Your Way isn't your way

This is one advertising trope that just needs to stop.

Brand after brand confidently stating that their product or service allows people to do things their way.

These are just a few examples that I’ve seen in the last 12 months. It’s curious to explore why it’s so prevalent, it also shows how brands and agencies are not looking at other work out there.

Even internally at my agency, I’ve told teams about this trope, it still sometimes rears its head, like a weed. And it will often pop up on brands we work on, from other agencies, in live work.

I think clients like it as it feels like they’re giving customers control ‘at a time when people might feel out of control’. I can see that being an easy sell.

But it’s all a fallacy. It’s not ‘your way’, it’s ‘their way’. It’s their product, their service, their porridge. I’m going to them because (I hope) they’re the expert. I don’t want to go to Apple and have the iPhone ‘my way’. I want Apple’s iPhone, their way.

There’s also a whiff of ‘showing your briefs’ where what’s gone into a brief almost transposes itself into the creative with barely any disguise/nuance/emotion.

Only one brand earned the right to strategically include these words in their marketing, and that is Burger King. They originally used it to differentiate the brand from the market leader, McDonalds, and allow customers to create their burgers ‘their way’.

Link to my original Twitter/X post

adidas x Ultraboost DNA

The Brief

Creation of an overarching Ultraboost DNA Toolkit which creates a unified campaign across four differing colourways. Including Concept dev, design & copy, CGI production & toolkit rollout

The main point of interest to be communicated to consumers is the unique new colourways featured across the packs. As such, the creative should be visually striking in a way that directly relates to each pack.

The target audience is the modern sneaker-head, conscious consumer and sport x style amplifier with tailored concepts for each of them.

PACKS: Animal Print, Black White Noise, Ice Cream, Summer Cookout

Our Response

We wanted to have a conceptual layer that could unite the disparate colourways, which would allow each visual concept to be approached similarly, whilst still embracing the diversity in the look and feel of each colourway.

As each colourway was vibrant, we were inspired by a recent trend called Dopamine Dressing, where people were dressing to make themselves feel good through bold colours and expressive combinations. A perfect accompaniment to this Ultraboost pack.

Execution

We concepted four unique approaches intending to reflect how each shoe’s colourway would make you feel. Animal Print leant into the feeling of brushing your hand over the fur of an animal, Summer Cookout reflected that feeling of laying in the grass on a warm summer day as the mottled light from the sun peeks through the trees, White Noise was heavily inspired by the look of digital sound waves and finally Ice Cream showed a Wonkaesque dive into some bouncy ice creams.

Working with animation studio, Woodwork in Amsterdam, each animation was developed from 3D scans of each shoe and allowed for a more immersive look and feel overall.

Animal Print Colourway

Summer Cookout Colourway

White Noise Colourway

Ice Cream Colourway

Each colourway mocked up in the adidas app

adidas Originals - CRM & APP Campaigns

adidas Originals release multiple products and collections each month, which require communication concepts to run on the adidas website, mobile app and through email/CRM to drive awareness and sales.

Each brief will typically just have the generic catalogue product imagery (as below), with no campaign photography, design, copy or animation.

The challenge is to create a concept through copy, design and animation, to bring these campaigns to life.
They need to reflect the tone and spirit of the products whilst standing out from the noise, expressing product features or benefits and reflect the brand in a premium and creative way in order to capture audiences attention and drive them to explore further

Here is a selection from the second half of 2021…

adidas - Digital Gift Cards

BRIEF

adidas wanted to update the look and feel of their gift cards, as well as the corresponding marketing materials that promote the gift cards on their channels. They tasked us with developing a scaleable design system alongside promotional materials.

APPROACH

After researching competitors and adidas’ own data, we felt that in addition to the main branded cards, we should create cards that carried personal messages as well as a new design approach to all the adidas sponsored football teams.

The main branded cards were updated to correct brand guidelines for sizing and placement, alongside backgrounds inspired by the brand and products. The Originals card simply uses the brand blue with a subtle gradient, whilst the performance card was inspired by the pattern of the soles of adidas shoes.

Updated brand cards

We wanted to create more options for people to send relevant messages, for personal or professional purposes, so building on the successful ‘Happy Birthday’ gift card, we created a system that would allow for other sentiments.

Finally, for the football cards, we referenced a campaign we created earlier in the year for adidas, where we embraced the patterns and textures of each adidas football team jersey to promote a new ‘pastel pack’ release for Man Utd, Arsenal, Juventus and Bayern Munich.

Arsenal Pastel Pack masthead

Final Gift Cards - Brand, Pride, Parley, Personal Messages & Football Clubs

Promo
We then created promotional material featuring the new cards, to be used across adidas’ own channels, including social.

Promo Film for Social

Johnnie Walker 200th Anniversary

Creative & Creative Director

Concepted and led execution of four films to promote four new exclusive releases from Johnnie Walker to celebrate their 200th Anniversary. The films were used across social channels globally to promote the new products.

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