Purists can sometiiiimes look at digital brand marketers as metric-chasing madmen and women. Obsessed with that which can be measured, and not living up to the ideal of our ancestors.
And we can be.
But, that doesn’t mean we don’t love the brands that came before us. Or that we don’t appreciate the huge, intangibles of a brand.
The truth is, we’d love to do it too. To live in a world where brand and performance could be so divorced that the luxury of bringing a pure brand-only vision to life exists rampantly. So, in this little ode to marketing-past, I want to talk about a campaign that really connected with not just me, but the billion-odd folks of India.
Long before UGC became the buzzword, they hugely harnessed its power with the Meri Maggi campaign; a masterclass in tapping into a core consumer behavior and amplifying it to well and truly bake the product into our lives and cultural history.
The year was 2007, and as part of their 25-year anniversary in India; we saw the Meri Maggi campaign come to life to demonstrate how deeply entrenched Maggi has gotten into India’s habits and memories. They launched this as a contest inviting users to share their unique, weird, or wonderful recipes for the classic Maggi, with the payoff being the chance to feature in a Maggi campaign. They received an outpour of entries, and the activity culminated in a heartwarming ad campaign!
I think this was a masterstroke, and let me tell you specifically why and what I think worked,
Trend-spotting: A strong insight into organic user behaviour, meant that the emotional impact of the campaign was high. They understood well how people consume, customize, and community-eat their product, and the relatability landed strong.
Complete localization: As an international brand whose goal was to be part of the regular grocery basket - their campaign(s) made them more ‘Indian’ than many Indian brands have been successful at doing.
Impact multiplication: In a pre-social media virality era, the culmination of all content into the ad campaign meant that not only did they land engagement and advocacy amongst participants, but also huge amounts of goodwill amongst the viewers.
Widened audience: The showcasing of many ages, careers, situations, and types of consumption strongly communicated the message that Maggi is for anyone, at any time - not just a children’s 4 pm snack!
People-first: The same core psyche existed then and now - which is that people want to be part of a community, and something big. They could’ve just made the ad, but the contest made Indians part of the process!
And so, marketers old & new: we have more in common than we think. If you want to get together and talk brand, hit us up at meet@thebuildinc.com anytime!
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