On the Spot: Chris Gallery of Mother and Nick Hirst of Adam&Eve

0:00Nick Hirst: 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.

0:42Nick Hirst: 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 to On Strategy Showcase.

1:25Nick Hirst: I'm Fergus O 'Carroll in Chicago. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, and you can also see our show on YouTube or listen to us on our website or on the podcast platforms. It would be really great if while you're on there that you do leave us a rating on the podcast platforms. That's really helpful for our show to increase its reach. And also to subscribe to both the podcast platforms or to our YouTube channel, which is really helpful for the show. Also, we do have all of the creative work available on our website. So if you want to listen to or watch any of our 300 episodes, you can do it on our website on strategyshowcase.com.

2:06Nick Hirst: and all of the creative work is also listed there. I know it sometimes can be frustrating when you're listening to creative work on our audio show and you can't actually see it. So there is the option to go check that out. We have made a little twist today, a new twist on the spot, which is where planners talk about brands they've never worked on. For those of you who are regular listeners, you always know that what we do is we take two brands and we invite strategists to come on and we'll talk about them. The filter is these cannot be brands that they've worked on in the past. So the idea of that is that they can talk more freely about them.

2:45Nick Hirst: So for the last year or so, I have been suggesting the brands. And then I share that with the strategists. And they can come on and share their opinions of it. What we've done now is we did a little experiment. And what we did this month, and because it went so well, we're going to keep doing it, which is we turn the tables and we send to the strategists each of you bring a campaign that you like and share it with us so the idea is that they have more of a vested interest in representing it well and that their um that their commentary becomes even stronger and i think it's proven out this month when we've done uh this new episode this different way so i'm really excited to share the campaigns that were brought to us by Chris Gallery, who is Global Chief Strategy Officer for Mother.

3:37Nick Hirst: He's out of London. And Nick Hurst is Global Strategy Lead on the Mars business at Omnicom. He's out of London also. So Chris Gallery picked the New York Times, the latest work from the New York Times. And Nick Hurst picked the Heinz Ketchup Body of Work, which is a combination of work done by Widen and Kennedy and Rethink. And by the way, congratulations to Rethink. They killed it at Cannes last week with a whole ton of awards, including work for Heinz. So really exciting. So this month, it is the Misfit Strategists, along with our friends from Tracksuit and our friends from System 1, who give us color commentary on how the ads rated and how the brands are tracking.

4:25Nick Hirst: this is on the spot enjoy so i'm excited about this and uh honored to have nick hurst here good to have you here thanks very much for having me it's great to be here and of course we were just talking about how do we refer to adam and eve anymore because everybody's been wrapped up by the big merger so so i guess we can call it adam and eve tbwa and but you're also you're working are you working across mars across all omnicom or or what yeah so that's so my yeah exactly my

4:54Chris Gallery: day job is i sit at adam and eve but i work across i work with bbio i work with weber shandwick now who are part of the group as well so there's lots of agencies i get to annoy the hell out of and so

5:04Nick Hirst: what when you say mars what what are the brands you're working on god so it's it's uh snacking

5:09Chris Gallery: and pet care so it's um and penetration so it's uh the items pedigree whiskers snickers m &ms the lot oh shit that's huge it's great basically everybody my house gets to eat really well they're all they're just a nice bunch they care about as you can probably tell they care about brands and they care about creativity they also care about that stuff making things grow so it's like from a strategy perspective it's amazing you don't have to that's a fight you don't have to

5:36Nick Hirst: have so it's great yeah yeah no doubt and um chris gallery is also here chris is the global Chief Strategy Officer for Mother, which is, I mean, talk about a huge role, Chris. I mean, holy shit.

5:50Chris Gallery: Yeah, I mean, it's not, I mean, Global suggests everything's massive. It's across our offices and it's an exciting place to have a role like that. So I work a lot with our US teams and the guys in London and Berlin, Shanghai, so yeah. Yeah, but still, man,

6:03Nick Hirst: that's a big role for such an amazing shop. It's like, I think you're at the pinnacle. You're at the top of the hill. It's all downhill from here, apparently. Well, I would have been a guinea pig for your new experiments. Yeah, that's what I'm hoping. And I'm hoping you guys will come through because it'll make my life a lot easier going forward. And of course, you know, many people may not know, number one, you're Irish, which is probably evident by your accent more than...

6:26Chris Gallery: Hopefully, Irish people don't always agree these days.

6:28Nick Hirst: Well, can you imagine what they think about me when I turn up and say, yeah, I was born here? But your brother, Rory Gallery, is Chief Strategy Officer at Special in Auckland, New Zealand. I've never heard of him. You've never heard of him? I mean, how crazy is that? I've never heard that. I mean, and an equally nice guy. And the thing is, not only is that unusual, but, you know, a lot of times, you know, people will have family that are in the business. But for them both to be strategists and to be chief strategists, I think there's a conspiracy going on there. There's something that must be happening.

7:10Chris Gallery: Oh, you know, just such an inspiring older brother. He has to follow my footsteps.

7:13Nick Hirst: Oh, he's the younger brother?

7:15Chris Gallery: Yeah. Okay.

7:17Nick Hirst: Yeah, we had him on the show when we were down, when we did live from Auckland. So if people want to listen to that, you can check that out. So, and of course, good to have Vanessa back again and Rags back again. Always wonderful to have them as a part of this conversation.

7:33Chris Gallery: Happy to be here.

7:35Nick Hirst: And so we're going to be talking about two brands that you guys brought to the table. So if I had a little recliner chair to sit back here, I would be taking advantage of it now since the pressure is off me to perform. I'm just going to be adjudicating. But you guys picked, you picked Hines, Nick, and Chris picked the New York Times. And both obviously have got amazing work, work that I've loved, and work that has been great for years, particularly with the New York Times post sort of 2016 with the truth campaign and how there's been the evolution to the new work. And then for Heinz, Nick, it's a really interesting body of work from a bunch of different agencies.

8:20Nick Hirst: We've had Rethink on the show. I was actually listening to the episode this morning. And, you know, Julian Morgan. So actually, Chris, if you ever want to move into Canada, you should hire Julian Morgan. he's a brilliant brilliant guy um but he uh he and mike dubrick talked about their work on heinz why tell us why you what you picked for today and why you picked it yeah so i mean i've admired it

8:46Chris Gallery: for a while we it's one of the things we talk about with a lot of our clients i think i mean the first there's a bunch of like responsible strategy reasons why it's great i think the first thing is though they're clearly trying to push it creatively you know any brand that's particularly a brand that's that big and that's in a kind of relatively mature kind of category trying to do things that are inventive whether it's like film storytelling whether it's kind of packed stuff i think that's just amazing to see a brand doing that and i think it's worthy of admiration it certainly gets mine um but then there's a more the kind of nerdy strategy reasons like i love how it's it's totally distinctive first of all right it's it's utterly like itself and unlike most other stuff in the category i love it because it's rooted in proper truths um Um, and I mean like the, the, you know, the, the overall platform is rooted in a kind of a truth.

9:30Chris Gallery: I think it's one of those things that you kind of hear and you go, yeah, kind of, you know, it's a, it's a less substitutable brand than a lot of other brands in quite a substitutable segment, FMCG. Um, but also like right down to the executional level, like some of the things I think we're going to talk about that lovely film that's just come out of, I think widens New York,

9:46Nick Hirst: the, um, life of a bottle thing, like so many little, it just feels real, even though it's

9:51Chris Gallery: kind of a properly beautifully crafted thing. And I think there's real, there's bravery in that. like they you know they lean into the fact that like the ketchup gets stuck in the bottle or like you know people use fraudulent versions of the products and that would terrify a lot of marketing teams but i think the fact they embrace it and make it theirs is amazing um it's really it's humble even though it's quite an assertive it's a really arrogant kind of position to take but then it kind of doesn't feel like that in execution um so there's a bunch of stuff i love about it i also i love some of the things they like they haven't done you know they have i know i mean in previous campaigns they've kind of tried to you know they tried making it all about ingredients and it yeah exactly right it moves away from that they've tried they don't show like stupid pleasure shots they don't kind of do you know it would be so easy in that film to have a bunch of people kind of like closing their eyes and looking like it's the best thing they've ever eaten they don't do that they kind of just it's kind of there and they just eat their sandwich and chat to their friends and it's so it's there's so many things about the campaign overall that i think they've pulled off with such kind of craft and elan but but it also does a bunch of nerdy strategy stuff that I can bore on about with people like Byron Sharp, probably.

10:54Chris Gallery: Yeah, you're probably right. What do you think of it, Chris? Yeah, it's hard not to be respectful and love a lot of the work that Heinz have done. I mean, it's constantly popping up in awards. I guess my question on it would be more, look, I love it, but it's kind of got the benefit of this amazing distinctive logo, which obviously you work on brands, Nick, that have lots of amazing distinctive logos. and I actually don't. I work on lots of newer tech brands and maybe don't have that inbuilt thing built in. So I kind of look at it and I wonder how much I can learn from it. I think people are doing some really fun, great stuff with an amazing distinctive thing and getting it to show up in incredible ways and they're playing off insights around how people use a product.

11:35Chris Gallery: But is that limited for me on how many types of products and pieces of work I could kind of learn from to do that with is where there's one question I would have on it. Yeah, which I guess is fair, isn't it? I mean, but then that's probably true of every single brand ever i mean there's like if you know if you're if you're a big if you're a big brand like heinz there's probably more ways you could be boring than you could be interesting yeah um yeah exactly right it's so hard to do stuff that feels genuinely fresh and interesting when you're also trying to stick to the rules and you're also trying to please everybody and they've probably got a bunch of retailers that they have to be careful about annoying like there's so yeah i take the point but i feel like it's still it's sort of still brilliant i'm not yeah i mean if you were starting a new food brand you probably couldn't do most of the stuff they're doing although you could definitely start i mean i think a lot of newer brands could probably heinz had to start somewhere i mean they they didn't always have distinctive assets they had to start and stick to them and invest in them over time and i guess that's the thing that you know any brand should be doing rather than dropping and changing all over the place yeah go ahead chris no my cynic not to get into the cynical bit straight away but the the cynical side of me asks how much of it is strategic here versus how much is an ongoing brief that is we've got a distinctive shape bottle how can you guys use it and then we'll work out kind of the strategic logic behind that and by the way i'm all for that anybody wants to do that my door is open for that kind of stuff i'm just but i was good i'm not intensely around that as a do you know i mean like if you can set if you can get to a place where your brand is so clear that you can have a brief that's basically like do us an ad or do us a campaign or do us a thing kind of within the rules of this brand and it almost kind of anything could go i feel like that's a good place to be and i mean it's a dangerous thing to say because you should also be you always be kind of solving some sort of business problem but i mean if you can if you can get to a place where there's a there's a there's enough of a simple standing brief with enough kind of rules around it that you can be free to kind of be proactive and be kind of spontaneous and bring stuff to clients that that that will probably work to some degree i think that's a good place to be well it's sort of like it's very much like um i remember in my conversation with them it became

13:36Nick Hirst: clear that this work is not much different than Fan Treats. McDonald's. Yeah. So it's sort of taking nostalgia and modernizing it in a way that makes us at least bring the brand back to top of mind. Because for them, that's in essence what they've talked about what they're doing. And that's what Fan Treats is. It's sort of bringing it back in a fresh way. because what they were doing is they were, as you talked about, Nick, they were doing work over the years such as, you know, were grown, not made because they were responding to the ingredients issue and war. But none of it worked. They tried a couple of different directions on top of that.

14:19Nick Hirst: So what seemed to work is what they began to think at Rethink was that we're ignoring what people love about the brand while trying to get them to think differently about it. Yeah. And so that was the mistake. And it's probably the same thing that McDonald's did, is that they were able to sort of discover those product truths. So it became a campaign around these little truths that are expressed in a unique and interesting way to get it top of mind. Because their problem is they've had sort of maxed out on growth. They're ubiquitous as a brand, and they were losing share to the same store and private label.

14:56Chris Gallery: But it never isn't the best place. I've confused myself with all the negatives. It's always a good place to start in it like the truth i mean i mean yes it's fan truth to them it's fan truth mcdonald's but to massively big you up chris before i probably take a pop at new york times at some point like that you do with with brands like kfc i mean it might not be fan truths but it's based on a true it's based on the way that people probably think and talk about that brand and that's why it's amazing because you're halfway there with people because they're kind of half they're kind of agreeing with you before you've even said the thing you know i mean so you i i think you're right i've seen when i look back through some of the ones you're referencing there's a lot a lot of similarities to some of our privacy work but yeah but it is it's like it is a joy as a strat to be able to to actually send people out and go can you just tell me some truths about how people are using a product I mean there's so much of the stuff we work on these days isn't as tangible to go and like observe how people pick something up and how they taste it and how they get it delivered all that kind of stuff is really fun and not enough people invest the time to do that kind of stuff

15:57Nick Hirst: so what's how do you understand your concern with it, Chris, that you're saying that they have this equity, and therefore that's an advantage, but you'd like to see them maybe take it elsewhere? Or what's your

16:08Chris Gallery: point? I guess living around, being around campaigns like this over the years is, I think it's a good thing. I think they've done great work, and they've modernized it, and they do all kind of brave type things. I guess as it's a kind of strategy showcase, my question is, how strategic is it sometimes? Is it versus, I understand the strategy can be about the power of actually just persuading people to invest in distinctive assets and not make the wrong decisions. But equally, is it just, what's my word I'm looking for? Is it convenient sometimes to just go, here's the shape of it? Like, for example, the one you picked, Nick, the shape of a Fry's box is the logo.

16:54Chris Gallery: I love it, and I'm glad they did it, and it's really powerful they did it. But also, really, where else are we going to find the logo next and invent a product around that?

17:04Nick Hirst: I get that point. Some of it's not as deep as others. Some of it feels a little opportunistic. But I think to the core strategy and the way that they've rolled it out and the situations, I don't think there's a situation in any of those pieces of ads that people don't nod at and go, oh, yeah, that solves the problem. That means some of them are stronger than others, but as a body of work, it feels like it connects with you. Now, whether it drives you to consider the brand more, I don't know. And maybe, you know, Rags can touch on that in a second. But it feels to be work. It feels like work that's going to connect with people on some level, a memorable level.

17:46I mean, I think so.

17:49Chris Gallery: Sorry, were you? No, no, no. You go. It's fine. I've talked a lot. I mean, to me, the strategy feels like it's, the thing they always come back to is they have chosen to remind people that they love it, not persuade people that they should love it more. Do you know what I mean? That feels like the kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good point. That's pretty loose. That allows you to do a lot of stuff. But they do seem to have a kind of through line, a kind of discipline there where they basically always do that. And look, I mean, yeah, not all of it is as good as some of it. But that's kind of what happens when you're taking risks and trying to do stuff in a new way.

18:21Chris Gallery: I'm sure some of it's a picture at awards juries. I mean, I have no doubt, but it feels like it's on brand at least. And sometimes you get these kind of things that feel like awards stuff and they're just nothing to do with the rest of the stuff that the brand is doing. So hats off to them for that. Yeah, I think the point I was looking at and talking a bit to the data is, Fergus, you're kind of spot on. Heinz don't have an awareness problem. I think we all know that. it's 150 plus year old legacy brand within Sources and Condiments as kind of a category buyer. It's upwards of 90%. So clearly no problem there.

18:58Chris Gallery: I think where they've actually done a good job with this campaign is it leans on this perception of being a brand that people feel connected to. Heinz actually outscored the category at 36 % alignment to this perception. The next closest is French's Mustard at 27%. So in that way, the data is actually supporting this direction.

19:19Nick Hirst: So 37 % are claiming what?

19:22Chris Gallery: They feel that Heinz is a brand they feel connected to. So really tying on that kind of emotional connection. I think the question becomes is... Which feels kind of low.

19:31Nick Hirst: Is that low? You would think it... I mean, I don't know if anybody feels connected to anything really, but it feels like there'll be a higher claim level than that. That means like nearly 70 % of people don't. It's not bad for a condiment, right?

19:44Chris Gallery: I was going to say, if you think about it, this is a fast-moving good. It sits on a shelf. You're spending$3 every time you buy that bottle. And I think to be top of mind is where the core success is. And just continuing on those touch points. So 36 potentially might not be a bad benchmark within the category.

20:03Nick Hirst: Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the interesting things was that they, I mean, and it's a tough one. if somebody is strayed from the category, it's sort of like what Marmite did when they're trying to remind people that the little fucking jar is in the cupboard, you know, because maybe people were just not using as much of it. So how do you get people to use more is in essence the business problem here. And it's not so much bringing new people into the category, it's more getting people to use the product more. And I guess in this case, it's the idea that if you can show it in different contexts and in different environments and show it in a way where at least you're communicating the fact that more people are using it now in different ways or as a product, then you sort of get people to consider it a little differently at shelf.

20:58Nick Hirst: I mean, it's a tough challenge in a mature category. There's no doubt about it.

21:02Chris Gallery: Well, I have no doubt. It's also bringing, I mean, Marmite, which happens in this building, and that was another thing that I'm nothing to do with. It looks like it's, I mean, yeah, the strategy is to get people to eat it because they kind of already have it, but actually it does, it will drive penetration and I have no doubt Heinz drives penetration as well. And I mean, with a Bix without a Bix, you remember that old campaign for Weetabix? Similarly, the strategy there was like people buy Weetabix and then they leave it in the back of their cupboard. How do you get people to eat it? Yeah. Penetration too.

21:27Chris Gallery: So one of the things I like about strategy, you know, you have this kind of incredibly precise, well-reasoned strategy, but if you do it in a way that connects with people, it's probably going to work in lots and lots of different ways. And I feel like Heinz is probably similar. Like you're telling people stories to remind them why they love it. I'm sure it's bringing new people in as well. Yeah. And I love the component of it has to be Heinz, that there are so many executions in restaurants because with the rise of private label, with the rise of healthy ketchups, I mean, they don't taste good.

21:59Chris Gallery: And when you think about restaurants and kind of like that third-party referral, right, of like the best-tasting food, it's it's you know we always say like the best thing that you want is what someone referred to you and if the restaurants are referring Heinz is like the ketchup to have for the best tasting food experience um I just thought I'm so clever and so um so bold yeah I haven't actually realized that but yeah they've done some amazing stuff in the b2b so there's another account I didn't I hadn't um I've sort of forgotten about it until I was doing some reading about it yesterday and it's there was that tip for Heinz thing that they did as well which was essentially about getting restaurants like mom and pop restaurants who had stopped putting Heinz on the table to start putting Heinz on the table again the way they did it was by asking consumers to tip an extra dollar and write tip for Heinz on a receipt and it was essentially like a kind of crowdsource just felt I mean the fact that they even tried to do something that inventive on a on essentially a trade brief was really that's the kind of thing you can do when you've got that kind of creative ambition and that kind of you know that that's where the bar is on Heinz now and that and they've got the idea the vehicle that kind of allows them to do it because it's so flexible so they can just do good stuff everywhere they can be really creative in lots of different spaces as well as the obvious you know give us a film that costs a million dollars yeah i mean to to

23:10Nick Hirst: nick's point earlier i think you mentioned it nick chris the the the kfc work that you guys are doing which um i mean do you when it what's the challenge at the heart of that is that a similar situation where i mean it's obviously a known brand you want to bring are you are you trying to expand it or Are you trying to bring people back into the brand? Are you trying to increase visits? It's an interesting parallel,

23:33Chris Gallery: because the KC work we're doing now is such a big departure from where we were at, which was, I think, maybe more similar to the Heinz story, where we were playing with lots of distinctive assets and there was always strategic messages within that that were, you know, whether it was about not accepting imitators of weak chicken and things. There was a lot of similarities to that. I think it kind of got us, it did really well, and we had lots of success with all of that work for nearly seven years. And then we reached a point where there was a whole new generation of competitors coming into things that were just more new and exciting to a younger generation of customers and doing the same old thing and showing up in a way that was familiar, but in a joyful kind of reminder way.

24:11Chris Gallery: It just wasn't going to cut it anymore. So this was about making a state on its core as a strategic thing. It's all the Believe Campaigns, a real statement of iconic leadership for KFC in that category. But the way it shows up is just trying to be radically connected to younger audiences and be a thing that's for them and not necessarily as much for everyone anymore. Because there's lots of people that won't like the KSC. And System 1 always tells us that not everybody loves that KSC campaign. But there's some people that absolutely adore it. And the people that don't always love it, we don't need them to because they already love the brand and they have lots of experiences with the brand that are living in their mind already.

24:47Chris Gallery: So that may be, for me, the question on the Heinz thing is going forward, at what point did I need to see something different and what would happen then?

24:55Nick Hirst: Vanessa, so let's talk about which spot did you test?

24:58Chris Gallery: I tested two for Heinz. So I tested Life of a Bottle as a TV spot, and I tested Heinz Goes Here as a social video.

25:08Nick Hirst: Okay, so which is Life as a Bottle? Describe that one.

25:12Chris Gallery: Life of a Bottle was the ad where you are in the diners and the different restaurants, and you're seeing the glass bottle be utilized for many, many meals.

25:26Nick Hirst: Here's your table, right? That's good. Oh. All of me.

25:32Chris Gallery: Why not take all of me? Hey, see you later. Bye-bye. See you tomorrow. Can't you see that I'm no good without?

25:43Nick Hirst: Okay, so let's guess on a scale of 1 to 5.9 what you think that would, because we've all seen that, and that's the one we circulated. What do you think, Rags, in terms of how that scored on a scale of 1 to 5.9?

25:57Chris Gallery: I think it would scale a 3.6. 3.6. Nick? Wow, that's specific. And that's anchored me way lower. I was going to go above 4.5, but maybe I've just gotten overexcited. Well, I can give you the category benchmark for condiments is a 2.8. All right. 3.6 would be bad then. Four. Screw it. Four. All in.

26:21Nick Hirst: Okay. Four. What do you think, Chris?

26:24Chris Gallery: I'd say plus four. Four plus because it's got the music and the brand and it's relatable. I think it's going to be a high scorer.

26:31Nick Hirst: Okay. I'm going to go 3-2.

26:35Chris Gallery: All right.

26:36Nick Hirst: Only because I've listened to System 1 on this show so many times. I'm betting on it being a little lower than what I generally think.

26:42Chris Gallery: Last week I went way too high, so now I think I'm learning what the parameters are. Yeah, we're learning.

26:51Chris Gallery: So, you know, personally, I was curious how this would test because I didn't know if there was going to be like a grossness or like a disgust kind of angle to it because it's like you're talking about bravery. I think it was Nick earlier. And I really was curious how it would score. So Life of a Bottle is actually our highest scoring Heinz ad in our entire database at a 4.5. And I think that just goes to nostalgia, the power of nostalgia.

27:19Nick Hirst: That's a huge score for System 1.

27:22Chris Gallery: Yeah, and along with it, a really strong spike score. So this is like often if you've really strong star score, the spike will go along with it. So great potential. you know also it's a brand ad right so you say like oh well you know if i do a brand ad you know it's not going to work for me in my next quarter um but uh the short-term sales of potential is huge on this one as well yeah that's great but it's like a brand ad but it's not one of those brand i mean they could have done a manifesto do you know i mean yeah on a really vapid kind of no one cares manifesto but they did a thing about a bottle in a diner and people eating the product i mean it's like yeah i'm now post-rationalizing the thing i the number i didn't guess it was always going to be a 4.5 and that's why why was it can you can you say why it's tested so well what was it was it music or what let me just go to some of the verbatims real quick so um everybody loves Heinz ketchup so the surprise like everyone loves Heinz ketchup I enjoy listening to Willie Nelson um you know some of the happiness um it was a great way to advertise Heinz I mean who says that like these aren't the kind of verbatims that you get for other friends.

28:29Chris Gallery: The song, the inclusion of all types of people, enjoying it. Heinz Catch-Up lasts and is shared throughout the day by many Heinz.

28:38Nick Hirst: Of course, it's also branded so well, Vanessa, because I know Vanessa always beats us on the head.

28:44Chris Gallery: You know what? It got an 85. And I would have expected it to be in the high 90s, and it actually wasn't. Yeah, 85 % of the people by the end of the spot got great.

28:57Nick Hirst: Need a bigger logo. Yeah, really.

28:59Chris Gallery: Make a logo bigger.

29:01Nick Hirst: I mean, if I got 85 % on any test or any score, I'd be like fucking thrilled with that. It is good.

29:06Chris Gallery: I mean, it's the solid. I mean, like, yeah, it's a solid score. I also read they're bringing the glass, the bottles back to Walmart as well. So I think it was like, you know, building different touch points around campaign into the store shelf as well. I love the return of glass altogether. Same with Coke. Let's bring all the glass back. Let's get rid of the plastic. and I'm here for it.

29:27Nick Hirst: All right, let's switch to our second one. It is a pick that Chris has brought to us. Tell us what it is, Chris, and why you picked it.

29:36Chris Gallery: Well, I don't know if you guys realize,

29:38Nick Hirst: but today is the fifth birthday of Wordle. So in honor of that, I can do it. Oh, I did not know that. Let's get your phones out, test it out, see if you get it. Jesus, is that why you picked this? No. You're predicting it?

29:49Chris Gallery: I think this is because I absolutely love it. I think overall, you mentioned the body of work they've done over, it must be nearly a decade. The truth is important. The truth is worth it. All of that work. And for me, this campaign, the latest campaign, the It's Your World to Understand, just speaks to this amazing strategic evolution of a brand and strategy partnership, I guess. Because if you started back with them needing to reestablish and push for the quality of journalism as they were building their subscription model, now you go through to a world where, yeah, it is Wordle and it is cookery and it is podcast and it is this multimedia thing.

30:24Chris Gallery: And this speaks to like this expansion of what it is as a product now. So that's fascinating just watching that come to life. And I think the challenge of, you know, we've all lived probably across brands where there's something that you sign up for that is for one thing and you only use it for that one thing. But then actually as time goes on, it has so much more to offer, but you might not be using it in that way. And then you just lose your subscription because you're not using it properly. So for me, there's a great challenge in this that they're answering a problem of getting people to use it for all it has now and getting more people to sign up for it for all of those reasons.

30:57Chris Gallery: And that's a hard brief, and I think they really nailed it creatively.

31:01Nick Hirst: Yeah, I mean, for me, I think when you look at the New York Times, I mean, they've always struggled and tried to deal with the idea of getting people to look at the product as being more than just news. and and and it's a multi-section newspaper or digital experience and so but i think it was always looked upon for that main section of news and not recognized for a lot of the of the other parts of it and i think then when you look at sort of you look at um uh the truth campaign which was brilliant it's the same people it's isle of it's isle of any it's laurie howell and toby uh treyer evans or the creative team they worked at droga five on the on the truth campaign originally um i mean they talked about it as sort of this idea of it's an alternative to sort of doom scrolling where a curious mind if you're i mean not everybody's going to read the new york times but you only have so much time in the day for news and if you're doom scrolling on content i think and if and you do that because you're a curious individual it's not very fulfilling It takes up an awful lot of time, but you don't come away feeling that you've really had your thirst quenched in terms of quality journalism or quality content.

32:18Nick Hirst: It's fascinating and it may feed that curiosity, but is it really benefiting you intellectually or in a meaningful way? So I think for this work, I think they're trying to go after that. It's sort of, it's appealing to that part of the brain and the type of a person who wants a broader view on the world. But if I was to find any fault in it, I'd say that I wish they would dwell a little longer on the sections because I don't really feel that I get a real sense of the depth of journalism in each of those sections.

32:55Chris Gallery: I guess it's inherent in the challenge they have, isn't it? That they're doing something as a launch that's going to show the breath of everything and you're trying to show the breath and you don't have that hung to dwelling is kind of the opposite of that. But for me, when I watched it, what I got from that when it first came out was the overall, rather than needing to dwell on a section, I just got this overall sense of nourishment, like you say like you were talking about that that this is like a useful use of time across the board's world spectrum of things i i just love how these got their style is great it echoes the previous work in a very different kind of topic obviously but you know there's need there's audio that's talking about the ai kind of doom apocalypse coming whilst there's people kind of lying in park playing games and i just i like those things living side by side across the execution alone were kind of doing this job for me.

33:47Nick Hirst: What do you think of it, Nick?

33:50Chris Gallery: I think it is strategically totally fascinating. I agree with that. Like, seeing a news organization in real time kind of switch to a much broader offering because they had to, and seeing compete with content online is kind of fascinating. I can't help but wonder if they've lost the... Like, I re-watched the Perseverance film this morning in an Uber, and it made me cry. It's amazing. and I just wonder if they've lost some of the kind of power I get why they've probably had to move away

34:18Nick Hirst: what is that the perseverance movie that's part of the story

34:22Chris Gallery: the structure of the film is there's kind of type on the screen like they've often done type on the screen and it's essentially you watch in real time somebody a journalist chasing down a story and getting to the truth and it ends up about immigrant children being taken away the topic's intense but it's a beautifully crafted very powerful story I'm an immigration reporter here at The Times. This isn't the only case. Please be in touch as soon as possible. I know that's not true.

34:59Chris Gallery: This is Caitlin Dickerson here at The Times. We can talk by landline phone. I can't wait to hear how. And the shelters really don't know what to do with them.

35:12Chris Gallery: very little documentation

35:20Chris Gallery: clearly they don't want to make that the center of their branding when they can't for various but i just i just wonder if they've lost some of that it didn't get me like that it didn't get me like that although i get all the things they're trying to do and find it interesting so i wondered if you think that's but then i'm not i'm not i'm not in america so maybe it's more powerful if you brand is more part of the life. I normally recoil at manifestos, obviously, like most of us as you live through this kind of industry life. I just really love this one. It's like a beautiful kind of observation in life.

35:46Chris Gallery: There's a phrase in it like when I watched it that again, that I wrote down because it's not necessarily the strategy, but it's one thing that just, I really remember it striking me. They say second to last sentences, is your world as much as anyone's? I just really loved it. It was like that, that just sense of like, there's this gatekeeping of the world and everybody can. I just, this is, and there's a really fine line that you know you asked folks about what the things that can go wrong on this are i think when you're promising that your products your media products is going to be something that opens up the world to you and your experiences like that can be a very big over claim but i just really like the line they tread in this of like the small and big moments the product feels very natural through hey hold up this is your minute it's your minute in this life on this day It's your day to play.

36:36Nick Hirst: To play, to play, to make, to make, to move, to move through. To explore. It's your morning to share, your weekend to shake, to cook, to soak, to listen, to wait. It's your body to rest, to nourish, to grow. It's your mind, you know? It's your place, your country, your life to love, to rise, to dream, to change. It's your world as much as anyone's. It's your world to understand.

37:23Nick Hirst: So Rags, what can you tell us about, I know you don't have any data on the New York Times, so what have you got?

37:28Chris Gallery: Yeah, I think what's interesting here, and I know we were talking a lot about, say, if you go back to the Heinz example, where that emotional connection, that nostalgic feel. I mean, New York Times is also a legacy brand in its own regard. I think it's probably fair to say what this brief is looking to try and solve is really trying to lean into that. It's almost like this choice to lead with people's lifestyle rather than that journalism aspect really looks to kind of solve and close that gap on what is an emotional relationship rather than a product feature. So thinking more about people's day-to-day, I'm not sure if it's the first thing you do when you wake up that you jump in and check the news or complete your daily connections or wordles.

38:09Chris Gallery: So I think it's really trying to tap into understanding people's day-to-day life and really using the New York Times as a function of that.

38:18Nick Hirst: Yeah, you know, another thing I was thinking of, Nick, on this is like the idea of sort of fast culture, slow culture, and the idea that so many of us are trying to sort of slow down and take a beat. And there really isn't much that replaces sitting down with a long form fucking article and reading it. And if you're a person, and it's the antithesis of all that's happening in culture and social media that, I mean, for me, I still get the physical paper, the New York Times, every morning and it's increasingly becoming difficult for me to spend the time on reading that paper than getting distracted by tiktok you gotta leave your phone in another room fergus i know but but and i bring it up only because i wonder if that's also affecting other people like i don't consume a lot of shitty media but i find myself consuming a lot of shitty contact by default of algorithms and it's taking up so much space in my brain that i'm now feeling that I no longer can read long form content without getting distracted.

39:24Nick Hirst: And I'm their target audience. And I wonder if that's a broader issue with their target is like, it's like slow down and absorb this broader depth of content that I think can be a nice counterweight to modern culture.

39:38Chris Gallery: Yeah, I think there's different moments where different things will hit you and you go back in and out of it, I think. Maybe it might be a new way we're consuming these things. Yeah. I do, I mean, I'm a subscriber I mean, I have the app on my phone. I'm an addict of Wordle and spelling bee. And I also read the news content when I can. I probably am not as much as I should. And it does have substance, but I just don't, I feel like I, although I understand that as a challenge, I don't feel like I'm not sure I feel that from the way that they talk about it. Do you know what I mean? That's not the feeling I'll get is not one of like vital substance that I'll pay more for.

40:13Chris Gallery: They are competing with a bunch of free crap that's all over the internet.

40:16Nick Hirst: Most people who subscribe or new subscribers to the New York Times are not doing it for the new section. They're doing it for games. They're doing it for recipes. They're doing it for travel. They're doing it for the other sections. Yeah. Guilty. So let's talk about the spot. How did it test? Which one did you test, Vanessa? It's your world to understand. Okay. Was that a 30 or a 60 or what? The one that you tested?

40:41Chris Gallery: Oh, gosh. Let me look it up real quick. it was a I think it was a 60 sorry I'm like looking on my screen yeah it was a 60

40:53Nick Hirst: okay so let's guess on this one because this is going to be interesting okay so Chris what do you think on a scale of 1 to 5.9 5.8

41:05Chris Gallery: I love that you picked it is this a general is the audience the general audience it is gen pop um you know i think they are trying to an a24 film against blockbusters so i would say it might it might it might go around 2.5 a 2.5 yeah holy shit okay got it now we i hear you

41:27Nick Hirst: nick i think that if we're the right audience it could be a 5.9 yeah i hear you i think you're

41:31Chris Gallery: right what is the right audience what would you how would you sorry to put you on the spot but what in your mind what would be the right audience look it is that they've kind of called out in the press releases there is this discovery mindset there's obviously people that will pay more for for things, just people that want to experience more out of life that like quality entertainment, sports, film, cooking. So those kind of things, I think, get it to a tiger place.

41:53Nick Hirst: Nick, what do you think? 2.3. 2.3. Okay, rags.

42:01Chris Gallery: Is this like the price is right, so if I go too high, I get knocked out? Yeah, pretty much.

42:06Nick Hirst: A little horse is going to come down now and start kicking. 2.7. see everybody goes into that i think people are think you guys are i think you guys are probably right but i think we're all grouping all right so for me um i'm gonna go just to make it interesting

42:22Chris Gallery: i'm gonna go 2.9 okay uh all right so um i'm gonna dive into a couple of things here so news inherently is rational uh system two so like let's commend new york times for We're backing not just one, but many really epic campaigns that are trying to make people feel something and, you know, try to broaden the message. This particular spot was also their highest scoring of all their work in our database. But Nick, you got it. It was a 2.3. It was a 2.3. And truthfully, that came from an over-average amount of neutrality. and when you think about the 60 seconds there's a they put a lot in there there's a lot of quick cuts um from a gen pop perspective they're not a lifelong new york times you know lover like myself i you know the the distinctive assets are like the font and wordle i mean they they did put in a lot of distinctive assets they're just not as um well known um to a broader audience hey you know one

43:36Nick Hirst: One thing, Chris, who do you think the target is? This has to appeal to somebody who's not a reader. I mean, there's no financial benefit to the New York Times if you get me from reading Section 1 that I end up reading Section 4 and 5. I'm already paying you the same amount of money. I'm trying to think for the person who's on the edge, what are they taking away from this? Is it enough of a drive to get subscriptions up?

43:59Chris Gallery: I guess you touched on something earlier on that I think is interesting, the kind of, they call the altitude teams. I guess people that have a frustration with maybe like you're saying now your passivity of your consumption experience of media this is a promise of investing in something more that will get you that so if you're on that cusp I feel like this could get you to that point there's more to this this is something that instead of spending my time scrolling through things I can actually spend time with with some depth around things I mean for me things like the sport, the athletic is a great example of the depth like you know the coverage of things it's for people that want to go deeper

44:34Nick Hirst: All right, guys. Go play Wordle.

44:37Chris Gallery: Yeah, go play Wordle. I'm not done it yet. I'm worried now.

44:41Nick Hirst: Yeah. So listen, thank you both for joining us, guys. Chris and Nick coming to hang out and talked about these two brand campaigns. I love both of them. I think they're great campaigns. And the Truth campaign, I thought when it launched, it was like one of the strongest campaigns in decades back in the time. And I think it spoke for an awful lot of people. And I thought, brilliant work. So congratulations to Isle of Annie, former Droga people doing wonderful work. And Rethink and Widen and Kennedy. So thank you to Chris Gallery. He is Global Chief Strategy Officer for Mother. And Nick Hurst, who is Executive Strategy Director at Omnicom slash Adam and Eve, BBD.

45:20Nick Hirst: Adam and Eve slash DBWA. I never know what to call anybody anymore. And Vanessa Chin is SVP Marketing for System 1. and rags. PrayTap is Growth North America for Tracksuit. Thank you all for being here. Hope you enjoyed it.

45:36Chris Gallery: Thanks so much. Thank you very much.

45:38Nick Hirst: And we will see everyone on the next episode.