Welcome back to the Trident Monthly round-up!

The aim of these monthly posts is to keep you abreast of all the weird and wonderful news and insights to come out of the world of marketing. Every month, our team will pick our favourite campaigns, brand insights and marketing trends that you can use to enhance your marketing knowledge or even as inspiration to delight your audience.

So let’s get cracking with our top stories from May:

Wearable Print Marketing from Old Spice

Old Spice’s ads are both bizarre and wickedly charming, cutting edge and occasionally out of left field. The brand continues to push creative limits in its latest print ad – a scented paper blazer meant to make any man stylish and smelling good.

It’s a print ad experience like no other, with the scented, paper blazer insert placed in an issue of GQ. When a reader opens the scent strip of the ad they will smell the “luxurious smells of Old Spice Captain,” and they’ll also be able to wear them and even flaunt them if they put on the full-sized disposable paper blazer, scented with Old Spice Captain.

Source: The Drum

HSBC – All English Final

HSBC UK has championed internationalism in football, as an extension of its ‘We Are Not An Island’ campaign, to celebrate the first all English Champions League and Europa League finals. In January this year, a year on from introducing it’s ‘Together We Thrive’ brand promise and ‘Global Citizen’ TV campaign HSBC launched its ‘We Are Not An Island’ campaign.

It comprised of a series of copy-led print executions that celebrated the elements of British life that are indebted to the nation’s connections to the wider world. Versions of the billboards have appeared in major cities across the UK, each featuring local references unique to the UK, such as the formation of Oasis in Manchester. Continuing on the pro-internationalism message, its latest poster celebrates the diversity of the ‘all-English’ final.

Source: The Drum

Hackney half marathon rebrands

In a bid to attract more participants, especially from a younger audience, London’s Hackney marathon has decided to switch up the branding.

The overall identity, from the diverse photography through to the logo made up of many parts, looks to represent the idea of community, and change perceptions of running.

The new identity launched at the Hackney Half Marathon and Festival 2019, which ran 17-19 May, across wayfinding, signage, a new recovery area for race finishers and bespoke medals created for the five-kilometre run. The branding has also rolled out across social media and the website, print and marketing materials and apparel.

Source: Design Week

Genius use of billboards by charity

To generate greater visibility of its helpline and services, Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) has launched a campaign that aims to shatter the stigma of reaching out.

To normalise the service for those who might be scared of reaching out, the screens demonstrates how often the helpline receives calls by connecting them live to the phone line.Mirroring the incoming calls in real time, the campaign publically shows how many people are opening up and receiving support from the charity every day. Every time Calm receives a call, the ads will be interrupted, and once answered, passers-by will be alerted by a loud ringtone that captures their attention.

Brilliant idea and execution!

Source: The Drum

Walkers recruit the Spice Girls!

In order to ensure its new positioning lands with impact, Walkers identified the reunion tour as ‘the biggest cultural moment of the year’ and therefore a perfect moment for the crisp brand to tap into.

Walkers new positioning is focused on the human insight that if you have something irresistibly tasty (like Walkers crisps in your hands) and someone asks you to share, then you’re met with an awkward dilemma – to share, or not to share?

As part of the campaign, Walkers is on the lookout for the #BestFanEver, who could win the chance to meet the girls on tour. Launching the competition, the ‘spoof’ ad sees the Spice Girls on the way to surprise their ‘biggest fan’ at his house with VIP tour tickets. Ecstatic at first to find the Spice Girls at his home, things change when Emma Bunton asks the ‘superfan’ for one of his Walkers crisps. Superfan Dev knows he should share with his favourite band, but he really doesn’t want to, and when it comes to it, he just can’t hand over any of his crisps— not even to his icons.

Source: The Drum

Straws are weapons

Eco-friendliness and straws have been a big talking point in recent months, due to many big corporations such as Starbucks opting to go for paper straws instead of plastic straws, which have been proven to cause environmental damage to oceans. Although more and more brands are adopting paper straws, the feeling is still that not enough is being done to stop the use of plastic straws. To aid in the awareness of this issue, print marketing campaigns such as the one below are being seen more and more.

The Plaza Central mall has launched a campaign to make the restaurants placed within the mall to not use plastic straws. Using strong imagery of turtles and whales being “attacked” by straws, the mall is hoping to reduce the use of plastic straws. The imagery and execution of the campaign is certainly strong and memorable. It will be interesting to see how many restaurants will listen and act on the campaign.