On the Spot: Alix Toothman of W+K and Anibal Casso of Ogilvy

0:00Alix Toothman: This On The Spot series is brought to you by System One. What if you could predict whether an ad or product or an idea was going to connect with consumers and be successful even before it launched? That's where System One comes in. They're the creative effectiveness platform that uses emotional measurement and norms to help brands predict what will truly drive growth and how to further improve it. From new product concepts and packaging to Super Bowl spots and social campaigns, System One enables you to create with confidence across all of your creative. To learn more, check them out at systemonegroup.com.

0:42Alix Toothman: That's systemonegroup.com. And by Tracksuit. Tracksuit is the affordable, always-on brand tracking tool that helps marketers and agencies answer the question, is what we're doing working? Companies pay$100 ,000, which I still can't believe, or even more, for brand tracking, which is out of the question for most modern brands. Their in-house research experts do the heavy lifting, using best-in-class practices to craft your survey and get you results fast. Tracksuit gives you brand tracking you can afford. Check them out at GoTracksuit.com. That's GoTracksuit.com. Welcome back to this month's episode of On the Spot, where planners talk about brands they love but never worked on.

1:31Alix Toothman: I'm really excited to share that we are actually taking this format live to GSD &M in Austin, Texas on September 10th. So it's going to be on the spot, live in front of the audience there at the agency. And if you're in the Austin area or the Dallas area, we would love to have you come along and be a part of that. You can get tickets on our website at onstrategyshowcase.com. If you go to the live tour tab off of the homepage, you can get tickets there. It's going to be a ton of fun. What is, in essence, going to happen in front of the live audience, and there's a ton of audience participation, is three strategists are going to come in and they're going to each pitch a campaign to us that they love.

2:17Alix Toothman: They're going to answer our questions and we'll probably have a bunch of beer-influenced questions, of course. And we'll discuss it back and forth. And then we will vote as an entire audience on which one is the best campaign. And we will award the phenomenal on-the-spot trophy, which is being created now by a master craftsman somewhere in the United States, and it will turn up on the night and be handed to the winner. So the three strategists that are going to be presenting, each presenting a separate campaign, it's going to be Kate Gunning, head of strategy at GSDNM. Christina Pansolini is group strategy director at Callen.

2:57Alix Toothman: Greg Hunter is an executive creative director at Preacher, and he is an honorary strategist on the night because he's apparently a very strategic creative, so we're very excited about that. and then joining me at the judging table, we're calling it the judging table, but it's really not, that is Maria D 'Amato. She's executive creative director at GSD &M alongside Vanessa Chin of Tracksuit, a big partner, Vanessa Chin of System One and Julia Morgan of Tracksuit. And now, you know, obviously they're there to give us, they're sort of serving as the conscience of that show. They're going to tell us how the ads tested, how the brands are tracking.

3:36Alix Toothman: And it's a ton of fun. And I've been really, really wanting to do this for a long time. So if you're there, do come along and hang with us. It'll be great. As I say, tickets on our website. As an introduction to this week's episode of On The Spot, I wanted to share something that I didn't realize at the time. And I wanted to sort of explain it before we start the episode. So Specsavers, for those of you in the UK, you all know it very well. Maybe not so much here in the U.S., but Specsavers is a campaign that's been going on called You Should Have Gone to Specsavers. And it's been around for 20-plus years.

4:14Alix Toothman: It's done in-house. There's a great story behind this brand. But the work is phenomenal. And they've been really great. What they're doing is they're selling eyeglasses. So their whole campaign has been built around the idea that developing concepts around mistakes you make if you can't see properly. So it's a really fertile creative territory. You know, one example is a wife thinks her husband is cheating on her because she sees a woman in the car with him. It turns out that it was actually their dog. So there's bunches of these sort of little creative flips that they've done for years around eyeglasses.

4:52Alix Toothman: They more recently started on hearing aids. And I'm not sure that recently is in the last 12 months. I look at some of this work and I think it's a couple of years old. but the spot that we're going to be talking about today was around uh around valentine's day and so that's why this campaign was picked by alex tootman which i'll talk about in a second but what we didn't or i didn't know um when we when we were recording this episode is that they have taken that same formula that they did for eyeglasses which is mistakes that you make if you can't see properly and they flip that over to to hearing aids which are mistakes you can make if You can't hear properly.

5:30Alix Toothman: So they've done a bunch of that work, and I'll play an example of it here.

5:35Anibal Casso: No, Brian. I said I wanted a divorce.

5:41Anibal Casso: Specsavers Audiology. Sponsor Zemmedale. Surprise!

5:54Anibal Casso: Supplies. I said send supplies. Say again.

6:04Alix Toothman: So in essence, I didn't realize this when we were recording this episode. So I was playing spots in this episode that really don't have a lot of humor to them, as you'll hear. And I was sort of reflecting on the fact of why didn't they have humor? Well, the fact is, they have a bunch of spots that have humor, as you've just heard. So I was wrong. And as we always say on this show, when we're wrong, we'll admit it. And we don't always claim to be right. So that's cool. So let's get underway with the on-the-spot team this month. It's Annabel Casso is Chief Strategy Officer at Ogilvy North America.

6:42Alix Toothman: He picked Columbia Sportswear, which is done out of London, Adam and Eve in London. Wonderful work. And Alex Toothman is Executive Strategy Director at Widen & Kennedy in New York City. and she picked the Specsavers campaign and the specific execution that you'll hear about in a second. We're also joined by Bette Merchant from System One and Rags Preytaf of Tracksuit to give us color commentary on how ads tested and how brands are tracking. So this is on the spot. Enjoy. I hope everybody has their cocktail because we've actually been talking about making cocktails mandatory. I know, I know, I know.

7:24Alix Toothman: Because it's supposed to be, we're trying to replicate what it's like to be in a bar talking strategy with colleagues. So why not have a cocktail, of course? Now, it is 9 a.m. in the morning on a Monday morning. But I think what I'm going to do in the future is I'm going to insist that everybody brings a cocktail or a mocktail, or at least their favorite drink. Sounds good. And for those who know me, this is actually an old-fashioned, this is a real drink, so cheers. Very tasty. God damn, I'm drinking at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning. It's not a good sign. Okay, so let's talk about what we're going to do today.

8:05Alix Toothman: We're going to be talking about two brands. Annabelle is going to be talking about Columbia Sportswear. Alex has come on to talk about the wonderful work for Specsavers. These are campaigns that these guys have chosen. As you may know from the past, I used to choose the campaign. And then last month when we had Chris Gallery on and we had Nick Hurst on, we flipped it and we said, okay, guys, you come to the table with a campaign you like. And I was really excited about it because there was more of a willingness to defend your choice and there was a lot more rich sort of feedback. And I was like, okay, that's the formula.

8:38Alix Toothman: So you guys can't screw it up today since you brought your campaigns. You've got to be equally energetic as those guys were. But what this is all about is really just sort of building on what we like about the work. It's not about tearing it down. And that's an important thing to keep in mind. And also, as we always say, we're not saying that we're right. These are our opinions of the work. And that's why we have Beth here from System 1 and Rags here from Tracksuit, because they'll keep us sort of sobered up. No, no, no, I'm not going to tell you. With what their data shows is the reality of each of these brands.

9:15Alix Toothman: So, without any other preamble, why don't we dive into this, Alex. Alex, of course, Alex works and runs the Ford business at Widen and Kennedy. So, it's a nice flip that you didn't pick an automotive brand. So, we appreciate that.

9:33Anibal Casso: I get enough of that.

9:34Alix Toothman: Tell us about what you picked.

9:36Anibal Casso: So, I picked Specsavers out of the UK. And I thought, in particular, their work this year called the Relationship Aid. was really interesting and kind of represents some of what I love most about strategy. I think it unpacks a pretty unglamorous category on the surface. Hearing aids are, you know, most planners probably aren't jumping for joy if that's their first assignment. But I think like many of those types of categories, once you kind of scratch the surface, there's a ton of really rich emotional intensity. And I think that they got to something really interesting there by finding a truth.

10:18It's unexpected, but a real truth that hearing loss

10:22Anibal Casso: can really impact the relationships that you have with others, and in particular, your romantic partner. So I think getting to that human insight was really interesting. And then I think it was just a lot of genius kind of strategic and creative execution to say, okay, you know, how can we do this in a way that truly catches fire and really creates conversation, kind of teasing it. I think they're a tease film, treating it like a really premium sex toy to get people talking. And then the big reveal, I think we're all genius and just kind of made for the modern kind of conversation, both social and daytime television and all of that.

11:03Anibal Casso: So really brilliant on that particular instance, but I think also building on like 20 years of really smart work, bringing humor and kind of insight into both hearing and kind of sight.

11:18Alix Toothman: Can you describe the spot? And then we're going to drop it in and edit. But describe what it is so that people know.

11:25Anibal Casso: So they basically took their hearing aid. I don't think it was a specific hearing aid, but it was really the intent was to get people to go get their ears checked and go into Specsavers to see if they had hearing loss. but they initially treated it with kind of these super macro close-ups and stuff that it looks like maybe it's not a hearing aid maybe it's something else introducing the most exciting innovation in couples connection and intimacy small but oh so powerful. The moment you turn it on, you'll feel closer than ever. AI-powered technology enhances your senses. Discreet and designed to be used anywhere.

12:17Anibal Casso: On date night, in a crowded bar, or even in a work meeting.

12:25Alix Toothman: Cheeky. Hands-free. It lasts all day.

12:31Anibal Casso: No matter where you find yourself. The device your relationship has been missing is a hearing aid. Bring the spark back. Book a free hearing check for you and your partner at Specsavers.

12:47Alix Toothman: Beth, did you see the work and what did you think of it?

12:51Anibal Casso: uh yeah yeah i've seen i've seen this work and you know i as a brit have a huge fondness for spec savers of course i actually was looking into you know they have a very long running brand platform over here uh should have gone to spec savers it's genuinely which i think is the ultimate aim of like any brand ever is genuinely part of like the vocabulary and the lexicon here of like if someone makes a silly mistake it's like oh they should have gone to spec savers so fantastic brand and it's no like surprise to me that they're you know creating this kind of

13:22Alix Toothman: fantastic work you know for me though which was interesting i i i found it to be a disconnect for spec savers it's it's a it felt like a completely different direction for the brand to be going in based upon the snappy humor that it has typically had which i i kind of worry about where the brand has chosen to go after 22 years of being like super smart in its humor. This felt like it's a wonderful execution, but is it a Specsavers execution? I don't know.

13:55Anibal Casso: I wouldn't necessarily describe their historic work as like super clever. It's always been a bit of a, I mean, there's silliness involved of like, here's what, you know, like those Emerald Dale bumpers and stuff or the classic work of, what is it, the very first one with the sheep herder accidentally, you know, shearing his dog. So there's always been a bit of a silliness to it. I personally think that they've done a nice job of evolving that, though, in a modern kind of media landscape where maybe people aren't watching a 30-second ad as much. And instead, it's that reveal of like, what's, you know, again, the kind of misdirection or reveal is now happening in maybe a slightly different shape.

14:42Alix Toothman: Yeah, yeah. It's always been misdirection. You're right.

14:45Anibal Casso: I think if I can build, one of the things that fascinates me about this one is, to your point, Beth, I mean, this is, FixAvure has one of the longest running platforms that I can remember, and it has built equity around it. But the questions that came to my head, I love, love, love the work, but the questions that came to my head were like, the first one, is this a magic trick? Because when that happens, you just pull the rug once, but then you have to figure out what is chapter two to it. How do you continue to build on it? But to me, the second part was the one that I'm so curious to ask, guessing the number of how it did on System 1.

15:22Anibal Casso: It was like, who's the hero? Because there's a very fine line between the person with the hearing loss becoming a punchline versus becoming the protagonist. and I have a lot of fun watching it but at the end I was wondering who's going to be the cure it's just the actual person the target like a punchline on the story yeah I think it's a really good good point I do think in this one because they did do another thing with Rick what was his name the Rick Rick role for the misheard version which I think almost maybe plays into that a little bit more of like oh you're mishearing it you know, it's kind of jokes on you.

16:03Anibal Casso: This one actually, I think is a little bit smarter on that dimension because it's a relationship kind of aid. And so I think their goal was to actually get couples to go into, you know, go into Specsavers together. So I do think there's almost like most of the time it is positioned as like, you're the one at fault. You're the one that didn't see something or didn't hear it correctly. In this instance, why I think I like this even more was that it's about, no, this isn't just affecting you. This is affecting all of the people around you who you're not connecting with because you can't hear what they're saying anymore.

16:39Anibal Casso: And so kind of treating that as almost a shared medical challenge or a shared issue that you guys can both go in and help address is kind of an interesting twist.

16:50Alix Toothman: Rags, what'd you think of it?

16:52Anibal Casso: Yeah, I mean, it was interesting. It was a hot take. I think a real pivot for Specsavers, And I think looking at the tracksuit data from our perspective is Specsavers are known in the eyewear space predominantly. It's where they've built this brand with such a strong brand equity. I think in a way, it's a risk. It's something that's new. It's obviously going into this in a different category as a whole. But I think brands with such high equity are allowed to take kind of big swings to try and encourage and engage with different audiences at the same time. So, you know, we look at it and say Specsavers have 90 % awareness, 9 in every 10 high-wear buyers in the UK know the brand, and 50 % actually convert and say it's their preferred brand in that space in itself.

17:39Anibal Casso: So I feel it's low risk, while there is probably a lot of, you know, slightly different opinions versus prior work as well. It's a good point too, though, that this was also them expanding into another category that people aren't as associated, you know, associate them with as much. And so almost a higher bar to maybe cut through existing kind of expectations. I think the consistency of that, you know, that having run that platform for 20 plus years, it kind of buys them that ability to invert the format, I think. And they've done it previously with work like this whole campaign. It was like, I don't go to Specsavers.

18:20Anibal Casso: They come to me to promote. home visits like and that was super successful but only because they've built this as rags said you know huge levels of brand awareness and loads of equity over a long period of time through this really creative consistency that they lean into so well i do think it allows them a little bit of leeway to maybe play with some fun executions like this that are quite different to

18:44Alix Toothman: their um their usual format because when i looked at when i looked at the original that the whole body of should have gone to spec savers work simple executions not just the bumpers like from emeraldale but there's there's 30s and whatever but it was super entertaining super human really great been around for you know a long long time but then when i saw the new work about the in-home examinations and the expansion into the other areas i felt the humor just went from 10 to like four. It didn't feel like they transitioned. And I wonder if that's going to have an impact. And I don't know why they would do that, but it seems like it's lost that edge.

19:31Alix Toothman: And I look at brands like Progressive, when they expanded from auto insurance into home insurance, into motorcycle insurance, they took those same characters, they took that same tone and humor. and I think they probably were very deliberate, obviously, to maintain that in new categories. I wonder if this is a little bit too much of a risk executionally. I'm not sure they've pulled it off at Specsavers.

19:59Anibal Casso: Oh, I could never go to Specsavers. No, I don't go to Specsavers. Not anymore. The thing is... Oh, dear. I don't go to Specsavers, actually. Oh, BF. Should have gone to Specsavers. No.

20:19Anibal Casso: They come to me. Oh, hi there. Come on in.

20:22Alix Toothman: We're there for people who can't go to Specsavers too. We thought you should know.

20:26Anibal Casso: To see if you're eligible, search Specsavers home visits. The one thing that stands out to me is you've got, let's take the eyewear category, is probably a lot more broad. Like people from 20 years on upwards would be buying glasses, prescription eyewear. audiology to me and correct me if I'm wrong would be a lot smaller as a category as a whole so that target audience is also probably a lot older so the question begs then is the narrative that they're trying to tell really focusing on hitting the right audience as well and to your point Fergus is is that a risk that is potentially missed as well I think to regs the point though like this is a very sensitive category because I've I briefly worked in hearing aids actually when I worked on Bose years ago, they were starting to look at getting into some kind of over-the-counter hearing aids.

21:15Anibal Casso: And any of these categories that are associated with aging, whether it's dentures or audiology and hearing aids, you know, you're having to overcome quite a lot of like a psychological barrier from that customer to even acknowledge that they need these things. Even if everyone around them knows that they need them. It can be quite a challenge because of the stigma and the association with aging in the sense of, you know, I'm getting older and I don't really want to acknowledge that. So I think that's, again, maybe to me, to your point, Rags, I think it's really smart that maybe the normal Specsavers work is talking to such a broad audience.

21:54Anibal Casso: There's not really a stigma around wearing glasses. But in this instance, you're having to really get people over a hurdle to acknowledge this problem. And again, why I like the relationship element of it is making it feel like it's less about just them, but it's also about how they are part of a wider dynamic in their relationship. And, you know, actually, Alex, that's a really good point that even answers some of the challenges that I was having with the platform or the campaign, which is that refrain that you mentioned gets a much broader audience and much more reach because essentially they're, by leading a relationship, they're reframing themselves and the category from an emotional standpoint, from loss to love.

22:42Anibal Casso: Like, conversation so much can be about the actual loss hearing, not just physically, but also what it means emotionally. And then by talking about relationship, you can turn into love. And there's a shift there that's really interesting, hopefully manifested through the results, but that's a really good point, so it's panning themselves.

23:00Alix Toothman: So listen, let's go to Beth and let's guess. Well, let's first go to ourselves and then we'll go to Beth. Let's guess how the audiology, what's the name of that spot, Alex? How should we describe it?

23:12Anibal Casso: The relationship aid, I think is what they were talking about. The relationship aid.

23:16Alix Toothman: Let's guess on the scale of 1 to 5.9, 5.9 being the top score for System 1. Annabelle, what do you think it rated? I would say 3.5 and why do you think that I think

23:38Anibal Casso: I mean first of all I'm trying to remove out of my head the numbers the statistics around how US specific spots do there's usually a range in there between 2.0 and 3.0 that's a good question

23:56Alix Toothman: Is this US, was this tested in the US or in the UK?

24:00Anibal Casso: This was in the UK. So it's tested where the spot ran. And was it also because I actually didn't even, did they have like a 30 second spot? I saw it almost always as much more of a PR play. So were you testing like a recap video or something? No, so we have a 60 second spot.

24:19Alix Toothman: Okay, Alex, what do you think?

24:20Anibal Casso: Yeah, I'm going to be generous. This is my pick. So I'm going to say like a 4-3. I feel like the payoff is very, you know, high. There's a lot of people, you know, there's always good scores when you see people positively interacting and stuff. So I think that the build to the resolve is going to get as high.

24:42Alix Toothman: There's the imagination, of course.

24:45Anibal Casso: Rags. I'm going to go with a 3.1. I think, again, was a bit of a swing. Did it land in the right way? Maybe, maybe not. But I think the equity of the brand itself is probably what's giving it a bit of credit here.

24:59Alix Toothman: Okay, I'm going to go. I'm going to say it suffered from a branding issue or a fluency issue going in. I'm going to say it's a 2.9. I love the spot, but it just didn't feel spec savory to me.

25:11Anibal Casso: Beth. Big reveal. Okay.

25:14Alix Toothman: Destroy us. Destroy us.

25:16Anibal Casso: Come on. Well, Alex, given you put this spot forward, it's only right that you are the closest. and this was a 4.5 star.

25:26Alix Toothman: Oh, holy shit.

25:28Anibal Casso: Yeah. I would have gone higher, but you guys anchored me lower. Yeah. You're underestimating how much Brits love Specsavers, whatever they do. So, yeah, 4.5 star. The category average in opticians and chemists is around a three. So it's well above that category average. which is actually in the top 7 % of chemists and opticians ads. So very good long-term brand potential, which I think makes sense when you think of it as a long-term kind of stigma play. We're clearly not in the market, Fergus. Yeah, go ahead, Rex. No, I said we're clearly not in the market, that's for sure.

26:10Alix Toothman: No, man, I'm like, I would have thought that initially that would have suffered from a big branding issue. It's got a great payoff, of course.

26:17Anibal Casso: As long as the brand comes in there at the end, you can do a lot. You don't have to have it.

26:22Alix Toothman: But that's not typically how system one is. They want you to know in the first five seconds. And that's why I was kind of like wild about it. But the other thing is, they must be doing some brilliant goddamn work in the optometry segment in the UK for the average to be three to a goal.

26:39Anibal Casso: Yeah, it's a very strong category. I did a bit of a look into our database for this. You've got the big players of Specsavers and Vision Express. And I think because Specsavers have, you know, worked with this long running, super creative, leaning into humor and humans for so long, the whole category, what we see generally in our, you know, category level databases is when one brand like really goes for it and leans into humor or, you know, that kind of creativity. it pulls the whole category up because you know your vision expresses they have to um you know take a different angle but also lean into emotion in a different way to um to grow um so it's a very strong category bet that's a really good point and i think i alluded to this earlier but um so i mean the the point i mentioned spec savers have 49 preference vision express 10 in the same category so that delta i think speaks volumes um to exactly that point that

27:39Alix Toothman: bit made so beth you're exposed to all of the work in the uk do you do you look at the new work and i'm thinking of the the executions that show the the older man a woman in their kitchen and it's it's for the in-home testing and you know i don't know i can't remember the name of the spot but the there just seems to be a huge humor disconnect and i understand the older age but i think that the creative team need to be getting closer to the whip snap humor, stronger humor in the long brand campaign because it just feels to me dull. Is that a spot? I don't know if you have any access to it now. Is that a spot that tests well or that you feel?

28:24Alix Toothman: Any opinion on it?

28:25Anibal Casso: I don't have the results in front of me right now, but I would say perhaps it's just a UK specific thing where they've built since 2002 should have gone to Specsavers has been built into this cultural like culturally embedded thing so the humor maybe lands slightly differently here is when you flip it and give that big reveal of like I don't go to Specsavers they come to me and they do have some I'm not sure if it's a specific spot you're talking about but they do have you know more brand uh brand focus campaigns around that I don't go to Specsavers they come to me and everyone here is like ah that's clever because you've grown up you know hearing that over and over again and the fact they've inverted it in a really clever way to talk about something that's very rational very dull the fact that they will come to your house and do an eye test there like it's to go about it in that way and still leaning into humor that maybe lands the more familiar you are with should have gone to spec savers i don't know you know we've looked at the broader kind of star rating here but when we look at some of the emotional breakdowns i think something really interesting to me comes through where so the uk tv average for the amount of surprise felt towards a campaign is 12 this gets 44 so it's more than three times the average of surprise and we've looked a lot recently at the power of you know we talk about happiness a lot but surprise is that other positive emotion um that can be really effective particularly Alex, I think you were alluding to it as well, that when they're trying to break through in a category that they're not as well known in, leaning into that surprise, I think, is a really smart move too.

30:08Alix Toothman: All right, Anibal, you are up. Share what you decided to bring to the table and why. Engineer for whatever.

30:16Anibal Casso: I love, love, love, love that for multiple reasons. The why I decided to bring it.

30:23Alix Toothman: So it's Columbia Sportswear, by the way.

30:25Anibal Casso: It's a lot of sportswares, I should have acknowledged that.

30:27Alix Toothman: And it's done by Adam and Eve from CBWA London. A lot of respect for those guys. They always blew my mind. But two reasons.

30:35Anibal Casso: One of them is more about the actual, it's a story, actually. I read it in a few places. I talked to some friends who worked there, which is about how it was brief. And essentially, the head of marketing, I believe, at the time just came in with like six, seven slides. And five of them were essentially showing how they homogenize, how the sea of sameness, how everything looks exactly the same. I mean, the category became a postcard, pretty much. And in this sixth slide, it was just there. It's like, just get us out of this. Like, figure out a platform, figure out a point of view that actually gets us into something that's turned out.

31:12Alix Toothman: So what I heard was, what happened was that there was, they put, and a lot of people can do this across categories, particularly, Alex will know this from automotive. they put all the ads up on a slide yeah logos and just showed the fact that everything looked the same yes

31:29Anibal Casso: and they went I think back to 20 years so that got me fascinated because it reminded us you know how simple but how powerful sometimes it could be to just play something provocative but the part that I got excited a lot and Alex I'm gonna make I'm not here to to our beloved Resident Bistam Whiten who hey guys once a wedding child always a wedding child and i said in every agency i work after but dan used to say that the most powerful thing that uh asset that a brand has is the power of his voice and i think that's what i like about how the strategy of this one went which is like they they were positioned themselves by just going back into the archives going back into into that arnarchic that like raw that that spirit that was always part of the brand that they kind of had lost by becoming a copycat in a way.

32:23Anibal Casso: And the way they did it was also, I think the president, Joey Boyle, he gave everybody a copy of the book of One Tough Mother, which is the book that the founder had. And I read it. It's incredible how much you reconnect yourself.

32:36Alix Toothman: One Tough Mother is written by Gert Boyle, who was the wife of the founder. When he passed away, she picked it up, and she's the one who built the business. And then she's appeared in a lot of advertising, too, right?

32:52Anibal Casso: Legendary advertising. Like, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the 90s and early 2000s, and she was on the TV all the time with that, like, absolute take-no-prisoners attitude. It was awesome. But I love that. They went back to the power of their voice. they just think i mean they kind of have lost it but it was not reinventing something new it was just going back deep into what made them then so that's why i picked it if i'm making my own guess about the audience and the target i don't believe that this work this platform has been designed for you know the person that's achieving the summit the person who is like the most pro expert over packing and all that this is designed for people who are embracing the outdoors and have a level of anxiety and stress and fear or whatever emotion is that is not a positive one around embracing how shitty it gets out there, how tough it is, how hard it is.

33:44Anibal Casso: And being able to tell these people, which I'm assuming is a much broader, you know, amount of people than the experts, like we're designed for you, we're engineered and built for you, like embrace that chaos, you know, felt like a really interesting shift. Some people think nature is like this.

34:02Alix Toothman: It's actually like this.

34:24Alix Toothman: Don't worry, a raccoon broke his fall.

34:42Alix Toothman: Mother Nature can be a real mother f***er. That's why Columbia engineers everything we make for anything nature can throw at you. colombia engineered for whatever i agree that's i think the the part of it like executionally it

35:01Anibal Casso: does a great job of of standing out from the category with just literally the kind of creative and the inclusion of animation and stuff which does feel really distinct but i think more strategically the willingness to acknowledge the pain and discomfort of kind of getting outdoors versus the kind of beautiful payoff and sense of achievement and kind of one with nature and whatever that I think much of the category does lean into, I think is a really interesting space and opens up kind of a fresher take for them. And I feel like you also get, you know, consumers feel seen in a different way. So to your point, Annabelle, that they're actually kind of maybe reflecting their own experience of the outdoors as maybe a more average outdoors person than somebody submitting Everest.

35:55Anibal Casso: I think that's really strong.

35:57Alix Toothman: I mean, the majority of people who buy these coats are just going to go to the store. Right. I mean, that's not true. But they want something that reflects something.

36:05Anibal Casso: It might be raining very hard that day.

36:07Alix Toothman: It might be really windy. And you might have to climb a hill to get to the store.

36:12Anibal Casso: That is a good point because, honestly, the outdoors that we see in advertising, they do not exist. The real outdoors. They're just like this beautiful thing with this beautiful hike. All the hikes I've done don't look like the ads. They're not like that. They're not that easy. So being able to shift the nature from being just a backdrop to actually being an opponent, an enemy, something you conquer, something you embrace, felt really, really interesting and strategically to me.

36:40Alix Toothman: It's like the Specsaver shit because it's like, who's the antagonist and who's the protagonist? It's like, You're becoming the victim of what you're walking out to, which is pretty fair, right? They're not coming to you. You're going to them.

36:52Anibal Casso: Which is, I think, kind of a broader cultural thing we talk a little bit about on Ford, but it's like in an era of climate change and just more increasing craziness of weather, there is a sense of a higher degree of wanting to just feel prepared for whatever comes at you. And I think that there's a little bit of like, it's not at the surface of this, But I do think there's a little subtext of like, yeah, the weather isn't, you know, necessarily your friend these days. And nature does, can be kind of scary and overwhelming. And so that this is actually positioning to kind of feel prepared against the elements versus you going out and conquering them.

37:33Anibal Casso: It's a different switch.

37:35Alix Toothman: The other really ballsy part of that campaign and extension of it is the flat earth thing. Holy shit. That, to me, was like brilliant, right? And I've worked, many of us have worked for companies who espoused an environmental point of view, but they rarely were able to address it in their communications in a really meaningful way or definitely not in an entertaining way. But Columbia went straight at it. And it's not just an actor. It's the goddamn CEO who actually challenges people and conspiracy theorists who think the world is flat to send us a photograph of the edge of the world. And they're going to give you the entire company.

38:18Alix Toothman: Hi, I'm Tim Boyle. I'm the CEO here at Columbia Sportswear. And this message is for flat earthers. You guys claim there's an end to the earth? Well, just go snap a picture. Send it to us. And you get the assets of the company. All of it. No paperwork, no lawyers, no catches.

38:36Anibal Casso: I'm Tim, there is some paperwork. Hey, we're giving you all this. This, this. There's a lot of good stuff in here.

38:51This.

38:54Alix Toothman: Has a note on it. This, this, this, this, this, this, this.

39:06Alix Toothman: How long is this meeting?

39:08Anibal Casso: All this. This. How did he do that?

39:13Alix Toothman: This? That's actually a rental. Oh. Not this. All this. This and all of that. Hey, flat earthers, do me a favor. If you're going to the edge of the earth, wear Columbia. You'll need it. Best of luck.

39:30Anibal Casso: That felt like a direct tie back to Gert. The fact that it was featuring the founder, I mean, he used to be in the ads with her quite a bit too. And so that kind of straight talking, almost confrontational tone, I think, with the Flat Earth thing, I think is also really nice of them just kind of revisiting their heritage. And I think you described it as like anarchical or something like there is a there is a challenger ethos kind of core to the brand that they've needed and maybe had had fallen away a little bit. I think my one question that I'd be curious to see from Rags is whether, even though I think this is very emotionally relevant, whether people still buy this category largely based on technical superiority or at least a sense of technical superiority.

40:28And there is still a real kind of need for products to work, or at least people want, to your point, Fergus, sometimes they're still just going to the grocery store.

40:40Anibal Casso: But I feel like it is one where people do actually look at and kind of buy into some of the technical conversation. So I'd be curious to know whether, even though this has maybe done a great job of cutting through and rebuilding awareness, whether it actually is going to drive kind of preference and consideration because people are still looking for that reassurance on the quality and kind of capability of the product. it yeah absolutely it's it's an interesting space and i think you guys have touched on it it's like i'm sitting here in downtown manhattan soho and i could walk into my local coffee shop and spot you know three arcturics jackets and solomon's and you know as far away from a mountain of course canada goose um so what is it montclair it's you know it's it's a little bit about status i think these are also like um you know expensive products i think people spend a pretty penny on um the top here as well so there's there's an element of status that um kind of plays a role and that's where this brand aspect um really drives drives this message forward in terms of the data and to your point which does stand out alex is columbia we've seen in our data at least uh preference has actually increased three basis points from 19 to 22 across the last 12 months now preference is actually a really tricky metric to see large shifts it's typically a one a single choice where people say this is my brand of choice.

42:04Anibal Casso: They're sitting second in the category as a whole. North Face is the leader and are actually seeing a bit of a decline to the similar effects as well. And where it comes down to is we're noticing perceptions around... North Face is seeing a decline?

42:17Alix Toothman: Is that what you mean or the category?

42:19Anibal Casso: North Face, sorry. North Face. But the kind of key perceptions... Where are they?

42:23Alix Toothman: What's their number? Where are they down to?

42:25Anibal Casso: They are down from, sorry, be with me, from 28 to 22%. So they're seeing a six. That's significant. That's a big drop. Their awareness still wins in the category as a whole. But the things that stand out, one is trust. So Columbia seem to be the leader in trust. And also we have a view here which looks at their have a differentiated win on comfort, which I think ties in nicely to a little bit around some of the more technical aspects where they sit quite considerably against the rest of the category. I think there are five basis points ahead of the North Face when it comes down to comfort, which I think is a good kind of...

43:05Alix Toothman: And is this among general population rags or do you go in a little tighter?

43:10Anibal Casso: Yeah, we're looking at the U.S. outdoor apparel category. So that's a little bit broader, sorry, a little bit more narrower than just Gen Pop, where we can probably start to get a sense of people who are using these for more outdoor type activities on the whole. I like that the trust point though is interesting and kind of goes back to the fact that they've had their CEOs kind of as the face of the brand for so long. And it kind of reminded me, I hadn't thought about this in ages, but they used to have like a lifetime warranty on their gear, which I know we made use that. I thought it was Patagonia, no?

43:47Alix Toothman: Is that both of them? Both Patagonia?

43:49Anibal Casso: No, you could, I mean, and we did it. I felt like it was one of those where you're like, this feels wrong. I've used this ski jacket for three years or something as a child, and it's got a hole in it. But you could send it back, and they'd either repair it or just you suddenly ended up with a new jacket. So there was this real sense of a family standing behind their products.

44:09Alix Toothman: Beth, just your general thoughts on the brand before we score it.

44:14Anibal Casso: Yeah, I mean, from, I think it's a really interesting kind of challenger style angle that they took. And what I love in the data that we can see, rather than a lot of the emotional traces that I look at day in, day out, it's a lot of like, a lot of gray, which is neutrality. Unfortunately, people, most people don't feel anything towards advertising. There might be some happiness that grows. This is a full like rainbow. rainbow when we look at the trace of this we've got surprise we've got happiness we've got lots of fear disgust contempt anger and not much neutrality which is awesome for a challenger brand to like cut through versus some of those big boys like your north faces and your patagonias to like just not leave people feeling nothing to maximize the chance of someone remembering your brand and probably seeing with the data from tracksuit that that's helping them in some way but just really eating into that neutrality not just through positive emotion but leaning into some of those negative emotions as well to which is resolved at the end i think but the stat i like from this is it's got the average globally for the amount of fear that we see in advertising is at zero percent this has got five percent so it's it's got a bit of fear it's leaving people

45:30Alix Toothman: feeling something at least but is it is does it play really well when it comes to humor or does that have an emotional dimension where you're like it's over-indexing?

45:40Anibal Casso: So yeah, when we look at the different types of happiness that we record, one of those is amusement and humor. And it definitely over-indexes on amusement versus the category. And interestingly, I looked at some of the different brands that we've talked about, so Patagonia, North Face, and we see that Patagonia, for example, leans into being pleased for others or proud or appreciative. and we see North Face over-indexing in being awe-inspired and excitement, whereas no amusement really coming through there at all. So they found this white space that I think is really smart to lean into and over-index on, double down on.

46:21Alix Toothman: All right, let's go ahead and rate this. And what we're rating is the short film, right? The spot? Was it a 30 or a 60 or what was it? I can't remember what it was, how long it was.

46:34Anibal Casso: Yeah, I still engineered for whatever. It was like 60. We'll figure it out.

46:39Alix Toothman: Anyway, so Anibal, what do you think on a scale of 1 to 5.9 for Columbia? I'm going to be harsh on this one again, but I think it's because of what you were saying, Beth. I do expect this one to be higher on fluency, but I don't know if I can expect it to be higher on the rest. So I would say 3.2. 3.2. And again, who are we testing this amongst, Beth? It's a good question.

47:05Anibal Casso: So I have two separate scores for this one. We have the GenPop NAT REP score, but we also have a custom sample of people who participate in outdoor activities.

47:16Alix Toothman: Oh, nice. Okay. Annabelle, you want to go back on that now? Yes. Okay, I will say that. GenPop and then what's the other one? So GenPop is 3.2? Yes, that will be GenPop to me. I actually will give it a higher

47:29Anibal Casso: like a 4.1 or something like that to the more outdoorsy people

47:35Alix Toothman: at least they will relate to it Alex

47:39Anibal Casso: I feel like we got a little cheap knowing so much fear and the anxiety I've seen some other ads that kind of take that approach and have not necessarily done great in the scoring so I'm going to give like a 2.7 for gen pop, but up to, I'll go 3.5 for outdoor enthusiasts.

48:05Alix Toothman: Okay, Rags.

48:06Anibal Casso: I think gen pop would be a 3.2, and within the outdoor buyers, I'm going to say a 4. 4.0.

48:17Alix Toothman: 4. Okay, I'm going to go for gen pop. I'm going to go 3.8 and for the segment I'm going to go 3.5 just for shits and giggles alright burst our bubble Beth

48:37Anibal Casso: alright okay so for Genpop it's a 2.7

48:42Alix Toothman: oh my god did you and Alex talk before this?

48:47Anibal Casso: I've seen a few system 1 reports in my day that's awesome called insider trading the category average for context is 2.5 so it's a little bit above average it does better on fluency than average though so i guess 87 percent of people knew that this was for columbia 78 is the average in outdoor also sport performance and leisure and but then when we look at outdoor activity participants that gets a 3.7 so well above the average um but not quite a four that's great though it is really i feel like that's such a good story though for like when you're having these conversations with clients that you know for a brand to stand out you have to stand for something and often that's something meaningful for for your target audience but might not resonate with the the gen pop and how do you kind of kind of keep your keep your strength and conviction of what you're trying to do so i like that there's such a big difference between those two samples yeah we also see the the outdoor activities so people who like the outdoors associating the ad with being funny more than that rep do as well so that humor that relatability is um you're obviously landing hardest with people who are more familiar with the actual activities.

50:10Alix Toothman: So Beth, when you test spots, when System 1 tests spots, let's say you go Gen Pop, are you then able to pretty easily strip out male versus female, age segments, et cetera? Is that easy to report out on? Is the sample size large enough typically?

50:26Anibal Casso: Yeah, so we can look at male, female, and then different. So like 18 to 24, 18 to 34, 35 to 54, 55 plus. So I can see what it scores for the different age ranges. So 18 to 34, 35 to 54, 55 plus. What do we think it scores or which one do we think it scores best with?

50:48Alix Toothman: I'm going to go in the middle, middle segment.

50:50Anibal Casso: Me too. I'm going to go middle.

50:54Alix Toothman: Young people are soft. Of course, I'm going to be wrong, so don't worry. Don't go where I'm going. We haven't got it right for most of us, I think. Although I think that the, I did get the second. Alex and I got the segment right at 3.5 for that. So I'm taking credit.

51:09Anibal Casso: I'm going to go the oldest age group. And the reason I say that, I think I'm cheating here. Our data says that 45 plus year olds have the largest preference of all the brands in the category. So I'm curious if that's got any correlation. For Columbia. So they have their biggest brand fans. The older segment does, Rags? Yeah, 45 plus for us is the biggest brand fans as Alex said. Interesting. That's really interesting, actually, because when we look at, so star rating, it's the 18 to 34 that gets the highest. So it's a 4.7 with 18 to 34. It's a 4.6 with 35 to 54, so pretty much the same. And then it's a 3.1 with that older age group.

51:50Anibal Casso: But when we look at brand recognition, it's 90 with the 55 plus and 70 with 18 to 34. So that kind of tracks with your data as well, right? The older guys are sitting down at Soho at the trendy cafes, I reckon. Well, it's maybe more of a divergence from what they expected the brand. But again, I think you could make a good story for that if you're, you know, defending it to clients to say you stuck out more with a new audience, which is also probably strategically a bigger goal for them.

52:23Alix Toothman: The older guys are actually, they're at Specsavers getting audiology so they can hear the rattlesnakes. look for that collab coming soon yeah for sure all right i love it um columbia doing brave things again um listen let's wrap up by just getting a couple of thoughts uh from you guys in terms of what do you think what do you think other brands or other strategists can learn from each of these two cases? Is there something that you think these are great examples of that would be really interesting? So I'm going to start off with Alex and put you on the spot. That's the name of the show, by the way.

53:04Alix Toothman: So what do you think?

53:05Anibal Casso: Well, I said a little bit in my first, but again, speaking from personal experience, I think my first account was Polydent for dentures. Oh, wow. Again, I think one of the things that I love the most about this job is that you can find something interesting in every piece of business. And so I think it's a great lesson from the Specsavers work of, you know, and again, Specsavers isn't, you would not, you would be excited to work on that because of 20 years of great equity and stuff. But I do think it's a good lesson that, you know, every category, every challenge can have really interesting insights in it and can get to really exciting work if you're willing to kind of dig in and find those human truths.

53:53Anibal Casso: So I love that from the Specsavers work and for clients, the consistency of committing to a platform for that long and being able to kind of keep refreshing it, I think is also a great learning. And then from Columbia, I think that kind of what we talked about, the willingness to stoke emotions that aren't necessarily all positive and cheery, I think is another great one of kind of being willing to be brave on that.

54:22Alix Toothman: And to be honest about who the buyer is really, ultimately, right? Annabelle, how about you? Well, I'm going to piggyback on a lot of what Alex said because I share the same feelings.

54:34Anibal Casso: I think on both brands, there's two commonalities that I see that I really feel are interesting and worth looking. One of them is both of these brands make me rethink and think and continue to think a lot about who really are they going after. Also, not only who they're going after, but who really also is going to get impacted by this. And I think both brands, I mean, thank you, Beth and Rax for the results. But at the same time, both brands were able to achieve more than what likely they were aiming to do based on that. And then the second thing that defines a commonality is going back to that power of your voice, to your point about they both have enough equity and enough of a voice, enough history, but now losing track of that, no matter the fads, the passions, the trends, whatever is going on in the world, that asset continues to be one of the most secret and powerful weapons that brands have.

55:24Anibal Casso: So I think both reminded me the importance of like, let's go back. Like I'm in a building right now that has one of the biggest archives in history over a hundred years. I actually haven't been in a long time, so I'm going to go and check it out while I'm here and see what I learned. There's so much to look into the attic of a brand that is good to just remind, be reminded that that's a superpower of friends.

55:47Alix Toothman: Yeah. And I think, I think that, I think Adam and Eve is classically has been doing that. I think John Lewis was another great example of how they've done that and Marmite and just a huge body of brilliant work over time. Beth, anything you want to share?

56:04Anibal Casso: I think both of these campaigns do a great job of kind of subverting those category expectations, not leaning into the tropes of the category or borrowing from another category, really. and that power of surprise we're seeing is really really powerful particularly as more and more you know media spends go into skippable media platforms we're seeing that having something out of the ordinary or being able to surprise someone is really important to like stop that scroll as well so i think moving forward that power of surprise will be a really interesting one to follow yeah and then finally rags yeah i think you know both brands as a whole i mean we talked about this a lot are, you know, have a lot of equity in market.

56:48Anibal Casso: They've taken risks, I think, for each of their brands in fairly, like, low-risk circumstances. You know, that being said, to that point, they've been very focused on how they want to approach it, who they're trying to go after. And I think that's ultimately been able to lead to these, I mean, us to be having really deep, you know, conversations about the work that they've produced. But yeah, all in all, I think it's, you know, to continue to drive momentum this way will kind of yield some interesting results down the line as well.

57:16Alix Toothman: Thank you guys for being here. Alex Toothman is Global Executive Strategy Director at Widen & Kennedy in New York City. Annabel Casso is a North American Chief Strategy Officer at Ogilvy. Rags Praytap is Head of Small to Medium Business Sales at Tracksuit in New York City. And Beth Marchand, first time here, Beth. What did you think of it?

57:35Anibal Casso: Awesome. Yeah, I've had a great, great time.

57:37Alix Toothman: Yeah, you did great, by the way. Thank you for being here. Strategy Director, System One out of London. Thank you all. Thank you all for being on. It was wonderful. I'm sorry that I was the only one with a cocktail, but next time, everybody who comes on the show from now on has to have a cocktail.

57:53Anibal Casso: You got to record it at least at noon, Fergus. That'll help.

57:57Alix Toothman: It's noon somewhere. This is all good. Everybody has a container. Thanks a lot, everybody. Thank you. And our next live show, by the way, is at GSDNM in Austin, Texas, where, oh, this is important actually, we are taking this show concept on the road as a live show. What we're going to do is we're going to have strategists come in and they're going to present the campaign they love. They're going to show the work. They're going to defend it. People are going to ask questions. People are going to score it. We're going to do it live and have a ton of fun with it. And we will have cocktails. So we're going to try it in Austin at GSDNM.

58:40Alix Toothman: It's September 10th. Thanks a lot, everybody. We really appreciate your time. Have a great Monday. Bye. We'll see everybody on the next episode.