Monthly Roundup – September 2018

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 September:

KFC – Explosive Fried Chicken!

The best print ads often make you look twice, and KFC‘s latest print marketing campaign is a perfect example. The campaign re-imagines their famous southern fried chicken as the flames of a drag car or a space shuttle. There’s not much to the concept, but in this case, that’s a good thing. Once you get the concept, you get the concept and can just sit back and appreciate the craft.

The three key visuals – Space Shuttle, Dragster, and Heroes – seamlessly swaps out explosions with the real product, photographed under lighting conditions that replicate each of the chosen scenarios. The campaign has launched in-store in 60 branches across the Asian territory. It is supported by print advertising, online promotions and key outdoor media which will follow.

BrewDog go on the offensive

Always an outspoken brand, Brewdog’s latest print marketing work directly criticises the taste of flagship drinks from four of the UK’s biggest beer brands. The campaign takes the overall consumer scores of popular lagers from the website RateBeer.com, juxtaposing them with the superior score given to Brewdog’s Punk IPA. The ads claim the Indian pale ale boasts a rating of 97/100, while Budweiser, Carling and Fosters score 0/100, 1/100 and 3/100 respectively. The accompanying copy is a direct dig at the competitors’ ad slogans. Executions include ‘Wassup, Bud?’ and ‘Good Call, Fosters?’ The print campaign can be seen all around the country, and certainly catches the eye, and makes us think “do we actually like the taste of these famous beers or are we just drinking them because they are easily available?”

Debenhams Reveal New Brand Identity

A new logo mark and visual identity for the department store, replacing the branding that has been in use since 1999 has been designed. The new logo is meant to be a more modern and approachable twist on Debenhams’ 200-year heritage. Life on the high street is becoming harder and harder as we saw with the recent downfall of House of Fraser, therefore it is important, even for an established brand such as Debenhams to stay with the times and appeal to a younger audience. We like the new branding and imagery used, as we feel it portrays a more fun and modern Debenhams. Richard Cristofoli, the managing director of marketing and beauty, said about the new logo: “We are on a journey to build brand affinity and signify the vast amount of change that is taking place in Debenhams. By physically changing and modernising our logo we aim to make an overt signal to customers that there are reasons to come in store and reappraise our offering.”

Source: Campaign Live

McDonald’s – McMistakes

McDonald’s has a clear strategy if it comes to recruiting new employees: “Hire on attitude, train on skills.” It’s not about the experience on your resume, but all about the willingness to learn. In line with this philosophy McMistakes was created. A series of posters at Belgian McDonald’s restaurants that call upon students for job openings. At first sight, they look like typical McDonald’s product posters until you look more closely. They are all mistakes. French fries accidentally landed in a McFlurry cup, a Big Mac got squeezed into a box of fries and soft ice ended up in the legendary Big Mac box. By mixing up the iconic McDonald’s products and packaging, the posters visualize mistakes that are almost unthinkable to be made.

(Source: Ads of the world)

STABILO – Highlight the Remarkable

Everyone knows the phrase “Behind every great man is a great woman.” But what does it mean? That the man is always the hero and the woman his sidekick? The truth is, all too often women were upstaged, and their actions and successes not mentioned. 2018 is the year to rewrite history, by highlighting remarkable women and their stories. Stories like Edith Wilson’s. Edith was the First Lady who assumed her husband’s presidential responsibilities after he was paralyzed by a stroke. We love the simplicity of the visuals, which manage to remind the consumer about the product (highlighters) but also allow the brand to tell us meaningful stories of great women in history.

Thanks for reading our September round-up, make sure to keep an eye out for our next one in October!