I bet you haven't heard about this absolutely brilliant agency and yet they're the most awarded creative content agency in London. Well, they're my favorite for several reasons. Here they are in list form:
- They're bold
- They're impressionable
- They're engaging
- They tell stories
- As a result of #'s 1-4, their ads are really, really enjoyable
Advertisements, what a bore, am I right? FAST FORWARD PLEASE. When can I click skip? Turn it way down it until the music starts again.
Why don't people enjoy advertisements? Those 30 seconds represent hours and teams of creative people working together for weeks on end, interviewing potential audience members, figuring out how to approach them, bringing new ideas to life, making presentations full of drawings and color schemes and music and action, traveling to meetings with the client, taking into account their notes and basically starting over again until finally they have a finished product: 30 seconds that no one will watch. Why? Because it's really not that interesting. I'm sure your toothpaste really is more minty fresh than its competitor brand but I don't really care to know why. Really, I'm just going to go to the store when I run out and buy the exact same toothpaste I've been buying for years - it seems to do the job.
So how do you get people to watch your carefully crafted ads today? What if they wanted to watch it? What if the content was so interesting that not only did you actively want to watch it, but you were so excited by it that you showed it to your friends?
That's how Don't Panic London operates. For each ad they create, they ask themselves a simple question - would you share that? Genius. And like most good ideas it's grounded in simplicity.
People of all ages, backgrounds and professions love to hear a good story. I know I do. Even if I'm reading the world's most boring book if I've read the beginning and understand that there will be a middle and an end, I want to know what the end is. It's sort of like a different view of the marshmallow study in a way (although that theory is completely unrelated to this example) - even if you don't like marshmallows if you're sitting in a room with nothing else around and just a clock with the seconds ticking by, you're going to eat it. You're pretty sure you don't like marshmallows, but maybe this time you might and you're so tempted by that disgusting marshmallow just staring at you that the few potentially disappointing seconds when you're chewing doesn't even matter because you just want to know for sure that you still definitely don't like marshmallows...or maybe you do actually in which case eating the marshmallow was very rewarding. Either way - you're hell bent on finding out because you cannot live without knowing the truth! It's the same thing with long-form content - set it up so that there's a beginning, middle and an end and people will watch it from start to finish. Most of Don't Panic's ads are 60 seconds or longer.
Another thing, people aren't dumb so don't treat them like they are. Be bold with your language and messaging - speak to me like I would speak to my friends. We don't use corporate slogans and censured language with one another, instead we talk to each other normally. Ads should do the same.
And if you're going to take up some of my precious time, try to entertain me and genuinely convince me of your message. All of Don't Panic's ads have a call-to-action clear as day at the end. Go see this play, sign this petition, jump off a bridge, etc. The difference between their calls-to-action and a call-to-action in ads by other agencies is that in Don't Panic's I actually want to do it. I've been so engaged throughout the whole thing that I'm totally sold by the end of it.
Two of Don't Panic's ads in particular are extremely impressionable and engaging. These two:
I know what your immediate reaction was - "FUCK." Could you ask for a better reaction after watching an ADVERTISEMENT? And let's talk about the reception for these ads quickly.
If London were Syria:
- 52m+ YouTube views
- 920,000+ shares
- Save the Children YouTube Channel subscriptions rose by 1000%
- Twice featured on Reddit front page
Everything is NOT Awesome:
- 7.5m+ views
- 57k+ YouTube likes
- 150k+ Facebook and Twitter shares
- 680k+ petition signatures driven
- Lego (the most powerful corporation in the world) was forced to end its 50-year £68m partnership with Shell
These are real, meaningful ads with attitude and something to say. Here's a message to Don't Panic: I'm listening.