Hey friend β Rob here. Look, sometimes i look at a piece of work and can immediately see the brief. This isn't even a bad thing! It's just that the purity of a thought is preserved in the work you see. Especially if it feels like a casual thought, that actually when properly dramatised can make waves. That's what Workday did in this case study. They got Bronze at the Cannes Lions Creative Effectiveness Awards. And it involves business software, plus... rockstars. Give yourself 5 minutes for this, that's all it will take. Let's go! How Workday turned customers into rockstarsπ¨ Problem Workday was operating in one of the sexiest categories ever. HR software! But no, the deeper problem was this: that's all they were known for. Which, in turn, limited growth in other segments like finance professionals. As a result, they were seeing a slower pipeline growth and struggling to expand their customer base. So they needed to break out of their niche reputation and widen their market appeal. β π€ Solution Everyone glorifies the CEOs of the world. No one glorifies HR, finance, or IT, not really. They're traditionally seen as unsexy, back-office executive functions. Even though their roles had been evolving for years as proper drivers of business growth. In a way, they were the rockstars no one talked about. So Workday decided to position them as the real stars of modern business. But they didn't just stop there, with a piece of language. No, they worked with actual rockstars to make the work stand out. Ozzy Osbourne. Joan Jett. Billy Idol. Gary Clark Jr. Paul Stanley. (If you're too young to get some of these references, hang in there, it will be ok). And together with this supergroup, they created a humorous ad that ran in the Super Bowl. βWhaddya know. An enterprise software brand with a sense of humour! This was then surrounded by social content. Vintage-style band posters. Rock iconography in print and OOH. All the Plus, they gave their 17,000 employees branded materials to amplify the message in every interaction. This allowed them to go from narrow, rational B2B messaging, to a wider, more emotional, fame-driven approach. But with all this riffing, did it work or what? β π€© Results Campaign
Brand
Business
And all because of what most of us might have perceived as a throwaway comment. "Our ideal customers are the real rockstars, if you think about it." I've worked in B2B software, this is literally a thing we say at the start of briefs. But it takes guts to grab the simplicity of this, commit to it, and then dramatise it to an extreme. And that, ultimately, is the job. Simplify the comms to a core thing to take away. (Also, i worked real hard to avoid doing a Keep It Simple Stupid [KISS] pun.) And then rock it out in the most eye-catching way possible. (But please, not with your c*ck out.) π€ That's all i've got for you today. Don't forget to join our private group. Appreciate your attention, Rob β
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Helping savvy strategists swim upstream.
Hey friend β Rob here. This is the last newsletter of the year, and goodness me what a year it's been. I was made redundant. I started a business. I lost my mother. I had my best year ever in terms of cash and confidence building. Ebbs and flows, eh? I hope you have a chance to take a break, genuinely turn off those notifications, and sleep in if you feel like it. I bring below 3x articles i wrote recently, and an event we're running in January. See you in 2025, and thanks for supporting...
Hey friend β Rob here. Here's what's been swimming around our brains lately: Synthesis-as-a-Service 5 things iβve learned from Theophilus Wells IV The question i ask whenever i open a book [Bonus!] Social strategy, deconstructed Grab a cup of caramel tea, and let's get into it. Synthesis-as-a-Service And why it may be an underrated use case for hiring independent strategists. 5 things iβve learned from Theophilus Wells IV Including directness, self-definition and why impostor syndrome is a...
Hey friend β Rob here. Do you worry about things? Or at all? My suspicion is that you worry far too much about everything. But don't worry, so do i. I think it's part of what makes strategists minimally good at the job. We are always wondering what else we might be missing. It's not a point of advantage, but it's definitely a point of parity. Worrying means we don't take anything for granted. And that's the first ingredient you need to challenge preconceptions about a problem. However. As you...