The art of lasting advertising campaigns in real-time

When it comes to advertising campaigns, there's a spectrum of excellence out there that captures the hearts and minds of audiences worldwide.

Throughout the years, we've seen campaigns that stand out, not just for their visual aesthetics or clever catchphrases but for the brand strategy's remarkable ability to stand the test of time.

As a creative director, one of my aspirations is to establish enduring principles with brands that prioritise long-term strategies to maintain consistency, memorability, and distinctiveness throughout the brand's lifetime - in real time.

Maintaining a strong presence at various points in a consumer's life is key to sustainable brand growth and greater market share.

So, what do some great examples of this look like?

If I say the taglines “Just do it”, “You’re not you when you’re hungry”, or “The happiest place on earth”, there’s a very good chance you will know the brands behind them.

For decades, brands like Nike, Snickers, and Disneyland have been implementing advertising strategies and producing campaigns centred around these taglines, cultivating a level of mental recognition that surpasses other brands in their categories.

One way brands create a lasting legacy for themselves is through ad campaigns that really resonate with audiences. 

MasterCard unveiled its Priceless campaign 25 years ago, with the famous statement, 'Some things money can't buy; for everything else, there's Mastercard'. Conveying it’s the everyday and ordinary things that are most important was a message consumers could truly relate to, and this campaign helped establish MasterCard as the iconic brand it is today. 

In today's fast-paced world, the internet and social media play a pivotal role in connecting brands with culture in real-time.

The ability to seize the moment and align your brand message with the prevailing sentiments is where the magic happens—by remaining relevant in a world where consumers can easily switch off (skip, swipe, unfollow) from what doesn't resonate with their lives.

Audience engagement and brand loyalty are shaped in real-time (a.k .a., at the Velocity of Culture), and brands’ responses have to harness technology and platforms to connect with culture during moments of peak community sentiment. 

Context changes culture. Achieving cultural relevance can be pursued through different methods, but they all necessitate a good dose of bravery. 

For instance, Heineken recently demonstrated how brands can engage with culture, as evidenced when Victoria Beckham discussed her ‘humble, working-class background’ in a documentary.

Spotify’s annual 'Wrapped' campaign is a great example of implementing a hyper-local cultural strategy, shedding light on the unexpected, by sharing with the audience music preferences and the surge in a song or album’s popularity during cultural milestones.

Similarly, this BMW commercial tells a beautiful story starring the popular virtual influencer Lil Miquela under the brand's “Forwardism” concept, creating a whole new imaginary concept to connect with a different audience. It demonstrates how car brands are evolving to engage with emerging cultural figures and their audiences.

With the introduction of electric cars, we’ve seen automobile brands exploring new means of communication to tap into fresh audiences. This shift is evident in Audi’s advertising campaigns featuring new emerging stars like Janelle Monáe or Regé-Jean Page, which can be seen as a form of "Cultural Collision," as Stefan Burford might term it.

What campaigns like these teach us, is that creativity can really change the trajectory of a brand. 

The task for creative directors like me is to have the ability to redefine how we perceive business problems, tapping into universal truths and harnessing the power of technology and real-time platforms to produce ground-breaking advertising. 

It's about more than just promoting a product; it's about creating moments and narratives that resonate deeply with the audience. We must continuously push the boundaries and seek inspiration from these exceptional campaigns, both past and present, to chart a course for the future of advertising.