Why context before concept matters in your marketing
Like any experienced creative type, I’ve got an unwritten list of rules that I alternately cleave to or break on a daily basis. One that proves surprisingly resilient is, “Always understand the context before wasting time on the concept.”
I was reminded of this maxim when I saw the maximum impact this creative concept had for the Swedish drug store chain Apotek Hjärtat back in 2014.
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Still photo on poster comes to life as train enters station. Result: Gorgeous hair — that requires gorgeous hair products from Apotek Hjärtat. |
I bring it up in 2017 because the Swedes did it again with another contextually relevant, creatively brilliant execution of concept in context.
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Smoker walks by, poster coughs, and the Apotek Hjärtat brand engages big time. |
This is just so smart. The social media buzz about this work has been deafening, and what was certainly not a not-cheap project has returned on its investment in a big way and with legs for days (e.g., digital video clips for social channel sharing, PR hooks for great earned media uptake, mammoth street level discussion about a drug store for crying out loud, and a lot more).
From my POV, the best part is that until the creatives who worked on these projects talk, there’s no real way to tell which came first — context or concept — because they are perfectly aligned.
Lack of such context/concept alignment is immediately obvious. So much so that it’s spawned its own sub-genre — the internet fail. Just Google “ad fails” or some such variant and you’ll be treated to a parade of “what were they thinking” badness.
Like this:
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Context fail: It’s a delivery van with an A state (door closed) and a B state (door open). An understanding of context before concept demands you design for both from the get go.
How about this one for Turkish Airlines:
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(Continued)
But for me, here’s the real winner:
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And it happened more than once:
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This context/concept fail is so epic it’s launched a flotilla of conspiracy theories on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/
Having worked on alcoholic beverage accounts in the past, I cannot believe this was an ambient advertising campaign that passed corporate legal vetting. So it remains a fail, UNLESS Mike’s Hard Lemonade was really out to:
- Market exclusively to vandals
- Determined to drive non-vandals away from the brand.
Neither option is a good idea in my book.
These bad examples above aren’t just simple, garden-variety ad failures showing typos, blatant grammar mistakes, or unfortunate media placements. These exhibit context/concept malpractice of the highest (or lowest?) order. When done right (like the Apotek Hjärtat work) and context and concept are perfectly aligned, it’s impossible to tell which came first — and to me that’s the hallmark of a truly great rule of thumb.
D.P. Knudten is chief collaborator for COLLABORATOR creative.
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