Old News

Getting to great work starts and ends with a trusting and collaborative relationship.

The most memorable modern marketing campaigns (the Geico Gecko or Progressive’s Flo come to mind) are the ones that play off relatable, human interactions and remind audiences a bit of themselves. These and other popular advertising mascots show us that, behind the brands we trust, there are people with personalities and ambitions just like us, and we bond with them emotionally.

But one-on-one connection (simulated or otherwise) doesn’t just play a role in the final commercial, print ad or radio spot; it’s a crucial tenet across the entire marketing lifecycle. Great business is built on strong and trusted client-account relationships that form with time, patience and dedication.

In my 20-plus years in account-based work, I’ve found that behind every award-winning marketing campaign is an account team that’s committed to maintaining a healthy and collaborative relationship with the client.

Here are six relationship-based approaches every account team should take toward delivering top-notch work for clients.

1. Communicate and over-communicate.

Nothing leads to a great relationship than clear communication. If everyone understands each client request, its individual components and the implementation plan, the resulting product will be more cohesive and powerful.

Consider Commander’s Intent, a military principle by which leaders outline the who, what, when, where and why (five W’s) of a mission’s execution plan. While your approach to team-based organization may differ slightly, the longstanding success of Commander’s Intent demonstrates the usefulness of detail-oriented planning and communication.

Communication also enables deepened personal relationships with the client, making them to feel seen and appreciated for their vision and goals. This requires patience (it took months to break through to one of my most demanding former clients), but the quality content and friendships that result are well worth it.

2. Keep an open mind.

Great ideas can come from anywhere. Whether a spectacular vision for a marketing campaign comes from you, the client or the most junior member of your account team, don’t ignore it, especially based on seniority. It may just become your client’s next great claim to fame.

3. Be detail oriented.

Details are the backbone of any successful process. Account leaders should take the time to develop and implement protocols and tools for every team member, so that even the minutiae of a client-facing project are fully addressed. From holding kickoff meetings, briefs and check-ins to setting deadlines and conducting follow-ups, each step in the process pays dividends when executed well.

4. Stay positive.

Not every marketing project can be award-worthy, but it’s an account leader’s job to believe it can be and look for ways to make it so. By showing enthusiasm, providing the tools and language needed to succeed and removing team members’ barriers to success, leaders create an environment most likely to foster greatness.

Even when a client gives undesirable feedback or a final product doesn’t remotely resemble its far superior storyboard, take the challenge or disappointment as a learning opportunity. The lesson learned will ultimately fuel the quality of your next piece of creative or content.

5. Build trust.

Keeping a client up to speed on the agency team’s every development ensures nobody is left in the dark, waiting to be delivered a product that’s vastly different than what was initially pitched. Meanwhile, providing clear expectations for team members and welcoming all questions, doubts and requests for help creates trust on the account side. The best work happens when even the most outlandish ideas can be freely and comfortably shared.

6. Be honest and direct.

Don’t be overly sensitive or cautious with your feedback — we’re all adults, so let’s treat each other that way. Understanding one another’s priorities, even if those priorities clash at first, is the first step toward aligning the client’s goals with that of the account team.

And if someone in your charge delivers sub-par work, the most helpful response is always constructive criticism, never disingenuous praise. Otherwise, you put the quality of the final product — and thus the client relationship — at risk.

Getting great work can seem increasingly complex with so many marketing tools and tactics at your disposal, but it can and should be pretty simple by following these steps. While it’s the account team’s responsibility, every agency team member — creative, strategy, media, etc. — can apply these key principles to improve outcomes and outputs of any client relationship. After all, we’re all in this together.

The 2022 Super Bowl featured two unexpected teams that reinvented themselves and evolved throughout the season to get to the big game. Similar to the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals, businesses looking to take advantage of the hype around this perennial celebration of broadcast advertising prowess approached this year a little differently, operating with a greater level of intentionality to make sure their message reached their target audience. And with the price for a :30 spot crescendoing this year at a cool $6.5 million, it’s no wonder big brands took the time to ensure they were leveraging their media dollars in the most strategic and effective ways.

Below, we have outlined some of the most prevalent themes and highlighted an ad or two that we feel did an exemplary job of following through on the execution of each.

Not Joining the Party

Sometimes the best move is not to play at all. That’s what Hyundai thought at least. Given timing uncertainty around whether the Ioniq 5 would be on the market in time for the game, the longtime Super Bowl advertiser opted to stretch beyond the edges of the nearly 4-hour telecast with several smart tactical moves. While it still produced two smart (and epic) spots – check out History of Evolution – with familiar brand spokesman Jason Bateman, it was able to leverage the NFL playoffs and consumer focus on ads during the big game to its advantage.

In the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, the brand focused its media relations message about the decision to sit out, citing the need to balance its marketing priorities. Being based in Los Angeles (where the Super Bowl was held) and leveraging its existing sponsorships with both the NFL and SoFi Stadium, the brand opted for OOH (Out of Home) paired with a product placement on the ABC sitcom Black-ish.

Know Your Audience – Part I. Millennials

Although Gen Z commands much of the silver screen these days, there is still a fervor within the advertising world to engage with the juggernaut generation: millennials. No brand capitalized on that opportunity more than Expedia during the big game.

A core value of most millennials is valuing experiences over possessions or purchases, so in Expedia’s Stuff spot, they cast Ewan McGregor to speak specifically to this sentiment. Over the :60 piece, Ewan poses a philosophical question around consumerism and the impact of those items on our legacy…setting the brand up as the hero that can provide its audience with the things that matter.

In addition to speaking directly and effectively to their audience, Expedia also hit the nail on the head by capturing the anguish that many of their prospective clients may be feeling from not being able to travel freely during the pandemic, strengthening an already persuasive message.

Know Your Audience – Part II. Gen X

No, the Super Bowl advertisers haven’t forgotten about you, Gen Xers. In fact, this demographic was the main target in what most are viewing as the best ad of the 2022 Super Bowl. The spot that sits atop this throne is Dream House with Anna Kendrick and Barbie from Rocket Mortgage.

Just as Expedia tapped into a core value for many millennials, Rocket Mortgage crafted a message that struck the nostalgia chord for Generation X and also spoke to a relevant topic most in that demographic are familiar with: how gosh-darn-it to buy a house these days.

As USA Today commented, the brand left “no stone veneer uncovered,” attempting to solidify its top ad position from several angles. By casting Anna Kendrick as a celebrity spokesperson (and having her tweet consistently in the lead-up to and during the game) and pairing her charm with a comedic, yet realistic view of the current housing market, Rocket Mortgage was able to ring the pop culture gong in their :60 spot and keep them talking long after the game had ended. Another lead-up activity included an Easter egg listing on the Rocket Homes site, and then the brand brought it home at the end of its spot with a fixer-upper castle on the Homes sub brand.

Going Beyond

More so than in years past, advertisers focused on how to expand their messaging through third screen experiences. From omnichannel offers to in-app experiences and contests, brands wanted to leverage their audiences’ fractured attention spans to capture engagement in as many places as they could.

No Super Bowl advertiser did that better than Coinbase with their bouncing, multi-colored, screensaver-esque QR code. Also making a nostalgia play that harkened back to prestreaming DVD days, Coinbase’s low production spot (whose simplicity was shocking unto itself) paired the gamification of chasing the moving target with a contest tie-in. And other brands took notice…quickly and comedically playing off the messaging.

(Captain Morgan was one such brand that shortly after tweeted out a black screen with a floating Captain Morgan logo bouncing around and changing colors à la the Coinbase QR code.)

While not necessarily a fan favorite, Coinbase’s ad has drummed up a lot of excitement and their success is quantifiable. Curious internet sleuths quickly broke down just how successful the ad was in the first day since it aired.

Ad Cost: $14M

• 117,000,000 people watched the spot

• 20% scanned the QR code (The site had 20M visits in the first minute)
• 10% signed up
• 20% linked their bank account – which equates to ~500K new customers

500K new customers are worth a lot to Coinbase. But exactly how much?

According to their last quarterly report, the average customer generates $90 in revenue per year. If the customers who came from the Super Bowl spot are even 50% as valuable, then we can assume $45 of annual revenue from each. 500,000 new users x $45 = $22.5 million. That certainly covers the cost of the spot, and then some.

Creative Spotlight

In lieu of a fifth theme, we opted to highlight one of our Creative Director’s favorite spots from the Super Bowl, a throwback to his childhood, in Irish Spring’s Welcome to Irish Spring.

Over the decades Irish Spring, a very utilitarian consumer packaged good, has always been unabashedly over-the-top, even stereotypical, with its “Irishness” and laser focus on getting you clean and smelling fresh. Their first foray into Super Bowl advertising is no different. But they’ve taken it one step further. Along with their nod to the Emerald Isle and hyper focus on the importance of smelling fresh, they’ve added a cult, led by a white rabbit, that believes in ridding the world of all things smelly. The result is a twisted and funny touch of spring.

The Bottom Line

While Super Bowl spots are an opportunity for brands to briefly steal the spotlight from one of the nation’s most-watched annual broadcasts, smart advertisers are using the moment to extend beyond :30 or :60, attempting to form authentic connections with their most important audiences and sustain that electricity well past Sunday.

Last year, Dotted Line began taking steps to expand beyond its business-to-business (B2B) marketing foothold and deepen its business-to-consumer (B2C) portfolio. And when Associate Creative Director Mitchell Jordan and I hopped aboard in January, we came equipped with ideas to help Dotted Line make a real name for itself in B2C.

One of our first steps was to demonstrate the agency’s knack for consumer-facing work by taking on several strategic pro bono projects. Mine and Mitchell’s partnership began several years before joining Dotted Line, where we worked on several grassroot creative campaigns, including an award-winning poster campaign for King of Pops, so that felt like a natural starting point. Beyond the obvious promotional incentive for the recipient, pro bono campaigns also offer creative marketers the opportunity to gain attention, attract clients and indulge in creative output that fuels the agency.

For our first pro bono creative campaign with Dotted Line, we pitched Scoop, a small-batch ice cream shop in The Fan of Richmond. (After a popsicle-based campaign, ice cream seemed like the logical next step). Dotted Line Account Director Christie Hach knew one of the shop’s employees, which helped us get our foot in the door. From there, we collaborated on, tinkered, went back to the drawing board several times and ultimately delivered a campaign as unique as their ice cream for the brand to feature on social media.

Scoop loved the final product and began sharing the new visuals online earlier this month. But beyond that success, our pro bono project was a real-world example of several of our agency’s key virtues. By exhibiting creative ingenuity, off-the-clock ambition and a bold embrace of fun, our Scoop campaign demonstrates the spirit of Dotted Line and hopefully gives other marketing professionals something to think about.

In-house innovation

While a contracted client would typically expect us to deliver a product that adheres to a set of previously established standards, our partnership with Scoop was a little different. We approached the company and said, “This is something we would like to do for you — money isn’t an object.” This less formal relationship allowed Mitchell and me to flex our creative muscles a little more and jump off from Scoop’s established visual identity to create something eye-catching and unique.

Since the shop first opened several years ago, its social media content has largely consisted of two-dimensional imagery, a pastel color scheme and close-up photography highlighting its frozen treats. This strategy has clearly been successful, earning the brand more than 12,000 Instagram followers and considerable levels of engagement.

But we wanted their images to take on a singular visual language of their own — not just for the sake of being different, but to parallel the uniqueness of many of Scoop’s culinary concoctions. (The menu features such flavor choices as “sweet corn and blackberry” and “strawberry-hibiscus sorbet.”) We opted to pair an eccentric visual sensibility with messaging that would promote Scoop ice cream as a rescue for hot weather — which turned out to be a fitting choice for this sweltering summer.

Our team eventually landed on visuals that blended photographs of Scoop ice cream with sunny outdoor landscapes as well as quirky, even psychedelic visual frills, topped off with punchy messages like “Treat the Heat.” Aside from photos of the Scoop product itself, everything in the frame was produced in-house, including photographs by Dotted Line Production Designer John DiJulio. This display of creativity is, we hope, a testament to our creative team’s range of skills and “let’s have some fun,” do-it-yourself spirit. But to see just how dedicated we were to the project, one must look beyond the final product.

Initiative, self-improvement and the extra mile

As our previous pro bono campaign earned us awards attention (including two Gold Cannonballs from the Advertising Club of Richmond) and inclusion in industry publications, Mitchell and I already knew that some of the most attention-worthy marketing work isn’t necessarily contracted. By taking on a creative side project to help put Dotted Line on the B2C map, we embodied the value of creating one’s own opportunities in the marketing space — even if those opportunities aren’t necessarily billable.

While we weren’t held to a concrete deadline (another plus of pro bono work), we wanted the campaign to come together by summer’s end so the weather-based messaging would remain effective. One early idea for the campaign involved engaging consumers in an online and in-store cups-versus-cones debate. Another involved close-ups of people eating ice cream while sporting face mask-shaped tan lines — which hit the cutting room floor when Virginia dialed back its COVID-19 mask mandates.

We could have gone with the first idea that came to mind, but a drive to refine the Scoop campaign to its best possible version kept Mitchell and me cranking. This ambition ultimately earned our product a spot in Scoop’s social media feed — and exemplified the extra-mile mentality that fuels all of Dotted Line’s output.

A feel for fun

While promoting Dotted Line and Scoop was our primary impetus, we were especially driven to take on the pro bono campaign because we simply enjoyed the work and the Scoop product. Passion projects with increased creative freedom serve as a reminder that — as Mitchell puts it — we marketers are “pretty lucky to do what we do for a living.” He and I also kept the rest of the Dotted Line staff up to speed on the creative campaign, and their enjoyment while watching the project unfold only motivated us further.

Even if it sounds paradoxical at first, having fun with creative marketing projects is a time commitment. It took us time to stretch our brains and stimulate our creative juices so that the product could embody the whimsy and spirit it was meant to evoke. You can’t come up with a graphic featuring an old-timey zeppelin, unicorn balloon animal, parrot and garden gnome all congregated around a cup of ice cream on the beach without having a good time.

Our creative team and the rest of the Dotted Line family bring innovation, ambition and enjoyment to every task — whether on or off the books. By employing these attitudes, creative marketers can both foster their own growth and deliver the most effective possible product for their client. If that’s the mentality you seek in your own marketing strategy, we’re here to create exponential impact for your business. Click here to contact us.