On the Spot: Tass Tsitopoulos of W+K and Chris Plating of EP+Co

0:00Tass Tsitopoulos: 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.

0:42Tass Tsitopoulos: 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. So before we get started with this week's episode, I wanted to talk to you about what we have planned for December.

1:30Tass Tsitopoulos: If you're in the Chicago area, you're very familiar with the fact that we do the annual holiday ad special here in Chicago. We've done it for, I think this will be our third year doing it. But what we are doing this year is we are adding New York City. So we'll have two holiday ad specials this year. The first one is going to be at Ogilvy in New York City. It's going to be Tuesday, December 1st. So we're going to be getting the entire community together. And what we do is we play, we talk about, we debate the best holiday ads of the year from both the U.S. and the U.K. And if you're familiar with a lot of the work that comes out of the U.K., I mean, it is the best Christmas work that comes out of any market.

2:16Tass Tsitopoulos: So a lot of that work will be shown on the night and we'll talk about it and we'll debate it. Big audience involvement in this too. And it's just a fun way to get everybody together within the holiday spirit. So plan on coming to that. It is Tuesday, December 1st at Ogilvy in downtown. And there'll be more details available soon on our website under the live tour tab. Secondly, we are, of course, back in Chicago. we are having a challenge with securing the space at the merchandise mart so we're hoping to get that that's the space where we normally do it with high dive the question is whether we're going to be with high dive at the merchandise mart or else we're going to have to go elsewhere because of the lack of the availability of that space which is not high dives offices it's a it's kind of sort of a corporate meeting space in the bottom of their building that we've always used so we're trying to figure that out.

3:11Tass Tsitopoulos: We will have details, but it will be shortly after the New York show. So I'm hoping it'll be Thursday, December 3rd. That's the goal. So I will let you know within the week. Tune in next week and we'll have clarity on that. So two big holiday ad specials happening this year. So very excited. Let's talk about today's episode. On the spot, it is where planners talk about campaigns they love, but they never worked on. We are talking Stella Artois today and Glenn Marengi. With Tastisopoulos is going to be presenting his love of the Stella Artois campaign through a lens of the older work. And Chris Plating is going to be talking about the Glenn Marengi campaign, which you'll hear more about in a second.

3:57Tass Tsitopoulos: Now, the challenge that we had in here is that the creative doesn't, it's either in a foreign language, in the case of Stella, or it doesn't have a really strong voiceover or script in the case of the Glen Morangy work. So what we're going to do is you're going to find the best work to see, the creative work, if you go on our website at onstrategyshowcase.com under this episode's webpage. And you'll see it. It'll be pretty obvious right there on the homepage where you can click in. And you can see all of the work there. The work is really interesting and work that we wish we could see more of today for both of these brands.

4:37Tass Tsitopoulos: Obviously, the Glenn Morangy work is recent, but it does some really interesting things that you're going to hear about from these guys. So this is On the Spot with Tash Destopoulos and Chris Plating. Enjoy. So welcome back to On the Spot. We do this episode every month where we bring together planners who talk about campaigns they loved but never worked on. And the campaign cannot be from their agency. It cannot be something that they've touched. So it's kind of a cool way to get people to talk about work that they appreciate and value. So we have a couple of great people with us. Our good friend, Tess Destopolis, who's Global Executive Strategy Director at Widen & Ken in New York.

5:18Tass Tsitopoulos: Good to have you back, Tess. It's been a bit.

5:21Chris Plating: Yeah. Thanks, Fergus. Great to be here.

5:23Tass Tsitopoulos: and chris plating is a chief strategy officer at ep and co in in greenville south carolina we were just in greenville 10 days or less ago maybe something like that chris and we recorded two episodes in greenville and excited to have chris join us on the show man thanks for doing it yeah we're becoming great friends quickly it's good to be here sir and shay carroll is new a virgin for the show, representing Tracksuit. He is head of partnerships in the U.S. for Tracksuit. Shea has become a fast friend. He turns up to our live events, and we love that. Thank you very much, Shea. Good to have you here.

6:03Tass Tsitopoulos: Thanks for having me. And Vanessa, who has stopped turning up to our live events. We are not happy with Vanessa. She is spreading the responsibility across System 1. We want you back, Vanessa. Oh, just wait until the Chicago show. I'll be there with all the bells on. Yeah. And as regular listeners know, we love to drink. It's part of the experience of creating a casual environment. So we have to share with you what we're drinking. I am actually drinking a red wine today. I have started to drink red wine again. I love to drink white wine, Chardonnay, every day when I cook dinner. I'm a huge fan of cooking.

6:43Tass Tsitopoulos: but somehow I got attracted to this red wine which is a very affordable Han from Trader Joe's. It's a Pinot Noir. And if you're looking for an everyday drinkable Pinot which for me, I used to be a cab guy all the time. It was like cab was my thing. But coming from a Chardonnay into red, this is kind of beautiful. So if you'll notice here, I've adjusted the label to call it the Greg Hahn. But you can buy this at Trader Joe's, and it is quite delicious. Okay, Tass, what are you drinking this morning? We want to point out that it is 9 a.m. Central Time in Chicago on a Monday morning. And the things we do for this show, let's pretend it's 6 p.m.

7:33Chris Plating: So I actually have the product I'm going to be talking about, Stella. the cap is on you're not going to force me to drink on a 9am on a Monday morning but it is a product that I'm going to talk about that again, it's still working the long term brand building is still having an effect on me I still drink it regularly

7:52Tass Tsitopoulos: I love it, I love it Shay, what have you got? I also went to find Estella but they've been cleared out of our work fridge so I have opted for a nice glass of whiskey bourbon actually so a little off on the topic later but close enough to the category I love that, Shay. I do love a bourbon myself. Vanessa, what have you got? All right. So I should have Estella, but I have a Heineken 0.0. But, you know, I used to work at Leo Burnett, and famously, we had the breakfast. So drinking in the morning is not strange. Oh, what was the breakfast? I never heard about that. Oh, the annual holiday party. Oh.

8:24Tass Tsitopoulos: Oh. It's infamous. Oh, okay. So the breakfast is a lot of consumption early in the day. Very early. Heineken 0.0. We just released a Beefeater 0.0 episode yesterday. Chris, what do you got? Yes, I know you're an old-fashioned guy, so I went for a classic as well in honor of Glenmorangie and did a penicillin. So you've got a ginger, honey, some lemon. So if I have a sip of mine, it's purely for vocal, you know. Medicinal purposes. Yes, just to make sure it's coming through loud and clear. That's what I'm going to do here too. Cheers. All right, cheers, everybody. Thank you for doing that. All right, so we're going to talk about two campaigns.

9:03Tass Tsitopoulos: We don't actually tell people what to pick. They pick their own thing. And what's interesting, Tess, you have been among a handful of people recently that are going back in time with campaigns. We had Joe Burns on here, and I think he was the first Vanessa to pick a campaign that was like 30 years old. He picked PlayStation, which was this amazing campaign. It's turning into a contest, Dan. It is. We can go back into the archives. And Vanessa doesn't necessarily like this because it doesn't give a lot for System 1 to test when the shit's like 30 years old. So thank you very much there. But I always say I make it work.

9:40Tass Tsitopoulos: You made it work. I've always got something up my sleeve. She called somebody who was around back in those days to talk to them about it, get some referrals. So Tass, tell us what you picked and go ahead and pitch it to us. We'll give you five minutes and we'll ping you with questions too.

9:55Chris Plating: All right. Okay. So, yes, it is Stella Artois. and not only is this one of my favorite campaigns of all time I think it actually has a lot of impact on me on why I even wanted to work in advertising so it goes really deep with me so it is about 30 years now we're in the 90s I'm a teenager definitely too young to drink so the impact it had probably shouldn't have had I no doubt was watching these ads post watershed which in england is the this is in the uk i grew up in the uk um it's like the 9 p.m cutoff to show alcohol and uh stuff that shouldn't be shown to kids and i was definitely one of those kids that like to stay up late and watch you know movies um with his with his parents so for those that don't know the campaign it ran for about 20 years um probably some of the spirit is still running now but it was all around reassuringly expensive and again to a planner which i then ended up becoming it's just one of those classic really smart reframings positionings anchorings and i did do a bit of research just to remind myself you know what why why why was what where was the price issue from yeah and it was because it had higher alcohol content which nowadays probably isn't even considered high but back then 90s uk you know warm beer flat beer uh that kind of culture lager was like on the on the rise but still wasn't a big thing um so it was considered high alcohol content for beer and therefore had a higher tax and that's that significantly contributed to the higher price and also it was an import right leuven belgian did think for years it was french when i was young and then realized it was from belgian so belgium so again the combination of the high alcohol content the import the high quality ingredients the hops and whatever else you know this isn't a lecture on on beer uh so anyway that read to a high price and so you know that so it wasn't a deliberate it wasn't a deliberate

12:01Tass Tsitopoulos: attempt to be a premium it literally had to be a premium because it had to be a premium and then

12:06Chris Plating: it's like how do you justify that price premium over the competition and so it's like we know we're expensive uh how do we justify that and they did have they did that because of high alcohol content it was also popular with for one of a better word the the hooligans out there and so even had a bad reputation yeah and and it was expensive which is a sort of you know you're in

12:30Tass Tsitopoulos: a sticky place there it was known as the wife beater beer i wasn't gonna mention that but that

12:35Chris Plating: was that that was the term that was often uh you know you know where that came from it came from

12:40Tass Tsitopoulos: um it came from marlon brando's movie where he you know streetcar named desire where he shouts he was abusing his wife apparently in that movie and he's shouting out stella and that's where the

12:54Chris Plating: connection was oh oh you're kidding oh my god that's what happened apparently you've done more research on this than me i'm just using my own memories that my own you know uh my formative years so anyway so it set out to come about this this was lowe's you know back in the 90s when And Lowe's was a great agency in the UK and around the world. And they got to this positioning around reassuringly expensive. We're going to position it as worth the price. We're going to go out there. Everything that brand did, everything that brand said, high quality, high production values. And again, at a time when the TV ad was by far the most important part of your mix, they invested in, again, for me some of the most beautiful spots really films you know I you look at this work and we're going to show a few today so filmic I remember them because again they did an amazing sponsorship Channel 4 Films every Sunday we've got some of the idents as well the sponsorship bumpers in the mix as well and it's just that soundtrack the sound it was it's a case study in so many things that we talk about in advertising is like distinctive brand assets, right?

14:12Chris Plating: Consistency, this ran and ran for years. You'll see again in each of the spots, there's a moment in the action. Initially, you might not even realize it's a stellar ad. Got to the point where something beautiful would come on in an ad break and you go, it's probably a stellar ad. But you're watching the action, incredibly short, some of the best directing talent out there. I think one of my spots was jonathan glazer the either ivan zacharias you know just the best names in the business did did this work 90 second spots two minute spots um running on broadcast tv running on broadcast tv right there wasn't an online strategy right we'll just do a 30 online uh on tv and then you can watch the rest on youtube like they invested and so even the media buyers quality like everything was quality it's screen quality but then what i love as well is just there was a there was there was a mechanic there was a device it but they all followed a similar construct different stories they looked beautiful so that they had that in in common but then at some point in the action that beautiful soundtrack from jean de florette which again was a french movie from a few years prior just comes in and that's that's sort of the the payoff the interesting thing though when when

15:24Tass Tsitopoulos: we hear reassuring the expensive if you don't know the context of stella you would think that's about presenting something as super premium johnny walker blue label and it's it's it and the and the imagery is about luxury or so this is the opposite of that it's like very it these are scenes of you know action in small villages in the belgian countryside it has the opposite vibes of what you would think a premium brand would be representing itself as.

15:59Chris Plating: That's a great point. Again, the heroes of the story, I think that is just telling you, again, the setting is usually on the continent somewhere. It could be France, could be Belgium, could be, you know. So that's sort of telling you that that's doing a provenance job around where this comes from. But for me, the quality, again, is in the production values, is in the quality of the crafting, the storytelling, the filmic nature of it. And so it does a nice balance of provenance in what you're seeing, the context, but then the way we tell the story is just unparalleled quality.

16:36Tass Tsitopoulos: And did it, contextually, were the spots running amongst movies of the week? I remember something you mentioned about that. Was there something relevant to the idea and the spot to the movie of the week that was playing and that it was baked into as a sponsor?

16:51Chris Plating: so what was again they sort of thought through the integrated plan uh through every piece of it uh back then they probably didn't talk about integrated plans but um so the the channel four again for those that don't know uh broadcaster in the uk always like invested in quality quality journalism quality high quality drama the films were art house the ads felt art house so there It wasn't like blockbuster. There was a sort of intellectual quality to it, which again, just made you feel like I'm in the know. It's reassuringly expensive. I know it's worth paying more for, and I know why. It justified it to you as a decision, which again, super smart positioning.

17:41Tass Tsitopoulos: Hey, Chris, what was your thought on the work? Yeah, I was going to underline exactly what Tess was just saying. When you look and you say it's from the 90s, it's not from the 40s 50s but it looks kind of like old boonwell films it has this very like avant-garde even like fringing on the surrealism uh so i think the storytelling was beautiful but it was a time when you could buy your way into creating culture and i love the task called out that it's something that inspired him to come into advertising because i think the reality is the when we put out art uh through corporate advertising it was something that drew generations that are currently working in advertising.

18:19Tass Tsitopoulos: And I think that this is a great call for a resurgence of that artistry. And how do you then justify it? How do you tell those types of stories in a new modern landscape, but don't give away the ability to create something that is truly additive to culture instead of simply photocopying culture and putting it back out there? What would you guess the brief was, Chris? I think it's exactly what he said in terms of the barrier is the cost. And I think it's another great lesson. Again, it's 30 years old, but right now we're in tough macroeconomic times and consumers may be waiting to buy the house or waiting to get the new car.

19:00Tass Tsitopoulos: But this is a very easy indulgence. So if you're talking about another dollar for a beer, that's something that, or even I'm going to have a six pack at home instead of going out to the bar with friends. So I think it's a reassurance of quality. It's putting worth back into value instead of trying to chase or pretend that you don't have, or that you have the competitive advantage of the price point itself. So Tass, where did, and guys, Vanessa and Shay, feel free to jump into a few questions, but reassuring the expensive went through the 80s and the 90s. I mean, this was literally a huge term where this line was used.

19:43Tass Tsitopoulos: Where did the work go after this task? Did it go in a different direction? Or did you, any thoughts on that or anything you'd notice on that?

19:51Chris Plating: It ran for so long and it's so sort of burned into my memory. I'm not even sure where it went afterwards. But I did want to say something Chris said that made me think, again, you know, I work on McDonald's. We talk about value a lot. I often bring out the old value equation, you know, value is quality over price. And we talk about it when we're selling burgers, but like what they did is to reinforce, they know the price is high. So how can we reinforce, make it feel worth the price, right? Worth the cost, create good value, even if it's more expensive is you invest in that quality part. And they did it in such a way that, again, I think you're going to play some of the ads during this spot.

20:33Chris Plating: people should go on the website you you tell such a beautiful story but there's such a wink in it as well right like and and they almost they they get them they get bigger and bigger they kind of exaggerate but they tell it in such a charming way so in the first one john de floret flower seller wants a stellar the guy you know basically asked for the whole his whole bunch of flowers and decorates the whole house so like the transaction is all these flowers for one stella but it gets higher and higher one of my favorites that i've included which was a glazier you know it's like a guy's dad's dying wish is to have a stella artois and it's just again the storytelling back and forth you know it's comedic it is it's comedic yeah it's like high quality which looks so serious but then to pop it with a comedic twist, which is where the Stella bits come thin, just as that track dials up in volume.

21:33Chris Plating: And so to deny his dad his dying wish and drink the Stella, it's so good. You're even going to do that, right?

21:40Tass Tsitopoulos: Shay, how does the brand look? And we can't, tracksuit can't go back to 1990s, but where does it stand today? When we look at the US and the UK in the last year, it's really two different Stellas, which is very interesting. uh u.s drinkers love it uh but few two people know it and then in the uk everyone knows it and drinks it but few call it their favorite so stella is a top five beer in both markets um but for the opposite reasons as i mentioned and the u.s it punches above reach ninth and awareness uh fourth and consideration and half the people who drink it call it their favorite um what i did do which i thought was pretty interesting um just because this was from the 90s i took a look at a segment of uh i broke it out by age so those who are likely to be drinking or about to be drinking or around that age when this came out um how that shifted versus audiences now and when you look at the cohort which would be about 45 to 64 awareness goes uh oh so these are these are for people who would have experienced that work 30 years ago in the uk right you're focused on the UK?

22:49Tass Tsitopoulos: Both the UK and the US. We looked at both groups. So when you think about it currently, so now in the current times, the awareness in the US is around 62 % and awareness in the UK is around 82%. When we look at that cohort and segment it out by that age, it jumps quite a bit. In the UK, it jumps to 92 % awareness. And in the US, it jumps up to 75 % awareness. So we always talk about building for your future customers and building over time. So it's super interesting to see that likely that made an impact in the future. So 75%, Shay, the 75 % is for people who are the older cohort who we assume in the UK and maybe in the US were exposed to this work?

23:36Tass Tsitopoulos: It would have been hard to miss

23:38Chris Plating: if they were in the UK back then.

23:40Tass Tsitopoulos: Because I don't know if it, did it run in the US, Taz? I don't know that it did. I'm not even sure. Yeah, I'm not sure if it did either.

23:45Chris Plating: I do know recent work. There's a great print camp, and I do want to touch on the print. I don't want to hog the session, but there's some awesome print in there. They did do some beautiful print work a couple of years ago that won, I think, the Grand Prix in Cannes. I think the line was maybe worth it, and it just sort of isolated that moment on the way from the bar, from getting the drinks to delivering them and the sort of trying not to spill any. So there's still, again, like you said at the start, the spirit of this, I think lives on even though the storytelling is quite different. I just want to touch on the some of the out of home and print work because again it's some of my favorite for something where what I remember most is the storytelling two minutes of rich film but it also is such a simple platform, rich and expensive.

24:30Chris Plating: It also can work very simply very quickly in a print ad or in a poster and again the wink the cheekiness to have these luxury uh you know a luxury car a luxury uh bit of furniture yeah and then you see someone's opened the stellar on the on the car on the thing used it and it just says reassuringly expensive very subtly yeah i just love that it also has i call it a coupon i don't think anyone used it as a coupon but i just i just love the humor in it it's so basically it's a press ad design like a coupon and if you took it into a store it would actually ask you to pay more to get a stellar so it was like a reverse coupon bring this in and you know yeah you can pay more just love again the wit the cheek um and then the final piece i had on the website is again because they invested in film that was how they told their stories they also then sponsored film on channel four and then the obvious place towards the end of the 90s when everyone you know brands started getting into more sponsoring events activations that was sort of quite nascent then again a natural thing for them they started um sponsoring film screenings so uh again for those that that remember those they sponsored stella toile became the queen's tournament tennis so again everything they did screened quality um and again just it still has an impact 20 30 years later vanessa what were you able to test and what uh what what did you learn yeah i've got a couple things so um so what tass

26:03Tass Tsitopoulos: was talking about the cinematic value of this work plus the music um plus the humor and the wit and everything that went along with it and the consistency of the campaign um and the construct of it um still today performs above the beer average so um oh you were able to test them today Oh, neat. Yeah, and actually this campaign itself was featured in our Living Room Legends with ITV. It's definitely a well-loved campaign, but we retested. And yeah, the beer average is around three. And I believe actually you mentioned it wasn't your favorite, but the Flowers one was the highest scoring of the group.

26:47Tass Tsitopoulos: I think it was like a 3.8. Oh, nice. And for certain groups, it did pop up. But what I find, so even though we talked about taglines changing over time, the body of Stella's work over the past 44 years is something that we're now with System 1 talking a lot about brand coherence. So the way that you judge a brand is just the way that you would judge another human being. So how, you know, judging you on your heart and your face and your voice and your actions, and how are you showing up, not just with your distinctive assets or your taglines or the chalice, but the whole body of work and how are you showing up.

27:26Tass Tsitopoulos: And we saw this come true with their recent Netflix partnership with The Gentleman, which is a very popular show. we tested that in the UK 5.9 the highest score you could possibly get so just really really strong showing up you know and that's really the action you know they're showing up in partnerships that make sense for them and they had Beckham in it too they brought Beckham in so they brought some of the face you know the premium quality the cinematic value of the gentleman it really all makes sense and makes sense for them and it was really powerful for them in more recent work.

28:03Chris Plating: You mentioned the chalice. Even that was just a stroke of genius. If we're talking about an integrated idea, I can't remember when they brought it out, but just the fact they brought out a special glass with a gold rim and called it the chalice and just had that on posters. Again, it's just they've thought through the line on every single sort of detail here.

28:23Tass Tsitopoulos: We'll be right back. If you had work that ran in the U.S. this year, it's time to get your entries in for the 2027. Effie Awards. Here's the thing about an Effie, it has to be earned. They ask for real evidence, and they bring their juries together around a global framework they've spent 57 years honing. They celebrate all forms of effective marketing, so if your work worked, they want to see it. All marketing activities that ran in the U.S. between June 1, 2025 and September 30, 2026 are eligible. That's June 1, 2025, and September 30, 2026 are eligible. So the question to ask yourself is, did your marketing hit its objectives?

29:13Tass Tsitopoulos: Did it drive real business results? And can you prove it? If the answer is yes, it's time to enter. The final deadline to submit here in the U.S. is December 8th, 2026. That's December 8th, 2026. Learn more and enter at effie.org forward slash united dash states. That's effie.org forward slash united dash states. Now, back to the show. So let's move on. Let's, before we even get into the name of it because that's part of the joy of this campaign, Chris, right? And people will notice that not only are we drinking our own cocktails this morning, but we have two campaigns that are alcoholic, that are alcohol brands.

30:03Tass Tsitopoulos: Tell us about Glenmorangie, Chris. Yeah, I think this campaign is worthy of celebration for almost the opposite reasons. You know, I think instead of a clear, coherent insight, a clear tagline, and pushing it through with filmic quality, although that's there, it's almost built for a more diversified, streamable, and disposable time of media. And so I think its origin was what you could imagine the brief, which I always love saying, okay, how did this start? Where did this come from? And imagining the early pitch in. And it's Glenn Morangy, who I think is a competitor and probably more of an underdog in the Scotch whiskey world.

30:52Tass Tsitopoulos: And it's coming together with Harrison Ford. And so the partnership in and of itself is artificial. And you can imagine why it was done. It does not seem that it's a deep connection. And they really embraced it. And so we talk a lot about storytelling. We talk a lot about world building. And I think one of the emerging buzzwords around that is lore. And this to me was something that really created lore, created a mythology, instead of trying to find the authentic roots. And that invites people in, and it connects intergenerationally. generationally. So, you know, I love this work for a lot of reasons, but I think, you know, with its celebrity, it was unafraid to have an older protagonist, you know, be the face of the brand and connect across generations.

31:42Tass Tsitopoulos: So I don't think this is just playing to core. I think this is actually something that invests or kind of pulls in a wide audience. I think it accepts category promiscuity. You know, one of my pet peeves is when we focus so hard on ownability, We stop talking about whether something is worth saying. And sometimes more than one brand can say something that is true and compelling. And especially if you have a promiscuous consumer. So think about emerging whiskey drinkers who want to explore everything. They're not ready just to settle in on their one. Or as you said, this is my everyday for. But it doesn't mean that if you go to a restaurant, if you go out into the world, that you don't want to experience other things.

32:25Tass Tsitopoulos: and then I think it does something that's very you know think Geico Gecko it is playing with if it wants to drive bar call if it wants to drive that exploration one of the biggest hesitations isn't going to be price alone it's going to be well do I look stupid when I order it is it Glen Morangi is it Glen Morangi especially if you're looking to move into the south where every single region is going to have a different pronunciation of the brand it allows the protagonist to mispronounce it, which gives you permission to not even remember it. And it pulls the fact that this is a really beautiful orange bottle.

33:03Tass Tsitopoulos: So when you see it on a bar back, Glenmorangie, it plays with that name association to literally have something that's bar cost. And it playfully uses the category cliches as part of the story and this kind of mock serial content approach. So you can literally watch episodes one through 13. I doubt many people do, but that gets you 30 minutes of content. That's one of the risks you take is what percent is actually going to spend 30 minutes with you instead of what they get paid and kind of forced into. But I think that that's part of the disposable nature is you create, it's not way more money to make the full content.

33:42Tass Tsitopoulos: And then you don't know which one of those videos would become viable, which one of those would become shareable. So you accept some of the long tail because maybe you and me were having dinner and talking about hall passes, and then I'd send you that episode because it related to that, right? Interesting, yeah. Did they do enough to really seed those into culture, I think is a great media connections planning ask. But I think having the breadth of content to maybe find the episode seven and then go back in time to episode one through 13, as opposed to accept you're going to truly do it linear makes sense that's a great point hey tass the um the other thing i don't know if you're if you're a fan of this show but the castle that's featured in the glen morangy campaign is the traitors castle in scotland it's just outside inverness and it's about 20 minutes away from the glen morangy distillery so if you're a fan of traitors the tv show that is the same castle And I happen to be a fan of Traitor, so I was giddy.

34:42Chris Plating: Oh, sorry. When you said, I don't know if you're a fan of the show, I thought you meant On Strategy, and I was...

34:53Chris Plating: As much as I'm a fan of On Strategy, I can't say I've watched Traitors, but I know it's a huge hit. I am a huge fan of this work, though, so I love that Chris picked it. I did spend three very happy years doing Johnny Walker at BBH back in 2010, 2011. so i know the category a bit um and i do remember you know i was very impressed at the time i'm sure they still have it the diagio way of brand building and they have a break each need state i don't think this is um diagio right i think it's lvmh lvmh yeah exactly and so like when we worked on johnny walker that the mode that the global generally the the need state was status which is why it was so clever that bbh flipped it to do progress the journey not the destination but that was for johnny walker gently black i got money i'm buying this whiskey i'm showing off the the single malts were for for them was discernment i'm i'm more in the know i'm more knowledgeable like i think you said at one point i don't want to be embarrassed ordering this thing and so i i feel this plays into that pretty well right like it it it makes the decision it even has fun with how you make that decision um i think uh someone like harrison ford screams discernment you know i could watch him for for hours so uh i enjoyed that campaign i yeah i enjoyed watching it you were

36:16Tass Tsitopoulos: you were you um involved at all in the the man who walked around the world back in the day on bbh that was the six minute film with robert carlisle i mean maybe one of the best ads ever

36:27Chris Plating: incredible i joined just as that was launching so i can't say i had much but my my friend ruben made that who's now in uh new york at droga um incredible incredible film yeah i remember going to greece and playing that at an event i just joined the the team and again everyone just that was yeah like you said six minutes of of storytelling and filmmaking which was designed it was one of those things that again you hear it's sort of apocryphal but this was actually true uh it was for an internal like it was for a conference right one of those briefs that i don't think we any of us get the most excited about oh client needs a thing for a conference it was so good they did it with with you know robert carlisle that then it was too good to

37:13Tass Tsitopoulos: just keep to the conference um oh no way dudes it was originally just for an internal film yeah

37:18Chris Plating: like the annual convention or whatever and and whoever at the adjo was willing to invest in doing it with a star they hadn't paid him the money to do it for public release so again the negotiation post that would have been impressive but um no yeah i love that folklore within that

37:37Tass Tsitopoulos: so one of the things we we released a beefeater 0.0 episode i think yesterday or yeah yesterday and one of the things i talked to those guys about and i think it's also relevant here and shake and probably bring some color commentary to this too but the question becomes for the beefy beef eater uh 0.0 was built around jamiroquai and virtual reality they did a redo and they had they had um beef eater gin as the drink and they recreated that famous video and expanded upon it the question i had for them was what's the danger of this becoming just a jamiroquai spot and i'm I'm wondering here, Shay, what's the risk with this just becoming people that people remember as being the Harrison Ford spot, but they've forgotten Glamour Angie?

38:27Tass Tsitopoulos: Yep, totally. And that is really the headline is the Harrison Ford work really moved the middle of the funnel, not the top. So, you know, that didn't actually generate a ton of additional awareness. In fact, if we look at the three months prior and the three months after this ran or this campaign was live, awareness was flat. it really didn't increase across the category but what did change for those that were already aware consideration went up three points um preference went up two points so you know it really sat flat around 26 which is still pretty low in the category but still consideration when three points from what to watch shay 14.4 to 18 so we're still looking at some relatively lower numbers you If you think about a pretty specific category, whiskey drinkers, that's very, if you know, you know, like those that are in it are very in it, but the broader audience maybe aren't.

39:21Tass Tsitopoulos: But yeah, a pretty low awareness and really stayed flat. And that would be 14 to 18. Would that be a national population or is that whiskey drinkers? How do you? Whiskey drinkers. Whiskey drinkers. That's not bad though, man. 14 to 18 % for, I mean, I'd never heard of this brand before. I don't know about anybody else on the call. This is the first episode that I actually asked my team to provide me with the answers for fluency, for branding, just to see what the correct and incorrect answers were. And so we give credit for any spellings of Glenmorangie, but they actually didn't confuse it for a different brand.

40:00Tass Tsitopoulos: They just said whiskey. So typically Spirits has a lower fluency average, around 72 out of 100. These spots got around$45,$62. But they didn't confuse it for somebody else. They just either knew it or they knew it was whiskey, but they didn't confuse it for another brand. What I was curious about is, again, we can discuss the brief, what we think that possibly was. But was Harrison Ford casting for recruiting whiskey drinkers or to get people who already knew the brand a reason to pick it again? I'm curious. What do you think, Chris? Yeah, and I think it's a great question to gauge its success.

40:41Tass Tsitopoulos: It feels to me that it's digital stance alongside where you're going to be consuming more research around the brands that it's trying to pull trial from existing drinkers. You could absolutely make a case that bringing in a pop celebrity is something that helps you expand market overall. But again, this doesn't feel like it's desperately trying to jump to, you know, the 20-something drinkers. This feels like it's trying to accept 30 to 50-year-old drinkers that can move from one glen to another. So I think if it's trying to migrate, then that shift in the middle of the funnel would be success.

41:23Tass Tsitopoulos: But obviously, if it was trying to recruit new generation, then choosing Harrison Ford to be on the bottle and the face of it was a very bold choice, which you could celebrate, but maybe not the first one I'd make. The number one key association for this work was Harrison Ford. Yeah. But he was well liked in it. I mean, that can be a risk with celebrity that, you know, they get noticed, but it doesn't necessarily help the emotional, you know, appeal of the work. But they liked the humor. They liked him in it. They enjoyed the cinematic, you know, storytelling of it. But he definitely did overshadow the work for sure.

42:05Tass Tsitopoulos: Oh, is that National Population or is that Whiskey Drinkers for you, Vanessa? Oh, we did it Nat Rap. Nat Rap, okay. And that's why I think— Go ahead, whomever that was. Because Harrison Ford, his name is on the bottle. So if they were just trying to support product launch and make that be the entry over, it's even a logical move. But I don't know that the distribution, again, I think that would be for the collectors that are willing to source from online and pull those things down. So, again, something that might have been a heavy investment into the internet channels and not as much on traditional broadcast would absolutely support that for existing whiskey drinkers.

42:44Tass Tsitopoulos: did they do a run of

42:45Chris Plating: yep exactly yeah if you said Harrison Ford Scotch

42:50Tass Tsitopoulos: you'd get up a hundred dollar price point and you'd be able to buy the bottle so that's where I think it's it could have been a very calculated choice of we're not going to get everyone that sees the spot to remember Glenmorangie as much as we try but if we get them to say Harrison Ford whiskey that's good enough to make the sale I wonder if this is a good point because I'm sorry I was going to say I wonder because that's interesting I wonder how long the bottles were on shelves because one thing I noticed as well in the data was that lift that I mentioned earlier held out for about seven months yeah but then right after it dropped back down so it didn't stay it didn't continue to move or stay flat it actually dropped after seven months post-campaign I mean there's so many good things about this campaign though I mean for I haven't mentioned it but from a star rating perspective it's scored above average so um there you know the average for the wine and spirits category is 2.4 and some of the spot individual videos were 3.0 or higher.

43:49Tass Tsitopoulos: So it's, there's so many good things in the work in terms of just things that are undervalued, the way that they filmed in the location, you mentioned the traders, you know, at Castle, but the, the, the landscape and the context that they gave, gave this secondary premium quality to it. And there was really good comprehension on what was happening in the storytelling and the humor that Harrison Ford brought to the table, which is nice in this category that can get very serious. So I think there's just a lot of really good components in here that I'd like to see them continue and not follow. Yeah, I love it.

44:30Tass Tsitopoulos: So let's wrap up with just a comment from each of you in terms of what do you think these campaigns, what we can learn from these campaigns or what you think they might have in common or whatever you might think would be your thoughts. I'm going to start with Chris, then I'll go to Vanessa and then Tass and we'll finish with Shay. Chris? Yeah, I'd say from an advertising standpoint, focusing on craft gives you longevity. I think the premium brands can be playful and still drive deep connection and try to make work that's ad-libbed to culture, not Xerox in it. Interesting. Vanessa? I would say for Stella, when we talk about consistency in work, we're not talking about just distinctive assets.

45:17Tass Tsitopoulos: We're really talking about total brand coherence. So Stella is definitely a star from that standpoint. For Glenn Morangy, I would say sense of place is so undervalued in today. We tend in a lot of work to see obscure things or we kind of jump into the story and they really provide that broad sense of space that allows you to comprehend what's happening in the work. Yeah. Taz?

45:45Chris Plating: Yeah, again, I think Chris might have already said this, but storytelling and craft, I think, is what they have in common. um what the value of long-term brand building for me is that stella has is just so paramount i mean those that know me will laugh that i'm on this show talking about something from 30 years ago it feels very typical of me any new joiners will will get they're actually funny enough your your guy who did the playstation stuff that's also in the set of work that i send to 20-somethings and go, you quite possibly weren't alive at this point, but you need to see this work and understand it and just be inspired by it.

46:26Chris Plating: So that for me is the value of most of this.

46:30Tass Tsitopoulos: Yeah. Shay? Yeah, I agree with Taz. I think brand building is super important. I mean, like you said, we're talking about work from 30 years ago that's still impactful and super interesting to dissect and look at. So that brand building over that time is always going to be valuable. And I think we've shifted into a place where a Harrison Ford is going to get some news and some eyeballs, but really great storytelling at the end of the day is what's going to have a long-term impact. I'm always struck, guys, when we have these conversations about old campaigns and when I look through old award books, I'm always struck by the fact that they could run today and be equally effective if the strategy was right for the brand.

47:11Tass Tsitopoulos: I mean, the craftsmanship that was evident in that work back then is lost in a lot of work today. And I see little sort of seedlings of where some brands are bringing back the importance of aesthetic. But I'm always excited to see that a lot of that shit could work again. And for me, the big thing here was the fact that there is this idea of doing things that are sort of premium, but with a wink, I think is a fabulous way to break into the minds of the modern consumer who wants to embrace something that's a little premium. Not too premium, but something that can provide a special moment or a special feeling.

47:57Anyway, it is Tastastopoulos Global, Executive Strategy Director at Wyden and Kennedy.

48:03Tass Tsitopoulos: It is Vanessa Chin, SVP Marketing at System One. Shay Carroll. We're not actually related, Shay, but we're becoming good. We're nice to compare Ancestry.com results. That's right. You know what? It's wild because my grandfather on my dad's side, it is rumored in our family that he added the O to Carroll because he was part of the Irish Republican Brotherhood during the 1916 Rising in Dublin against the British, and they were after him. And I think the implication was that he put the O in so he'd get further down the list of people that they would come after. So kind of wild. It's Chris Plating, Chief Strategy Officer at EP & Co.

48:47Tass Tsitopoulos: Great to have you back here, Chris, and thank you to everybody for listening. Thanks for your time, guys. This is great. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. And we will see everyone on the next episode.