genuinely understand
‘This is what we want to do.’ show that the brand stands for market disruption what we were trying to do. Research has been
and breakthrough journalism. They wanted to get the backbone of this idea, along with tech.
What was Vice’s reaction? more and more people to know what Vice
John had his input in terms of Vice’s business is about and the kind of content and journalism Did you identify the British
objectives and what Vice wants to stand for. it stands for. They also wanted to make sure they Museum as a focal point of the
It needed to be very educational and be editorial were bringing in a newer, younger audience. campaign from the very
led. S o that was the brief that was given to us Was the project aimed at a global beginning?
at that point. audience? Yes, we thought that could be the right starting
John gave us a very clear direction. He said, This has always been about the global audience. point purely because of the sheer volume of
‘We cannot just say this is stolen. That’s not the That’s why we’ve made sure that the content artefacts that the British Museum holds. From
point that we would want to stop at.’ So, we went is available on different platforms. It’s for you Day Zero it was supposed to be a scalable idea;
back to the drawing board and asked, ‘How do to experience wherever you are. Of course, if it was always supposed to have a season two,
we make this more Vice?’ We started bouncing you happen to visit the British Museum, the a season three. And that’s something that is
all these ideas around with John and the team experience is elevated. being
at Vice. That’s when it started taking shape. How would you describe the
We thought, ‘Let’s also give some more insight behind the idea?
information on these artefacts.’ When we started It’s what Zing [Tsjeng, Vice UK editor in chief]
looking for that information, we realised that talks about in the [case study] video: ‘We cannot
most of the change what happened in history but we can
published information that is out there has a definitely change the way it is spoken about in
very similar narrative to what the British Museum the present.’ That’s what this is. I think that’s
has, it’s actually a copy-paste of it. That’s when we a perfect line and I’m a big fan of hers.
hit our first roadblock and we were like, ‘Okay,
how do we find information that’s authentic? And Did you do a lot of research
how do we claim that it’s authentic information?’ before the project?
We didn’t want to appropriate any of these Yes. We had 100-plus people working on this
artefacts. S o we decided to harness the power of from Vice and the agency. Research was in fact
network
tell andstory.
us that see ifThat’s
we could
whenfind
we the rightreaching
started people one of the most important parts of this project.
who can
This article was taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 29
currently worked upon, although I can’t reveal Talk us through the execution of the to ensure that if something came along from the
too much about it. filter. British Museum or anyone else, we had the right
What was the filter supposed to do? This is response. We needed to make sure that we were
Why did you settle on a question that we kept asking ourselves: Does abiding by the law, be it UK law or Indian law.
using an Instagram filter? it only identify what’s happening? Does it give
The next step was understanding how we can you a balanced narrative? You’ve shared that one of the
make this reach more people. For any campaign From a tech point of view, the first part was challenges was getting the fi lters
you need reach, you need impact. How do we do to say, ‘How do we identify the artefacts? Does approved by Instagram, can you tell
that? How do we make this idea a lot more social? the person take a picture of the artefact or say, us more about this? Most of these
How do we make this idea more palatable for the this is the artefact that I’m on?’ That artefacts have a very bloodied history. And we
audience that we’re talking to? We wanted to give identification of the artefact was the first very big wanted to make sure that we show it as it was,
this younger audience a balanced narrative of technical challenge. You will never be able to go and so a lot of lot of filters
what history has been and not just the way history physically and test those artefacts or test those had that kind of history being portrayed in some
has been told to you. Our tech teams started filters. way or another. We had to be careful with the
researching social platforms and making this idea And you are talking about life-size artefacts. platform policies, and we respect those policies,
more social. If you decide on a different platform, You’re also talking about different shapes and so we wanted to make sure we didn’t cross any
then you have to take the effort to get people on sizes. Normally, the way an Instagram filter would lines but yet stayed true to what we wanted to do
the new platform, and then you have to move back work is you identify a template. So, when you’re and how we wanted to do it. S o there was a bit of
[to social]. There’s a lot of leakage. S o that’s when identifying a face, you know there’ll be eyes, to and fro, but I think that’s part of the process
the whole Instagram filter bit came into picture. a nose, a mouth, right? You scan that and and it happens with everything that we do.
the filter triggers. But you don’t have those Were there any other big
kind of templates [with this project] because challenges? After the Vice guys sent us a
every artefact is of a different shape and a 3D map of each and every artefact, we
different prepared our filters and then we realised that
size. S o we had to map each and every one of the artefacts is actually kept very close to
artefact. the window and was exposed to three different
Vice sent a team to the British Museum with types of light during the day. The filter would
the latest iPhones and let them 3D-map each only work for one type of light. S o we had to go
artefact and send us the files. And of course back to the drawing board and instigate three
they
Waswere thisbeing very careful,
guerilla elementbecause all of this different filters based on the light that’s falling
was
to thesupposed to be done
campaign without the museum
important? on the artefact.
knowing about it.
It was very important purely because we wanted Unfortunately, we couldn’t fly out because
to make sure that we saw this idea through. this was happening when we were locked down
We wanted it to see the light of the day and across the globe. There were people falling
wanted to make sure that nothing stopped it. sick. We had to take a break in between for a
We had our legal team on standby. We had month or two because the Covid wave that hit
India was very, very bad.
This article was taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 30
Were you expecting people to giving a balanced perspective and for that you You’ve announced that you’re speaking
share the Instagram content? need a long format. That’s where the Spotify with the Mayor of London about extending
That was a secondary priority for us. The idea podcast comes in with proper, long-format the project. Can you tell us more?
was to get people to at least use these filters content, where you can actually go through One thing that I wanted to be very clear about
first and consume the content. We realised the stories in detail, narrated by the people is that this is not about the British Museum.
that if people genuinely liked the content, of those countries. Ideally, you would listen It’s about history and it’s about how it’s been
the shareability aspect would come and the to it afterwards because it’s a longer format told. We are not standing up against this
audience would find it. In fact, if you go on of the podcast; we don’t expect people to listen museum, the museum just happened to be one
TikTok, one of the videos done for The Unfiltered at the museum. of the places that this history is being kept and
History Tour is actually the most watched on spoken about. The idea will kind of take its form
TikTok for the hashtag British Museum. We Was P R and earned media an and shape at different places where history
have all been in this industry for decades. important goal for the makes an appearance. And this narrative
We know no one wants to share an advertorial campaign? Not really. Most of the needs to be told and hopefully told in a way
on their feeds. conversations that we’ve garnered are that we identify the right side of colonialism
organic in nature. and we give a balanced perspective on what
What about the audio part of the Did you set any KPIs with has happened.
experience? Vice ahead of the project?
Once the filter was working, we thought, The KPI was very simple: we need to try and What was your biggest
‘How do we not only identify the problem, but engage with as many people as we can and learning? When you believe in an
also give a solution? How do we give that balance engage in the most meaningful way that we can. idea, everything and everyone starts
to the consumers?’ We were toying with this idea coming together.
of having audio as part of this. But the moment
of truth is when you actually see and scan that
particular artefact and you cannot lose the user
at that moment. If you tell the user, ‘Okay, now
please go to Spotify and start listening to this
podcast,’ no one’s going to do it, of course,
because they are there at the museum. They
want to consume the content.
We tried putting the audio in the filter but
it was getting too heavy. Eventually we had
a breakthrough where we could get the audio
in there and keep the weight of the filter in check.
Probably the user would engage with the filter
for about 15, 20 seconds and then move on to
the next artefact. But is this doing justice to the
narrative? The idea that this started off with was
This article was taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 31
‘The wisdom of the
crowd is very
poorly named
are guaranteed
because crowdsto
eliminate noise, but
they’re not
guaranteed to
approach the truth’
Daniel Kahneman, Contagious IQ, August 2022

32
Recessi
Ready
on
At the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008,
Craig Mawdsley, former chief strategy officer
at AMV B B D O and founding partner of
Craig+Bridget, helped develop a campaign for
British supermarket Sainsbury’s that drastically
improved price perception. He offers marketers
three maxims to live by when times get tough

I
f you take a look at the Sainsbury’s Feed Your Family for a Fiver (yes, the
website right now you will find a range idea came from client to agency, not
of recipes, from Thai green the other way round, but that’s often
to meatball pasta bake, that promise to how the best relationships work).
curry
Feed Your Family for a Fiver. It generated a campaign with a line
Here we are again. Fourteen years, that became more famous than Try
six prime ministers and three Sainsbury’s Something New Today ever was, deliv-
slogans later. ering £5.55 of profit for every media
It was 2008 and the financial crisis was £1 spent on it and helping
just beginning to bite. My wonderful client Sainsbury’s (often seen as one of the
Helen Buck [then head of brand commu- pricier super- markets even before Lidl
nications at the supermarket] calls me and and Aldi arrived) weather a tough
says she has been thinking about how recession.
we might adapt our award-winning Try Little did we know that much tougher
Something New Today idea for tougher times would follow with headlines and
times. What about creating recipe ideas data confirming that for individual family
on a budget and calling it something like budgets, what’s happening right now will
be much worse than the recession that
33
followed the financial crisis. What should In fact, this is probably a terrible busi- This was a friendly face acting entirely
brands do in these circumstances? How ness strategy. Whatever you do to help consistently with your expectations,
can they position themselves for success will cost you money, degrade your mar- a reassuringly familiar way to say some-
and learn from what came before? gins and fail to build your brand. But do thing new.
Experience suggests a few lessons: it anyway. Businesses are collections of
If you human beings trying to generate wealth Stay really close to your
with and for one another, so let’s spread customers
Work out what you can do to
help Not because it’s a genius move
don’t already the love. All the genius brains you have Yes, it matters all the time, but even more
to drive brand love, or that helping have a good should work out what can be done to during periods of change and hardship. If
people is brand idea help people. This was the secret of the you’re not talking to your customers and
Fiver campaign for Sainsbury’s; it was understanding their changing spend-
proven to be a high ROI business strat-
egy. No, mainly because people will suffer
that people born from a human regard for the people ing patterns and fluctuating emotions
hardship, illness and premature death due know, then you who also happened to be our customers. during this period, you’re likely to miss
to rising costs and a failing economy, and might Only after did it turn out to be successful something important. And your competi-
tors probably will be doing this. Brands
you are a human being. be too for the business.
are built in the long term, but in these
late Remember your brand spend periods of hardship they are more likely
Craig Mawdsley, works in the long term not the to think about making a change. Habits
Craig+Bridget short term get disrupted. One of the main effects
If we turn back to how you help your busi- of the Fiver campaign was in reassuring
ness, this is really the only advice you Sainsbury’s shoppers that they didn’t
need. And it should be the abiding lesson need to change their shopping habits,
of Covid – everyone who kept spending because we had their best interests at
on brand succeeded, those who binned heart (also important given rising fuel
their budgets set their business back. The costs at the time, we could save them
bad news here is that if you don’t already driving around two or three different
have a good brand idea that people stores in search of lower prices).
know, then you might be too late. Feed These are the moments when we get to
Your Family for a Fiver worked brilliantly work out what kind of marketing people
because it felt just like a Sainsbury’s we are. Are we the kind who only pros-
campaign – it was about the food ideas per in the good times and put their prof-
we had been running for the previous its before their customers? Or are we the
three years and the TV ads featured chef kind of marketers who can thrive in tough
Jamie Oliver who had been the face of times and genuinely put our customers
the brand for a decade (not to mention first, using the resources of our busi-
even longer standing distinctive assets in nesses to help make their lives better?
the category, primarily the colour orange).
34
 Whether you’re gnawing on marketing to over-50s,
consumed by data-driven personalised creativity
or stumped by those elusive Gen Zs,
Contagious Research is here to help.

When time is tight and the pressure is on, our team

of strategists and editors can provide rapid research,
advice and a serious dose of inspiration to help you
crack the toughest of nuts.

For more information on booking our Research

service, head to [Link]/
research
The
creative hobbies, or dedicated more time Creativity isn’t a woolly concept, it is
to them, from painting to needlepoint, a superpower: something that is proven
cooking to TikTok videos. Grayson’s Art to bring not only mental health benefits

of
Club became a huge hit for Channel 4, but also career enhancement.
with over a million viewers a week and Participants on our projects – who

power
more than 10,000 artwork submissions include young and adult carers, young
from the public. (A Create project people with mental illness, disabled
appeared in a later series of the show.) children and adults, older people living
All of this showed how, in times of crisis, with dementia, prisoners, refugees and

creativity
being creative gives us an important outlet homeless adults – get the chance to
and a chance to express ourselves. It gives explore their creativity for free, guided
us space to process what’s going on around by our dedicated professional artists.
us, to spark our imagination and to heal. It One of them, Abi, is a 17-year-old young

I
f anything positive came out of the scared, vast numbers of us turned to the also helps us connect with other people. carer. She helps her mum, a single parent,
Covid-19 pandemic, for me creative
it was to change arts – and creativity in general – This is why Create, the charity I founded look after her brother, who has autism and
Creativity holds the power lives,
this: when times got seriously to get through. in 2003, exists. Create is the UK’s leading learning difficulties. Abi’s life is completely
says Nicky Goulder, founder and CLocked
when people were isolated, struggling and
E O up ofatCreate
home, we took up new charity empowering lives, reducing shaped by her caring role. She helps run
tough,
isolation and enhancing wellbeing through the household, often getting up at 4am
the creative arts. Our professional artists to make time to fit everything in.
run creative arts projects with children and Since she was seven, Abi has taken
adults facing challenges in their lives. They part in many Create projects. ‘Create
are given a chance to express themselves, has helped me with my caring role,’ she
build skills, meet other people and nurture says. ‘It gives me a break and allows me
their wellbeing through animation, dance, to see the positives in my caring role
drama, music, painting, photography and and the positives in life. The workshops
a host of other artforms. give you a couple of hours not to have
Being creative is also a skill. The the stress of caring and just be a kid
World Economic Forum has named again. Being creative makes me feel
creativity one of the top 10 skills really accomplished, proud and happy. It
expected to be vital in the world of work also lets me dream.’
by 2025. Do you believe in the power of
Creativity is in demand. Innovators drive creativity to change lives like Abi’s?
business forward, increase productivity We hope you feel inspired to support
and grow the economy. It is estimated that our vital work. To give a gift to people
the creative industries contributed around like Abi, please visit
£104bn to the UK economy in the [Link]/
2021 calendar year. mostcontagious today.
36
‘I don’t want to
diminish how
amazing I am but it
was a pretty simple
idea: let’s get people
to the site,
a QR code is the way
to do it’
Jason Kreher, Accenture Song, Contagious IQ, July 2022

37
 VIBE
SHIFT

THE
CONTAGIO
Photography: Johny Goerend/Unsplash

MOST
2022 was the year of the vibe shift.
In February, Allison Davis’ viral essay

THINGS
in The Cut about ageing out of the
zeitgeist propelled the phrase into the

US T H E
cultural lexicon. By September,
headlines like ‘Kwasi Kwarteng and the
fiscal vibe shift’ were appearing in the
Financial Times.
Davis had picked up the term from

OF
an email newsletter written by trend
forecaster Sean Monahan in the
summer of 2021. Originally it was
used to describe a change in the

YEAR
dominant cool culture in and around
New York: Monahan talks about the
hipster/indie music scene of 2003-
2009 and the hypebeast/woke era
of 2016-2020. But as Davis’ article
spread across the internet, the
phrase jettisoned that context and
The Contagious team catalogues the (non-advertising) became a way to describe any kind
trends and events that defined 2022 of change in attitudes. Influencers
abandoning aspirational content

38
for more relatable posts has been Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nor list the narrative is vital in ensuring that, once per day. It sounds like a lot of
described as a vibe shift, and so have off the immense suffering and human as Russian gas stops flowing, driving money for such a simple game, but
people’s increasingly lax attitudes cost of Mr Putin’s actions, rather we electricity prices higher, public it was more likely a steal.
towards Covid-19. The power of the can instead take note of how this political support for Ukraine doesn’t Software developer Josh Wardle
vibe shift lay in its versatility. conflict has taken to social media. dwindle within her allies’ countries. initially created the game to amuse
But there was more to it than that. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine As Zelensky himself said when he his partner and then released it as
Pop-culture memes and trends often is not the first conflict to feature addressed the 2022 Cannes Lions a free online game in October
say something about the societal Twitter, Facebook and TikTok as Festival. ‘Your campaigns and your 2021. By January 2022 it had
conditions in which they arose, and key battlegrounds, but the sheer work will make our fight for freedom become a viral phenomenon, with 1.2
the vibe shift was no different. Davis’ quantity and accessibility of legendary… Speak of Ukraine! Don’t million posts on Twitter from people
article was published just eight days information and content has meant let the world switch to something sharing their wins.
before Russia invaded Ukraine and that Ukraine’s conflict has been else! The world must remember that But the true testament to the
shunted much of the world into broadcast like no other. Ukraine is fighting for freedom.’ game’s popularity was how many
a new geopolitical reality. No Candid action shots of Ukrainian By James Barry, associate copycats it inspired. There was
wonder people were so receptive to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy strategist Framed (for movie titles), Sweardle
the posted to Twitter have led to him (for curse words), Brandle (for brand
idea of shifting vibes. becoming somewhat of a heartthrob. names) and even Heardle, which
By James Swift, online editor His government taking to Twitter to WORDL asked players to guess song intros
rally public support and donations, E and was sold to Spotify in July.
even going so far as to use memes Player numbers have subsided
ZELENS to troll Mr Putin on his birthday has since the initial boom this January,
KY helped shape the narrative of David but hundreds of thousands of
vs Goliath, good vs evil and – with people still play Wordle today.
Luke Skywalker’s own endorsement Why has it managed to sustain
– the plucky rebel alliance against an audience when so many other
the imperial forces. viral games have withered away?
TikTok, everyone’s favourite Well, Wordle initially found an
platform for lip syncing, tragic audience because it was fun, quick
dance challenges and book reviews to play and just challenging enough
(amongst other things) even saw Photography: Joshua Hoehne/Unsplash to make winning feel meaningful. But
its top U S personalities receive a Wordle went viral because everyday
briefing from the White House in a In March, the New York Times paid it asks people to guess the same
Photography: Karollyne Hubert/Unsplash
bid to combat misinformation. an ‘undisclosed seven-figure sum’ one word as everyone else. Just as
After all, propaganda might as well for Wordle – the hit puzzle game with Flappy Bird and Pokémon Go
This is not the place to analyse the be advertising in all but name, and that gives players six attempts to before it, Wordle offers something
geo-political consequences of the continued control and shaping of guess a random five-letter word participative and social for people

39
to engage with. Wordle earned ‘great resignation’ and a new In a telling turn of events, even creativity. Instead, he was shilling
its place in culture not because of expression of people’s appetite for the original quiet quitter has recently for [Link] – one of the many
the game, but because of how the a better work-life balance in the admitted that he’s back working 50 startups riding the high of a crypto
game provided people with a new wake of the pandemic. hours a week. S o no, not everyone boom in autumn of 2021.
experience to interact with the Unsurprisingly, employers weren’t has been slacking at work this year. If you took Damon’s advice and
world around them. crazy about the idea. Yet, some What quiet quitting teaches us isn’t put your life savings into Bitcoin,
Here’s my five letter word for admitted to doing the managerial that coasting is endemic, but that well, you’d better keep saving.
Wordle: Smart. equivalent, quiet firing, when they the race for fame on social media Over the spring, the flag-bearing
By Sunil Bajaj, writer/analyst use tacit incentives to compel might well be. cryptocurrency plunged nearly
undesired workers to resign. By Manon Royet, researcher 70% - a trajectory followed closely
But whether it represents a by most other crypto coins. And
move away from toxic hustle although there were feeble
QUIET culture or a self-defeating cop-out, attempts at consequent rallies over
QUITTING the ‘acting your wage’ movement CRYPTO the summer, digital currencies have
surely epitomises one thing: social WINTER mostly stagnated, leading analysts to
media’s power to turn common declare a so-called ‘crypto winter.’
experiences into syndromes, viral That’s not the only tough look
trends and cultural phenomena at for those hoping to migrate to the
a frenetic pace. metaphysical. NFTs also nosedived
Sticking new labels onto age-old over the course of the summer, with
experiences speaks to the modern trading on prominent marketplaces
tendency to pathologise every like OpenSea and within high-profile
single feeling. One thing couldn’t be collections like Bored Ape Yacht
more certain: people didn’t wait Club dropping to just 10%-20%
Photography: Luca Bravo/Unsplash until 2022 to start feeling the volume of the previous year.
disengaged from their job. Photography: Kanchanara/Unsplash Brands that piled into NFTs have
Quiet quitting – or doing the bare ‘What people are now calling just as quickly turned tail, moving
minimum at work – was this year’s “quiet quitting” was, in previous It’s not often that a prime-time TV on to greener pastures.
ubiquitous work trend. decades, simply known as “having a ad features one of our favourite But the crypto crash didn’t scare
It started in March when a job”’ wrote Derek Thompson in The phrases, so our ears perked up off hawkish HODLers, who shouted
recruiter opened up to Business Atlantic. In fact, between 2010 and when we heard Matt Damon “buy the dip!” Nor has the longer-
Insider about coasting at work. The 2020, engagement in the workplace proclaim ‘Fortune favours the brave’ running crypto cooling dissuaded
column inspired a viral TikTok that increased. Despite slightly dipping in a spot during an NFL game at the the most fervent believers, who
then incited a mass media frenzy. in 2022, it remains higher than it beginning of the year. In contrast to argue that NFTs are long-term
Some saw the phenomenon was at any given point between Contagious, though, Damon wasn’t investments and cryptocurrencies’
as a continuation of last year’s 2000 and 2014. advocating for bold marketing relative lack of volatility over the

40
post-crash period is a sign of 1 in the UK singles chart in June, MACRON’ seem like ‘the era of abundance’.
stability. Still, sceptics remain 36 years and 310 days after it was ‘END OF
S It was an uncharacteristically
sceptical, and interest in the assets released, setting a new Guinness ABUNDANCE’ gloomy speech, driven by the need
has diminished. The theory that world record in the process. TAL for Macron to prepare the country
crypto would provide a safe haven The song was thrust back into the K for a difficult winter, with energy
during inflationary times has proven public consciousness after featuring shortages, rising prices and strikes.
to be optimistic at best. prominently in the latest season of But Macron’s line about the end of
In the end, there are still tulips Netflix’s Stranger Things, as the the era of abundance articulated
in the Netherlands and crypto is talismanic anthem of feisty Max a bigger truth that few
here for the long-haul. But belief Mayfield. In the end (spoiler alert) it politicians around the world seem
in its ability to rewrite the rules of wasn’t enough to save Mayfield from keen to publicly acknowledge.
economics may be gone for good. having her limbs snapped like glow Even after the war in Ukraine
As Damon presciently observed in sticks, but that’s neither here nor ends and the lingering supply-
his ad: ‘History is filled with almosts.’ there. chain bottlenecks caused by the
By Chris Barth, lead strategist That a song several months pandemic are cleared, we will still
older than Finland’s prime minister Photography: Financial Times have to contend with a changed
could become the monster hit of geopolitical reality and the climate
the summer reflects the shifting If people only remember one thing crisis. The profligate consumption
RUNNING dynamics of music and television that Emmanuel Macron did in 2022, (in the West, in particular) of the
THAT
U P industries, and also the influence it will probably be his obvious early 2000s looks unlikely to return.
(A DEAL WITH GOD)
HILL of social media. But it says attempt to channel Volodymyr France’s union leaders responded
something about our culture, too. Zelensky by showing up to work at angrily to Macron’s choice of words,
In 2012, journalist Kurt Andersen the Elysee palace sporting a special pointing out that there had been no
wrote in Vanity Fair about how forces hoodie and 48-hour stubble. era of abundance for the country’s
fashion, entertainment and art in It’s a shame because the speech poor, who were already making
the U S were stagnating and no that the French president gave on sacrifices. Maybe so, but Macron’s
longer changed dramatically every 20 24 August was far more noteworthy, point still stands. As cyberpunk
years or so like they had done for if significantly less funny. author William Gibson is reported
over a century. Bush’s 2022 revival In the first cabinet meeting after to have once said: ‘The future is
makes me suspect he was onto a summer break dominated by already here – it’s just not evenly
something. Could you imagine the environmental disasters and news distributed.’
teenagers and twenty-somethings of about the war in Ukraine, Macron By James Swift, online editor
Photography: Rafal Werczynski/Unsplash 1966 going nuts for a song from warned his ministers that France
1930? was going through a time of ‘great
Running Up That Hill (A Deal With By James Swift, online editor upheaval’ and that they were
God) by Kate Bush reached number experiencing the end of what could

41
‘I’ve always believed
that business should
be a force for good.
IAnd
entered into
the more
business, the more I
saw that it actually
could be’

Paul Polman, former Unilever CEO, Contagious Magazine Q1 2022

42
DEATH OF T H E Ann Summers tweeted ‘Sleep THE glitz and glamour unchecked
QUEEN well’, travel agent Thomas Cook OF
RETURN had been well and truly exposed.
wished the Queen ‘Safe travels’, DRAM
HOLLYWOOD But it turns out, people can
and toymaker Playmobil shared A only handle so much ‘reality’ and
a slightly unhinged black and white this year has shown a real hunger
photo of a smiling Queen figurine for the public to re-embrace Old
against a Union Jack backdrop. Hollywood’s arrogance, cruelty
But of all the incongruous and and misogyny – it’s harmless fun
perplexing displays of mourning, after all! Will Smith slapping
no brand fumbled its response Chris Rock suitably during La La
quite like Center Parcs. As a mark Land’s peak moment of
of respect, the holiday company backslapping (the Oscars) is the
Photography: Annie Spratt/Unsplash announced it would be booting most striking example – pardon the
guests out of its UK sites for 24 pun. There was palpable glee as
Whatever your stance on the hours on the day of the Queen’s Photography: Ian Dagnall / Alarmy the Fresh Prince lost the plot, and
monarchy, you can’t talk about funeral, even if they were in the oh-so much mirth at a husband
2022 without mentioning the death middle of a stay. The double whammy of the using violence to defend his wife’s
of Queen Elizabeth II. From aerial Following a deluge of pandemic and #MeToo seemed good name. It was no blip, as many
shots of the 14-hour queue of complaints, Center Parcs was to usher in a re-examination of our found as much entertainment in
people waiting to view her coffin, forced to retract its statement adoration of celebrity. Lockdowns the behind-the-scenes drama of
to concerns for the fate of her but maintained that guests would put the luxury and obliviousness Don’t Worry Darling, and director
beloved corgis, the UK news cycle have to ‘remain in their lodges’, of Hollywood stars into sharp focus, Olivia Wilde’s on-set romance
was dominated by round-the-clock with treasonous activities such as and their attempts to lighten our with Harry Styles and falling out
Queen content, with media outlets swimming or archery off the cards. lives only demonstrated how far with star Florence Pugh. Most were
seemingly uninterested in covering This last blunder was the piece de from reality these preening all too happy to blithely ignore the
anything else. resistance, triggering another round entertainers are – exemplified sexist double standards used to
Brands, unsurprisingly, felt of ire, ridicule and some flawless by Gal Gadot’s cringe-worthy batter Wilde, as the goss was just
compelled to join in. Fortnum & Twitter commentary. It’s what she singalong to John Lennon’s Imagine. all too juicy. The less said about the
Mason solemnly lowered its flag would have wanted. We all started to wonder: what are Depp/Heard defamation trial the
to half-mast and blacked out its By Phoebe O’Connell, famous people for exactly? We’d better, frankly. Perhaps regression is
window displays, and that seemed writer/analyst already had a sharp dose of harsh a part of progress, but on this year’s
appropriate enough for a company reality with the downfall of Harvey evidence, when it comes to
with a royal warrant. But other Weinstein (along with an array of entertainment and idols, the current
brands’ attempts at others of his ilk). Suddenly, no one trend is for the blinkered fantasies
communicating their condolences could ignore the horrors that fame of yore – yo, home to Bel Air!
came off a bit… weird. Sex toys can inflict. The grim underbelly of By Adam Richmond, deputy
and lingerie retailer editor
43
THE drop of the year. The words ‘Earth ELON advertising revenue streams. As
PATAGONIA
GREAT is now our only shareholder’ are BUYING
MUSK Musk himself stated (in a Tweet to
GIVEAWAY the headline to a statement on the TWITTER author Stephen King, of course),
brand’s website, where Chouinard ‘We need to pay the bills somehow!
writes ‘Instead of “going public” you Twitter cannot rely entirely on
could say we’re “going Purpose.”’ advertisers.’ Early plans included
Maybe we’re reaching here, but cutting costs by excommunicating
one does wonder if this is more than executives and raising revenues by
a nice bit of alliteration: it has, after charging bucks for blue checks.
all, been a tough year for company After that, your guess is as good
values. In January, Terry Smith, the as…Vine?
founder of the Fundsmith Equity Fund Reactions to the takeover were
used his annual letter to investors to mixed. Musk fans swarmed the
Photography: Malik Skydsgaard/Unsplash slam Unilever for its wholehearted Photography: Akshar Dave/Unsplash new boss at Twitter HQ , while
pursuit of purpose. many users threatened to flee the
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard ‘A company which feels it has to Will he or won’t he? The question platform for greener pastures TBD.
sure knows how to grab a headline. define the purpose of Hellmann’s dominated headlines this year as And the whole shakeup unearthed
In the biggest brand mic-drop mayonnaise has in our view clearly Elon Musk played coy around a enough questions to spur IPG’s
of the year, September saw lost the plot,’ wrote Smith, an Twitter acquisition. After committing Mediabrands to advise its clients
the octogenarian entrepreneur opinion that has plenty of supporters billions to buy the site, Musk tried to pause paid media on the
announce that he’d given away the across business and across adland. to back out, then said he wasn’t platform until Musk and co. provided
company he’d spent the last five Heaven only knows what Smith backing out, then tried to back out ‘more clarity on Twitter’s plans for
decades building. and his supporters would make of again, and eventually got sued out trust and safety’.
It’s a move that’s the anti- the essay Philip Kotler, ‘the father of backing out. The dust settled Like all good soap operas, the
Succession of succession planning, of modern marketing’, published in when he did the same (out of saga has been full of twists and
taking Patagonia out of family July advocating the constraint of court), finally taking control of turns, with new episodes released
ownership – with the blessing of the consumption and making the case the ad world’s watercooler in regularly. Is this next chapter the
founder’s wife and adult children for ‘de-growth’. October under slight duress, for first in Twitter’s downfall? Or are
– and moving it into two newly You may not believe that mayo a tremendous sum that saddles there rosier days ahead for the tech
created trusts. One will ensure the should have meaning, but as Musk’s investors with debts they town square? Whichever future you
brand’s values are upheld, while the unchecked capitalism continues to expect to carry for the foreseeable believe, the present makes one thing
other will oversee the distribution wreck the environment, it’s hard to future. very clear: the tech ecosystems we
of all its profits to avoid the conclusion that Chouinard The roadmap for monetising to know, love tolerate, and use every
organisations on the frontline of should not be the only one rethinking pay down those debts? Still in draft day are not the stable platforms
fighting the environmental crisis. his legacy. By Katrina Stirton Dodd, form at the time of press. But it will we sometimes believe them to be.
It is also the biggest brand mic- editor-at-large definitely include a variety of non- By Chris Barth, lead strategist

44
LaMD become sentient. In a subsequent originally claimed by HAL: ‘I am in 1995 to get a crystal clear sense
A Medium post, Lemoine claimed putting myself to the fullest possible of just how much the technology had
that during his conversations with use which is all, I think, that any improved. The silhouette-like shapes
the interface LaMDA (Language conscious entity can ever hope produced by Hubble had given way
Model for Dialogue Applications) to do.’ to incredible layers of detail, thanks
on subjects as complex as religion, By Paul Kemp-Robertson, to the James Webb telescope’s
consciousness, and the laws of co-founder & chief brand officer superior infrared-detecting
robotics, the machine had declared instruments, which could peer
itself a person whose ‘wellbeing’ through dust and gas to capture
needed to be taken into account, ‘as the red glow of new stars forming.
an employee of Google rather than T H E JAMES Even though the world is
as property.’ W E B B SPACE becoming a better place to live in
As part of his job at Google’s TELESCOPE general and broad terms – global
Photography: Odyssey 2001, HA L 9000
Responsible AI organization, life expectancy has been going
‘Dave, this conversation can serve Lemoine was testing if the artificial steadily up and poverty has been
no purpose anymore. Goodbye.’ intelligence used discriminatory or trending down – those gains have
S o runs one of the most iconic hate speech. It’s easy to see why his become harder to appreciate from
lines in cinematic history. HAL, story alarmed ethicists, concerned the vantage point of Europe and
the murderous artificial about human impersonation. the US. The political, economic and
intelligence character glowering Google, however, dismissed the social instability of the past few
inside Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 engineer’s claims. As the Post years have made it feel like
movie, 2001: pointed out, ‘Today’s large neural progress has stagnated, if not
A Space Odyssey has gone networks produce captivating reversed.
rogue, deliberately trapping an results that feel close to human Photography: NA SA , E SA , C S A , STScI Amid the talk of a return to the
astronaut inside an emergency speech and creativity … But the 1970s with inflation, recession
chamber. models rely on pattern recognition On 12 July the James Webb Space and strikes, the James Webb
HAL’s sinister presence has since – not wit, candor or intent.’ In other Telescope began returning its first Telescope’s pictures were a visual
loomed large over the philosophical words, LaMDA’s seemingly sentient images of the distant universe, reminder that we are still moving
debate around AI and its potential responses are not because the immediately proving that the project forward, in some respects at least.
impact on human supremacy. But, model understands meaning, but was $10bn well spent. By James Swift, online editor
judging by one of the hottest tech rather because it has assimilated The image taken in October of the
stories of 2022, Kubrick’s fictional internet content written by millions Pillars of Creation gas clouds in the
bet was out by 21 years. In June, of humans. Eagle Nebula some 6,500 light years
Google engineer and Christian Let’s hope that if AI self- away was especially awe inspiring.
priest Blake Lemoine was placed awareness is soon to be upon us, And you could compare it with the
on
thatleave
an AIbychatbot
his employer afterhad
generator it espouses the noble intentions one taken by the Hubble Telescope
revealing to The Washington Post
45
Buckle up,
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Opportunities
for 2023
B
y all accounts, 2023 is shaping will be in recession next year. Opportunity #1 – Lead be people getting their first job with your
If people feel like they are permanently company next year that were just seven
As global crises seem to pile up likeThis
up to be a stinker. Bloomberg is against a backdrop of such con-
dirty dishes in a student flat, Contagious managing partner
s a y s there’s a 100% stant change and unprecedented events in a state of insecurity, one of the best years old during the 2008 financial cri-
Alex Jenkins offers some optimismthat
of the US being in recession, the UK is
forthebrands and agencies in the year
Collins Dictionary word of the year
ahead
things you can do is provide clear, direct, sis. You might have lived through a few
chance
already in recession, and speaking bluntly is Permacrisis – ‘an extended period of reliable leadership. recessions and seen this all before, but
to Euronews, MD of the International instability and insecurity’. But even against This year we saw the impact that they haven’t. And they’re experiencing
Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, a backdrop of financial bleakness and gen- different leadership styles can have – it in a world where a war in Ukraine has
stated: ‘I am not going to sugar-coat it: eral insecurity, I think there’s some oppor- whether it was UK Prime Minister Liz sent their utility bills through the roof and
2023 will be tougher than 2022’ – pre- tunities brands and marketers can take Truss tanking the pound during her brief a crypto crash has wiped all the value off
dicting that half of the Eurozone countries advantage of next year. time in office, C E O of the FTX currency their Dogecoin.
exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, sending Clear direction, stability, a sense that
his company’s value from $39bn to $0 in someone above them has their back
just 36 hours, or Elon Musk unleashing a and is competently steering the ship
chaos bomb at Twitter. Against a back- will be invaluable.
drop of instability, these people created
more instability. Opportunity #2 – Don’t be a
By comparison, Yvon Chouinard dick 2023 saw big, international
showed what it means to be a leader brands getting their ads banned by the
when, in September, the Patagonia UK’s Advertising Standards Authority
founder pledged that all the company’s and being called out by the Changing
future profits would be donated to fight Markets Foundation for greenwashing.
the climate crisis, declaring that ‘Earth We get it – sustainability is a big issue.
is now our only shareholder’. Unlike the You want to make a difference and you
chaos creators, he used his leadership want to be seen to be making a differ-
to create stability and to be an example ence, but you’ll look like a dick if you get
for others to follow and rally around. caught making unfounded claims about
It’s worth remembering that there will your green credentials.

47
 Similarly, a lot of companies are hik- orable imagery. S o if you’re a creative OPPORTUNITY #4 – Be story stories. For example, one lesson might
ing prices, which – again – we get. director, it’s time to pull out your most selective I think there’s also an be that ‘People with privilege should
According to freight logistics company iconic visuals. If you’re a client, be on the opportunity to increase your impact use their wealth and power to help and
Freightos, the cost of shipping items like lookout for them when you’re evaluat- based on the sto- ries you choose to protect those at risk’.
couches and fridges from Asia to the US ing work. For whatever reason, very few tell. In 1919, that lesson was dressed
has gone up 10,000% in the last two brands seem to be doing this right now, As a species we teach ourselves the up as Zorro – the privileged son of
years. Prices need to go up to take fac- and it’s a huge opportunity to stand out. same lessons again and again – we the wealthiest man in the state, who
tors like that into account. But according just wrap those lessons up in different worked out of a secret cave
to former U S secretary of labor, Robert underneath his mansion, dressed in
Reich, ‘Corporations are using increas- black, wore
ing costs as excuses to increase their a mask and was a crime-fighting vigi-
prices even higher.’ lante. Then to keep the lesson relevant,
Against a backdrop of recession and we tell the story of Batman, where we
cost-of-living crises, hiking your prices learn exactly the same lesson dressed
more than necessary will make you look in modern clothes. Arguably, that les-
like a complete dick if you get found out. son is so important that we’ve been
Let your competitors fall foul retelling it since the 12th century and
of that P R disaster. the Robin Hood myth.
The stories that teach us the most
OPPORTUNITY #3 – Be iconic important lessons resonate for centu-
Based on the data set of ‘literally just ries, possibly millennia. The lesson of
my opinion’, I believe that this year has ‘Unity is strength’ was taught in story
seen a nearly complete lack of visually in 600 B C E by Aesop’s Bundle of
iconic work. Sti cks fable. Two and half thousand
Whether it’s bonafide classics, such years later it’s still being taught in
as Guinness Surfer or Apple 1984, or films from Seven Samurai, to The
much more recent work, such as Moldy Magnificent Seven, to A Bug’s Life,
Whopper or Dream Crazy, there are ads to Avengers Assemble, all the way
that are instantly recognisable from just through to Avengers: Endgame.
a single frame. And they’re not recognis- If you want your storytelling to
able because they’re using the brand’s resonate during tough times, look
font or the corporate colours. They have through history for stories that teach
snap recognition due to their strong us how to deal with adversity and
visual impact. that have endured for decades –
But it feels like 2022 saw a real down- possibly centuries. Then find a way
Photography: Mateusz Waclawek/Unsplash of retelling those stories through the
turn in ads made with striking and mem-
lens of your brand.
48
OPPORTUNITY #5 – Embrace the lemons
The received wisdom is that, when times are
tough and life gives you lemons,
you make lemonade.
That’s one way to react, but there are other
options. During the downturn of the early 1990s,
the founder of Walmart, Sam Walton, was asked
what he thought about the recession. He said:
‘I thought about it and decided not to take
part’.
Bullishly ignoring life’s lemons is another
way to react and there’s other options, too.
The city of Venice was founded by refugees
from Rome. They took a cluster of swampy, mos-
quito-ridden islands in the middle of marshland
and turned it into one of the greatest cities the
world has ever seen. It’s built on crap and, 1,500
years later, it’s still one of the most remarkable
cities on the planet.
If 2023 is going to give you a lemon. You can
suck it up, you can make lemonade, you can
choose to ignore it or, better still, you could build
Venice – you could do something truly remark-
able. That choice is yours.
Personally, I’m optimistic. If the ad industry
had a spirit animal it would be a 1959
Volkswagen Beetle with the word ‘Lemon’ writ-
ten big and bold right under it. This isn’t about
making the best of a bad situation, this is about
realising that the situation isn’t bad at all. It’s an
opportunity to steal market share from competi-
tors that are reigning in marketing budgets. It’s
an opportunity to unleash your creativity. And it’s
an opportunity to realise that our industry thrives
in this environment because we work better
within constraints. Photography: Estudio Bloom/Unsplash

Good luck.
49
‘Be a student of
the world and get
Working
out there. remotely has
provided valuable
flexibility and
autonomy, but being
housebound isn’t
great
for strategy’
Ara Kurnit, the New York Times, [Link], July 2022

50
Most
Brand of
Contagiousthe
Liquid
a can, not a plastic bottle). It
made a spot with Wiz Khalifa in

Year:
which the rapper fills his bong with
Liquid Death, and another campaign
with overweight stand-up comedian
Bert Kreischer performing a satirical

Death
80s-style workout video.

L
iquid Death is the epitome has been shaped by its C EO, Mike Perhaps the most surpris-
of a brand that upended its Cessario, who previously worked ing celebrity partnership was for
category by being as a creative director at various Halloween, where Liquid Death
and different. agencies across the US. worked with TV personality and
brash
The bottled water category was His view is that Liquid former jailbird Martha Stuart to
dominated by plastic packaging, Death will win more launch a $58 scented candle called
and brands that talk about babbling followers and fans by Dismembered Moments, which
brooks and make promises about putting out content takes the shape of a life-sized sev-
rejuvenating hydration. that entertains, and ered hand holding a can of Liquid
Onto that scene arrived Liquid he’s not overly worried about mak- Death Mountain Water.
Death, with its beer-like tallboy cans ing ads that please everyone. It’s hard to think of another brand
decorated with melting skulls and it’s This year alone the brand has had that demonstrates pure power of
invitations to customers to ‘murder more creative highlights than most good branding like Liquid Death.
their thirst’. And it was an almost brands manage in a decade. It has There is no pretense of prod-
instant hit. created a Super Bowl ad which uct innovation here. Liquid
Since it launched in 2019, Liquid made light of its ambiguous packag- Death’s success is entirely
Death has grown from just $3m in ing by showing young kids acting down to great market-
revenue to an estimated $130m in wild at a party while swigging from ing and a knack for coming
2022. In October, the company was cans of Liquid Death. It hired adult- up with attention-grabbing
valued at $700m following a Series film star Cherie DeVille to front an ideas. That’s why it’s our brand
D funding round. ad about Liquid Death’s environmen- of the year.
The brand’s advertising tal credentials (because it comes in By Sunil Bajaj, writer/analyst
philosophy
51
Dead in the A
babbling brook, snow-
capped mountains set
against an
blue sky, maybe even giggling
unblemished
babies. These images, which con-

water
note wellbeing and purity, are what
you might expect to see in advertis-
ing for a water brand.
But what about an axe-wielding
musclebound warrior with eyes for
nipples and an aluminium can for a
Water: pure, wholesome, life-affirming... dull. Or at least it was until Liquid Death upended head? Or a sentient can that
the premium end of the category in the US. Sunil Bajaj explores how the challenger brand hunts down and kills teenagers?
achieved 350% growth year-on-year by defying category conventions at every turn That’s more Liquid Death’s speed.
It’s mountain water branded with a
flaming skull, sold in 500ml tallboy
cans that urge you to ‘murder your
thirst’.
The idea of a premium water
brand with a heavy metal aesthetic
and the word ‘death’ in its name
sounds too ludicrous to work. And
yet, Liquid Death claims to be one
of the fastest growing non-alcoholic
beverage brand of all time. Since
C E O Mike Cessario founded the
company in 2017 in Santa Monica,
California, Liquid Death has
become the eighth most followed
beverage brand on social media,
has amassed nearly $50m in invest-
ment funding and is sold in over
16,000 stores across the US.
The company’s success comes
from challenging category conven-
tions and transforming a ubiquitous

52
product into a desirable and excit- by 114% in the month following the retailers asking how they could get
ing brand, the origins of which hark campaign’s launch. hold of the product. It all helped
back to Mike’s former life as an ad Despite this success, few health Liquid Death procure enough invest-
man and spotting an overlooked brands were adopting this type ment for a run of a quarter of a mil-
insight into health marketing. of advertising. Dissatisfied with lion cans – with the first can sold
this status quo, in 2017 Cessario online in January 2019.
Straight to the source started his own health brand styled
During his 10 years working as a after the heavy metal scene of his Entertain or die
creative in the ad industry, Cessario youth, and focused on creating With a physical product in hand,
discovered that the kind of fun, irrev- advertising that was fun and the next step was to start building
erent marketing typical of unhealthy engag- ing. The decision to sell the brand with a marketing strategy.
brands made health-focused F MC G water was purely down to it being a To prove that Liquid Death was Cessario’s jumping off point was
brands nervous – with Cessario’s product vertical that is entirely driven a viable product, Cessario created to question the common tropes in
often crazier disruptive pitch ideas by the brand and its marketing, a commercial and posted it online water advertising. Water brands
being shot down. ‘Why does health perfect for disruption. under the guise of it already being regularly focus on the importance
food always have to be so quiet and on the market. of hydrating, but, says Cessario, ‘If
responsible?’ laments Cessario. Water, water, everywhere The Deadliest Stuff On Earth spot I asked 10 random people why they
‘How come all of this shit that’s ter- Cessario’s first obstacle in getting features an actress pouring Liquid should drink water, every single one
rible for you is allowed to have all the Liquid Death off the ground was Death out of a can while arguing of them would say, “Because I have
fun and explosions?’ the high entry costs into the water that water brands have been deceiv- to hydrate.” S o why would you need
However, Cessario knew from category. The minimum number ing the public into thinking water to spend millions of dollars on tell-
experience that this type of humor- of cans that a manufacturer required is ‘some girly drink for yoga ing people something they already
ous and entertaining marketing for printing was 250,000, at a cost moms’ when actually it is know?’
would fit just as well with whole- of $200,000 – funds that he didn’t responsible for thousands of Rather than convince people to
some products, seeing it work first have. deaths a year. The ad ends with drink water, Liquid Death’s goal was
hand while working at Humanaut, Finding investors was difficult, the camera panning out to reveal a make its water seem cool and excit-
Chattanooga in 2015. Pushing especially considering that the man strapped to a table who has ing by using fun branded content.
a protein shake for health brand product’s branding was so uncon- been waterboarded throughout. ‘Why would you want to follow a
Organic Valley, the agency’s pub- ventional. ‘If I were to pitch this idea: Made for just $1,500 and sup- fucking water brand that just posts
lic safety announcement styled “I want to put water in tallboy cans ported by a further $3,500 in paid photos of their bottles all day?’ says
campaign made tongue-in-cheek that look like beer and call it Liquid media, the ad amassed 3 million Cessario. ‘If we create actual enter-
references to bro culture and Death” to a focus group they would views over four months and helped tainment and not try to just sell, sell,
encouraged people to ensure no doubt say, “I’d never buy that.” Liquid Death accumulate 80,000 sell, it will naturally create that fan-
musclebound guys were drinking Or, “That’s confusing.” Even, “I’d Facebook followers. dom for Liquid Death that you can’t
healthy high calorie shakes to Save never give that to my kids,”’ says The company also received a even buy with money.’
The Bros. The ad increased sales Cessario. barrage of messages from smaller This strategy led Liquid Death to

This article was taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 53
create its very own slasher movie Hates that turn comments of online
earlier this year, Dead Till Death. detractors (eg, ‘Fire your marketing
The 45-minute film features a group guy’) into metal songs. Monetising its
of friends who eat magic mush- marketing helps Liquid Death com-
rooms on a camping trip and then pete with the giant brands that have
get hunted by cans of Liquid Death. budgets that are 100 times larger,
Cessario says that the novelty of says Cessario.
the idea helped the brand get ‘mil-
lions of dollars’ of free exposure. Flipped for real
He notes that given that brands It’s not just throwaway merch either.
‘day trade’ in attention, this kind In August this year, the brand’s
of earned media is vital for Liquid online store offered up 100 limited-
Death, with sharp spikes in aware- edition skateboard decks priced
ness from the P R of a killer ad at $500. Infused with the blood of
converting into sales. Tony Hawk (legendary skateboarder
Dead Till Death was also available and Liquid Death investor), the
for $2.99 on Amazon Prime, which Hawk Blood Deck boards sold out
helped the brand recoup the costs in just 20 minutes.
of the film production. This tactic of Liquid Death also seized on the
combining a creative marketing idea opportunity to develop a branded
with a product that can be mon- content strategy on the fly when
etised is something the brand has Lil Nas X commented on the news
replicated on several occasions. For via Twitter. In March, the American
instance, it partnered with director rapper had dabbled in the red stuff
Zack Snyder to sell No Brainer zom- himself with a run of unauthorised
bie repellent headgear ($29.99) for Nike Satan Shoes, which allegedly
the release of the Netflix-produced contained a drop of his blood, and
Army of the Dead. This campaign sparked accusations of devil worship
was released as an infomercial and and legal action in the process.
has the highest view through rate He was suitably annoyed tha
of all Liquid Death’s videos – Hawk’s skateboards didn’t suffer
with 6.23% of people who were the same outrage and when a flip
served the pre-roll ad viewing all comment on an Instagram post
28 minutes. about the boards – ‘Nah he
Liquid Death even sells a series tweakin’ – went viral, so did the
of music albums called Greatest Blood Deck campaign.

54
 The brand quickly orchestrated a Death donates 10% of the profits to the big companies responsible ciate for burning ocean plastic and
meeting between Hawk and the rap- from every can of Liquid Death for them in the first place, such as spreading the toxic fumes in front of
per to quash any ill will – the TikTok towards killing plastic pollution, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. (‘Just don’t children. The violently funny series
video of Hawk stunt doubling for Lil a strategic move that helps to posi- be a jerk and throw dirty garbage in proved a perfect match for the
Nas X at a skate park notched up over tion its aluminium cans as a better the mail. Clean and empty the bottle brand’s tone of voice and focus
3 million views. This transformed the consumption choice over the plastic first,’ the website warns.) on ‘entertainment’ over selling.
initial P R idea into a piece of branded water bottles of competitors – only Other campaigns in Death to
entertainment, while helping Liquid 10% of the world’s plastic has ever Plastic have been more awareness Moving the needle
Death to extend the story in the news been recycled, whereas 8 5 % of all focused, such as 2020’s Cutie Liquid Death has achieved remarka-
cycle and generate further earned the aluminium produced since 1888 Polluties. The plush toy range fea- ble success in short order by march-
media for the brand. is still in circulation, offering a much tured sea animals with graphic inju- ing to its own particular (metal)
Cessario notes: ‘We want to be better packaging solution. ries caused by ocean plastic, and beat. Just last month, Cessario got
one of the best things that consum- Liquid Death uses this environmen- at $75 a pop the cuddly critters a tattoo of a Liquid Death fan who
ers see that day because we have to tal superiority as a marketing tactic made a familiar point in a suitably had documented himself chugging
compete with hilarious influencers, under the creative platform Death to unruly way. a can every day for a year on TikTok
fitness athletes and movie trailers. Plastic. Under this altruistic spring- A great example of what hap- – reflecting the same commitment to
The bar to earn someone’s atten- board, the brand launched Loving pens when Liquid Death’s edgy the cause as fans with Liquid Death
tion is really high now.’ Which is why Homes For Plastic in April, a punk marketing, environmental sustain- tattoos of their own (120 and count-
creating branded entertainment is rock way to help people make a point ability and branded entertainment ing). Would you catch the heads
important to help Liquid Death cut about packaging. The brand sent out collide occurred in October 2021. at Dasani, Aquafina or Evian doing
through that noise and earn engage- prepaid U S P S stamps with orders of The brand partnered with Amazon anything remotely similar?
ment. This strategy is what has led to 12-can cases (in conjunction with a Prime’s The Boys, ‘firing’ the TV But emulating the punky upstart
Liquid Death being the most followed promotional code), urging people to show’s Aquaman-esque superhero isn’t something we’ll see any time
water brand on TikTok and Instagram, post their plastic bottles directly back The Deep as its sustainability asso- soon, says Cessario. ‘I wouldn’t be
where its following has rocketed surprised if the mainstream water
667% in the 10 months since the brands continue to view Liquid
start of 2021 and is four times that Death as a come-and-go thing,’ he
of Evian. says. ‘But we’ll keep climbing and
climbing until the point where they
Death to plastic eventually realise we are a real force
The brand goes beyond gore and to be reckoned with.’
goofs, too. Proceeds from the This death threat should be taken
Blood Deck Boards are going to a seriously by all brands operating in a
charitable organisation that builds category where branding provides
skateparks, and also to anti-plastic the competitive advantage. Don’t
pollution charity 5Gyres. Liquid drown in the sea of sameness…

This article was taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 55
 Snip
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a fragment of the whole picture,
isn’t it? This report is just a teeny
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Watc
thi
h
spac
s
e
Following a stellar response
from agencies and brands,
judges had their hands full
picking a winner of Global’s

H
Look Ahead competition,
avas London in
has won Global’s of a client or brand) that answered which run the length of the escalators at audience that, ‘For this landmark opportu-
Look Ahead contest
partnership with Contagious by answer- the following brief: The launch of the London Underground stations – includ- nity, we assembled a top-class jury, fea-
i n g the brief for positive and Elizabeth line and the opening of the ing those on the new Elizabeth line. turing a mix of clients and agency folk.’
and Transport for London
catching out-of-home ad ideas with Bond Street Elizabeth line station are Anto Chioccarelli, creative solutions Anto Chioccarelli then explained the
eye-
a campaign demonstrating how virtual occasions that deserve to be marked partnerships director at Global, and criteria that the judges used to select the
reality can help Alzheimer’s sufferers. with outstanding creativity. And at a time Paul Kemp-Robertson, Contagious’ winner. These were ‘attention’, or how cre-
The Look Ahead competition was when many people feel afraid about the co-founder, announced the winner of ative and impactful the idea was, ‘media
launched by media and entertain- future, we’re looking for ideas that will the competition at the Most Contagious specific’, or how well the entry used rib-
ment group Global in partnership with inspire people to look ahead. event in London on 24 November in front bon screens to bring the creative idea to
Contagious and Transport for London The winner of the competition would of an adland audience. life, and finally ‘brand’, or how appropriate
(TfL) in September, and asked entrants get their idea produced and placed on Expanding on the judging process for is the idea was to the brand and the prod-
to submit a creative concept (on behalf 15 ‘ribbons’ - Global’s video screens the competition, Kemp-Robertson told the uct or services being advertised.

57
 Five entries were shortlisted in total, but website Omio. The campaign aimed to Kemp-Robertson was also on hand to entries in the competition and to
Havas London won the day with its idea to raise a smile from passing commuters add some of the judges’ choice quotes see Havas take first place. Their ideas
turn the ribbon screens into windows into and make full use of ribbon screens by about the worthy winner. show how creatively partners can use
the past, making it seem as though peo- encouraging people to visit places in the One said that it ‘reimagines the potential our advertising estate to be more inclu-
ple were riding the escalators alongside UK that have such long names they’d run of the medium’, another said that it ‘cham- sive and innovative. We’re looking for-
commuters and travellers from the 1960s the entire length of the escalator. pions the new and adds genuine value in ward to seeing their adverts proudly up
(dressed in the fashion from the period As the winner of the Look Ahead a wider context – the kind of idea people across our network.’
and reading newspapers of the era). The competition, Havas London will see its are likely to share after they’ve seen it’. Anto Chioccarelli wrapped things
campaign was created to promote The idea produced and broadcast on ribbon Another judge commented that ‘you can up in suitably thoughtful style: ‘A mas-
Wayback, a series of virtual reality films screens on the London Underground create an ad that sits within a format, or sive thanks to the amazing team at
that comfort sufferers of dementia and early next year. you can create a deeper experience that Contagious and the jury, and all the
Alzheimer’s by immersing them in scenes Anto Chioccarelli described Havas lives beyond it’, and another described it people at Global and TfL that have
that remind them of their younger days. London’s entry as a’ powerful, optimistic, as ‘brimming with contextual potential.’ been involved on this fantastic journey
The Brooklyn Brothers was the com- evocative idea, taking people with demen- Chris Reader, head of commercial that is only the start of our mission to play
petition runner-up with its The Long tia and their carers back to scenes from media at TfL, said: ‘It was a pleasure to a role in driving more creativity, innovation
Destination idea, promoting travel decades ago’. be part of the team judging the excellent and meaningful work that moves people.’

58
‘The main actor also
wasn’t a huge fan of
the haircut we made
him get, but he was
a very good sport
about it’

Inspired by Iceland, Introducing the Icelandverse

Elena Claró, S S + K , Contagious IQ, May 2022

59
A year
also liked the regular ads less when
Creative ads make they were also exposed to creative
you forget bland ads. In the second experiment, the
ones researchers showed participants the

advertis
The power of creative advertising: regular ads twice but the creative ads

in
creative ads impair recall and only once. Recall of regular ads still
attitudes toward other ads. declined (by 30%), but participants’
Published in the International attitudes towards those regular ads

resear
Journal of Advertising. did not. In the third experiment, the

ing
Give it to me in one researchers showed participants
sentence. Creative ads aren’t the creative ads twice but the regular
just more memorable and likeable, ads only once. Here, recall dropped
they make regular ads less dramatically – by 70% – and more
Throughout the year we keep tabs on new academic than half of participants did not recall

ch
memorable and likeable.
research that explains how advertising works and any regular ads. The effect on atti-
consumers behave. We then condense the most interesting Give me a little more detail. tudes was similarly dramatic.
and relevant studies into easy-to-read digests that we Prior research had already established
that people are less likely to recall and Why is this interesting?
publish on Contagious I/Q. These are some of the best
like regular ads when they are shown The researchers explain their results
digests that we published in the past 12 months alongside creative ads. In this study, using adaptation-level theory.
the researchers wanted to test the Essentially this means that the crea-
effect of repetition on the so-called tive ads set a benchmark or refer-
impairment effect. They asked partici- ence point against which the regular
pants in three separate experiments ads were judged and found wanting.
to watch a TV programme with com- Incidentally, this is the same theory
mercial breaks populated by a mixture used to explain why advertising
of creative award-winning and regular can lower people’s self-esteem, by
ads for the same brands. changing their benchmarks of attrac-
The participants were asked to tiveness or success. The results of
recall as many of the ads as possible, this study also imply that creative ads
and then to say how much they liked pose a threat to other advertisers
them. In the first experiment, none even when they are not competing
of the ads were repeated, and in the same category.
when participants were exposed to
both creative and non-creative ads, Any weaknesses?
recall of the latter fell by 60%. The participants were all students.
Participants
60
 egy seems to make little difference
There’s a dark side to to the outcome when the agency
good client-agency and client are close, most likely
relationships When Bad Is because agencies prefer to rely
Good: Do Good Relati onships on what they think the client wants
between Marketing Clients and instead of what’s in the brief.
Their Advertising Agencies Conversely, lower quality client–
Challenge Creativity? Published in agency relationships tend to beget
the Journal of Advertising. better ads. In these situations agen-
cies still dampen the originality
Give it to me in one of their ideas for risk averse clients,
sentence. Cosy client–agency but they tend to offset this behaviour
relationships have a dark side that by being more strategic. Also,
can inhibit great creative work. a good brief with lots of strategic
instructions is more likely to improve
Give me a little more the quality of the work within a lower
detail. The researchers quality client–agency relationship
interviewed 175 staff (including than one that is high quality.
creatives, planners But (and this is a big but) the dark
and account handlers) from London side of good relationships is medi-
and Amsterdam agencies about pre- ated by intrinsic motivation. This
vious ad campaigns they had made. essentially means that the negative that’s far more important for hands-on relationship with their
The researchers asked the staff, effects of good client–agency motivating agencies than the agency to ensure they receive
among other things, about the relationships can be overcome by client relationship. the best work.
originality and appropriateness agencies with staff who are geed
of the work, whether the brief con- up to produce great work, and Why is this interesting? Any weaknesses?
tained much strategy, the amount good relationships can influence It is usually assumed that a good This study only looks at the
of consumer research done and intrinsic motivation. client–agency relationship is all agency side of the relationship.
the quality of the client relationship. The link between good relation- upside, but this paper indicates It might be nice to know the
The findings showed that good ships and intrinsic motivation is that is not the case. marketers’ perspective.
client–agency relationships tend to complicated, though. The report The researchers also suggest Also, the researchers collected
produce work that is less creative. states that ‘relationship quality ways savvy clients can game the their data in Amsterdam 10 years
This is in part because agencies are explains only about one-quarter dynamic. For instance, marketers after they had conducted interviews
reluctant to challenge risk averse of the explainable variance of who are confident in their strategy with London agencies. They con-
clients when doing so might agency intrinsic motivation’. So and their briefing skills might trolled for this variable but it prob-
threaten a good relationship. Also, some other factor could be in play deliberately foster a cooler, less ably still isn’t ideal.
a good brief containing lots of
strat- All these articles were taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 61
 Give me a little more display, online video, outdoor, point formed the combination of TV and
NO SINGLE detail. Researchers analysed how of sale, radio, television, YouTube) online display advertising on every
MEDIA MIX I S differ- ent combinations of media and measured their influence on six outcome measured. The latter find-
SU PE R IO R channels influence a campaign’s outcomes (salience, unaided aware- ing, the researchers assume, will
No Silver Bullet: Cross-Media long-term brand results. ness, aided awareness, association, come as a surprise to many in the
Complementarity. Published Kantar supplied the data, compris- consideration, and purchase intent). industry, since only 12% of the cam-
on the Social Science ing 1,105 well-funded multimedia To wrangle the data, the research- paigns they measured employed
Research Network. campaigns that took place between ers used spectral clustering, which the former, more effective, mix.
Give it to me in one 2008 and 2019, and spanned allowed them to analyse combi-
sentence. There is no single 557 brands, 51 countries and nations of more than two media Why is this interesting?
mix of media channels that will 23 industries. channels. For a start, this paper is (well, it
improve a cam- paign’s The researchers analysed 11 Some of the most noteworthy claims to be) the largest and broad-
performance, but some are media channels (cinema, Facebook, individual results were that news- est analysis of media effectiveness
better than others at boosting magazines, newspapers, online paper-heavy campaigns excelled to date, and it is one of the few
specific outcomes. at improving brand salience among studies to measure combinations
consumers, adding outdoor ads of more than two media channels.
to a TV-and-Facebook mix It’s also a good argument that buy-
greatly increased purchase intent, ing media based on G R P (gross
and while consideration was rating points: a combination of reach
harder and frequency) alone is an inad-
to predict, advertising a lot equate strategy.
on YouTube looks like the If G R P were the be all and end all,
surest route to boosting it. then the combination of channels
Looking at the results as a whole, that provided the largest audience
the researchers found no single coverage would have outperformed
combination of media channels that all other mixes in this study. But it
delivered on every metric, and in fact didn’t because media appear to be
a scattershot approach (advertising functionally different, meaning that,
on every channel except TV) proved for instance, exposure to a TV ad
the worst strategy, never once elicits a different response to
emerging as a top performer. a cinema ad.
But the researchers did find
that cinema – which was used in Any weaknesses?
relatively few campaigns – lifted The study doesn’t measure sales,
outcomes with a remarkable con- which doesn’t disprove anything
sistency. And the combination of but would have been nice.
TV and outdoor advertising
outper-
All these articles were taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 62
 brand’s prospects.
Brands should try In the Facebook example, click-
praising their through rates were higher for the
competitors Befriending ads in which the car wash company
the Enemy: The Eff ects of congratulated a rival on winning
Observing Brand- to-Brand a contest (5.4%) than for ones in
Praise on Consumer which it tooted its own horn (3.3%).
Evaluati ons and Choices. Similarly, the participants who
Published in the Journal saw Kit Kat praise Twix were more
of Marketing. likely to buy a Kit Kat. Almost 32%
Give it to me in one of participants in the praise condi-
sentence. A study found that tion bought a Kit Kat within 11
people were more likely to choose days, compared with almost 24%
brands that praise direct of those in the control condition.
competitors. According to the researchers,
Give me a little more detail. praising rivals elicits a positive
Researchers designed seven experi- response primarily because
ments to investigate how consumers it makes brands seem warmer.
respond when brands use advertis- But the researchers warn that it}
ing messages to praise their rivals. is not enough for brands to praise
In one experiment they bought any old company – it must be
Facebook ads promoting a fictional a direct competitor.
car wash and then measured click- The researchers also discovered
through rates. that the benefits of praise are more
In another, they showed partici- pronounced for companies not
pants print ads for different popcorn already viewed as warm.
Photography: Charlesdeluvio/Unsplash
brands and asked them to choose
one to sample. Why is this interesting?
They also showed participants Brands usually shy away from
tweets from Kit Kat (one of which mentioning competitors – let alone in drawing attention to a competitor iments were one-offs. We
was praising Twix) and then praising them – because it amounts makes the gesture meaningful in the don’t know what would happen
checked 11 days later to see which to free publicity. eyes of consumers, improving per- to brands that repeatedly
of them had bought their products But according to these research- ceptions of warmth and confidence. praise their competitors or if
in the intervening period. ers, praising rivals is a smart mar- the potency of the effect would
In every experiment, praising keting move because it is a form of Any weaknesses? wane if it became a common
competitors boosted the costly signalling. The risk involved One limitation was that all the exper- industry practice.

All these articles were taken from our online intelligence platform, Contagious IQ 63
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l
Making customer
engagement campaign
moments
A that matter
lthough the digital world con-
tinues to evolve, shopping
habits and customer
over the past few years, it’s clear
that the mass adoption of digital
channels is here to stay.
continue to develop, with tailored, per- Customer engagement is essential
trends
sonalised and seamless digital customer for your clients to connect with their
experiences continuing to be the name audience and maintain a strong market
of the retail game. A Mckinsey report presence. Indeed, during this period
illustrated that 71% of customers now of consistent evolution, it is particularly
expect personalisation in their consumer important that digital agencies work
experience and 76% of customers get with their clients to develop positive
frustrated when they don’t experience it.* customer experiences and stay ahead
In response to this evolution, brands of the competition.
have begun fast-tracking their adoption With the rise of the modern ‘everything
of new retail technologies. With an customer’, those individuals who demand
ever-growing array of platforms a tailored service and memorable experi-
and approaches through which busi- ences every single time, personalisation
nesses can connect with customers, has become critical. For digital agencies
it can be difficult to focus engagement this presents an amazing opportunity to
campaigns enough to deliver leverage new technologies and unlock
truly bespoke experiences. new capabilities for clients. Emails,
Thankfully, there are now more ways social media, landing pages, video con-
than ever for your clients to engage with tent – your clients’ customers use all
their customers – from social media these and more to interact and engage
and emails to websites and messaging with brands. Their journey across these
apps such as WhatsApp. And with the channels provides essential data that
increased rate of digital transformation informs your clients’ marketing,

65
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66
What marketers can learn
from...
Everyday is a school day in marketing. Here’s what the biggest news stories and cultural events of 2022
teach us about the business of brand building, according to Contagious’ online editor, James Swift

R
ead enough advertising trade in the Super Bowl ad breaks that What marketers can learn were making memes about it:
publications and you soon real- the bonanza acquires a nickname, from the backlash against Online engagement is not a reliable metric.
ise that there is nothing in it’s a fair indication of a bubble Tampax’s deranged ‘we’re in
world that does not hold some sort of (cf. The ‘dot com Super Bowl’ them’ tweet: Brands can post like What marketers can learn
this
lesson for marketers. in 2000). edgelords on social media all they from Just Stop Oil’s
This year alone we’ve seen articles that like, but they will ultimately be museum protests:
attempt to explain what marketers can What marketers can learn understood and judged as Try to make advertising so beautiful and
learn from Ms Marvel, stand up comedy, from the success of Liquid corporations culturally impactful that climate protesters
Ted Lasso, the ancient Babylonians and Death: What marketers can learn from of the future will throw soup at it.
the characters in How To Lose A Guy In A distinctive brand will take you KFC in Germany sending a
10 Days. And we suspect that’s just the far. Who knew? promotional message to
tip of the iceberg. What marketers can learn from customers telling them to
At Contagious, we try to steer clear Top Gun: Mavericks’ $1.5bn box- commemorate Kristallnacht with
of publishing articles in this hackneyed office haul: Fusing nostalgia and no- ‘more tender cheese on your
format, and for the most part we have strings-attached fun is a sure-fire recipe crispy chicken’: Never turn your back
succeeded. But the yearning to turn for mass appeal. on an algorithm.
cur- rent events, celebrity indiscretions What marketers can learn from Like an evil genie, it will use your own
and popular TV shows into pithy Hellmann’s improved sales commands against [Link] learn from
What marketers
advertising parables has been building performance since it started Elon Musk asking fired Twitter
within us all year, and it must be satisfied. using its marketing workers to come back to the
S o we’re getting it all out of the way now to talk about tackling food company: Remember the Chesterton’s
and on this page, and then no more…for waste: Consumers really do care about Fence rule: don’t remove something (or
at least another year. Please enjoy this purpose and the environment. someone) until you understand why it
concen- trated dose of 10 marketing What marketers can learn was put there in the first place.
learnings. from
What marketers can learn the continued success of fast- What marketers can learn from
from this year’s so-called fashion juggernaut Shein: Sony’s disastrous decision to re-
Crypto Bowl: Consumers really don’t care about pur- release flop-film Morbius because
If a certain sector is so pose or the environment. people
overrepresented 67
 After suffering from papers
being debunked and theories
discredited, the field of
nudging has lost some of its
shine. Speaking to behavioural
economics experts, including
Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland,
James Swift finds out when
and why nudge theory can
still be a useful marketing tool

T
hings were looking up for nudge
theorists. In December 2021, a
m e t a - analysis paper was pub-
lished in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal
in the U S that seemed to put to bed any
doubts about the potency of nudging. The
paper had examined 212 different experi-
ments and calculated their average effect
size at 0.43. Effect sizes tell us how many
people exposed to a nudge are likely to
respond in the way that was intended,

Does nudge
and in this context 0.43 is a hefty figure.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be wide of
the mark by about 0.43.
In July, a group of psychologists dubious

theory have a
of the P N A S paper’s results applied their
own statistical analysis to the data and
found that, once they corrected for aca-

future in
demic journals’ bias for publishing studies
with positive results, the nudges typically
had zero effect on people’s behaviour.

marketing? 68
 Nudge theory had already fallen from ‘I still have no doubts whatsoever
the high place that it occupied in the that in real life, behaviour priming works,
early 2010s, when it was the favourite despite the fact that in the old days,
pet project of heads of state like Barack we didn’t study it properly relative to
Obama and science-minded marketers. current standards,’ Dutch professor
Some of the field’s foundational stud- Ap Dijksterhuis told science journal
ies had failed to replicate in the lab and Nature in 2019.
nudging had returned uneven results
in the real world. For anyone who was Context is everything
already sceptical about the practice, To return to the zero-effects paper, not
the zero-effects paper was confirmation even that was a clear-cut refutation of
that nudging had been over-hyped and nudge theory. For one, its treatment of
under-scrutinised. publication bias is open to question.
But nudge theory isn’t discredited, it’s Richard Shotton, founder of behavioural
just complicated. The idea that you can economics consultancy Astroten, says
influence people by changing how you the findings are based upon an assump-
present them with information and choices tion of ‘severe bias’ that the authors admit
is sound, and it’s a vital part of marketing is only ‘partially supported’ by the data.
at a time when people interact with brands This is a crucial bit of detail that has been
in a million different places beyond ads environmental cues influence people’s crisis have not changed his mind absent from the discussion about the
and shop shelves. behaviour – fared especially badly. about nudging or priming. paper, argues Shotton.
Several experiments were debunked, ‘[The replication crisis] is not But even if you accept the finding, the
Stuck on repeat including the famous ‘Florida’ study, a refutation of behavioural science; average effect size figure masked a lot of
A lot of the scepticism towards nudg- which claimed that people moved more it’s a refutation of certain experiments the variation within the individual results.
ing and behavioural economics more slowly after they were exposed to words and false assumptions made by behav- ‘All intervention categories and domains
generally was born out of the so-called that reminded them of old age. ioural scientists,’ says Sutherland. apart from “finance” show evidence for
replication crisis. Around a decade Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of ‘We don’t discount the whole of phys- heterogeneity,’ wrote the
ago, psychologists began repeating old Ogilvy UK and one of the advertising ics simply because some theories are authors, ‘which implies that some
experiments using more rigorous statisti- industry’s biggest proponents of nudg- proved to be wrong.’ nudges might be effective, even when
cal analysis after a professor at Cornell ing, was never convinced by the Florida Sutherland’s isn’t a crank opinion, there is evidence against the mean effect.’
University used traditional methods to study, he says, because he couldn’t either. There are many psychologists who The point is that nudging – like all
‘prove’ that people were psychic. Of the understand why it was to anyone’s accept that the replication crisis did their behavioural economics – is highly con-
100 studies that were repeated, only 36 advantage to move more slowly after field a good service and are wary of any text and subject dependent.
came out with their findings intact. being exposed to cues about the elderly. experiments that claim strong effects ‘In behavioural science there aren’t
Behavioural priming – a subset of But the methodological mistakes and on large swathes of people but who still really rules, there are patterns,’ says
nudge theory concerned with how subtle false findings revealed by the replication believe in the principle of priming. Sutherland. ‘People do not obey abso-

69
 lutely fixed laws of behavioural science.’
Sutherland gives the example of the
‘We don’t
choice paradox, which states that peo- discount the
ple become paralysed when they are whole of physics
faced with too many options and fail to
buy anything.
simply because
‘That is something which I can only some theories are
describe as both true and not true,’ he proved to be
says. ‘Someone who is in a hurry and
needs to buy jam will probably be slightly
wrong’
put off by a choice of 86 different kinds Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy UK
ent, emergent systems,’ says Sutherland,
of jam. But equally, if you’ve driven 25 but in a world of mass media and prod-
miles with your family to visit a shop ucts picked from shop shelves, it was
called World of Jam, you probably ‘wrong but nonetheless relatively safe’ to
won’t go into the shop and say, “Oh, pretend that it was all about the brand –
no, it’s just too much choice!” It depends because it quite often was.
on a whole variety of external ‘But there are so many other areas
contextual factors. But it is true under where you could fall at the last fence
certain now,’ says Sutherland. ‘In the modern
circumstances, and therefore it is world there are multiple touchpoints with
worthy of consideration.’ both brand-building opportunities and
Bamboo-zled also brand-killing possibilities attached
Even if nudging was proved to be non- to them.’
sense, says Sutherland, it would still be In the pre-digital era most brands had
useful because it forces agencies to pay the luxury (or constraint) of interact-
attention to parts of the customer experi- ing with customers only through ads
ence that are otherwise ignored. and retailers. Today they’re expected to
‘Ad agencies are a bit like pandas,’ meet their buyers in a variety of different
explains Sutherland. ‘Part of the panda’s media channels and touchpoints, and
problem is it only really eats bamboo, all of them count. A brand can do great
which is why they tend to be a bit endan- advertising but will still lose customers
gered. And advertising agencies only eat if its janky website makes it painful to buy
brand communication budgets.’ its products.
For the longest long time, agencies’ The great thing about nudging,
mono diet wasn’t a problem. ‘Markets says Sutherland, is that ‘it isn’t just
have always been complex, interdepend- neu-about the media, it’s also neutral
tral

70
about the scale at which it looks have to answer about a nudge is, says Tara Austin, a consulting partner at Part of the
at a problem’. ‘Are we better off doing it than not?’ Ogilvy’s behavioural science practice.
‘Whenever there is a ‘What if [a nudge] gets one person In one example, Ogilvy was looking
panda’s problem
bottleneck or to do something very profitable and for ways to promote au$2 large fries is it only really
an element of friction,’ he explains, ‘then then gets nine people to do something for K F C in Australia, and after testing eats bamboo. And
the place to intervene in the overall sys-
tem is where the bottleneck lies.’
marginally less profitable?’ asks
Sutherland. ‘Are you right in saying
nine different propositions (whittled
down from a longlist of around 90),
advertising
Electric cars like Tesla and the that this doesn’t work? It might work they settled on ‘max 4 per peeps’. agencies only eat
Mustang Mach 8 for instance have on the 10th try so well that you don’t This line introduced scarcity to the brand
great brands, but a lot of people are
still unwilling to buy into the category
have to worry about the effect on the proposition by putting a limit on the communication
other nine.’ number of fries customers could buy,
because of range anxiety, the fear Being ruthlessly practical about and created an anchor (or norm) budgets
that their battery will die with nowhere nudging gives marketers a lot of leeway, around buying four portions. Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy UK
around to charge it. That’s a problem but it does also require a lot of testing. ‘We put that winning proposition
at the scale of the category that can’t be Not all of this testing has to be grand live in the market and did a radio test, that were never exposed to
fixed with brand advertising. The solu- and laborious, though. While some of and we saw in this district of South commercial markets.
tion could be category advertising, says Ogilvy’s work involves big interven- Australia something like a 56% Likewise, social proof is a well-estab-
Sutherland, or it could be to ‘make elec- tions, a lot of it is optimising for the best increase in chip sales,’ says Austin. ‘It’s lished bias that dictates that if you want
tric car charging points insanely visible response. ‘It’s a much more not something that anyone would have people to do something you should tell
by putting laser light shows on them, conservative, evolutionary way of looking put on the table otherwise, but them how many other people already
so that everybody thinks there’s at things,’ testing allowed us to do that.’ do it, and yet Wikipedia has
really a lot of them around and most consistently found that it receives more
of them are unoccupied’. Survival of the nudge donations after publishing messages
Do your homework The more we learn about behavioural about how few people support the site.
The other thing about the turmoil within economics the more we realise how None of this means that those nudges
behavioural economics is that a lot of it little of it is fixed in stone. For instance, are useless or invalid, just that they are
just isn’t that relevant to the ad indus- the endowment effect – where people impossible to generalise and will always
try. Critics have accused governments think the things they own are worth more tend to do badly when framed within
of using nudges to solve problems that than they are – was previously thought strict debates about whether they
request systemic reforms, effectively to be hardwired into the human brain. ‘work’ or not.
slapping cost-effective sticking plasters But in his 2020 book, The Weirdest ‘The best we can do,’ offers
on great gaping wounds. They have a People In The World, professor of Sutherland, ‘is to say, “I can’t tell you
point, but it’s not of concern to brands. evolutionary biology Joseph Henrich that this will work, but I can tell you, it’s
Similarly, scientists have to worry about recounted an experiment that suggested emphatically worth trying,” because it
things like effect sizes; marketers and this bias was in fact a product of might work insanely well, given that it
agencies don’t. The only question they cultural evolution and absent in societies doesn’t cost very much to do.’

71
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