Lynx encourage men to embrace their individuality in their new global campaign, as they aim to broaden their appeal to a more mature consumer.

In this bold repositioning strategy, Lynx has abandoned their iconic tagline, "The Lynx Effect", in an effort to attract the older male to their brand.

Most would agree that the notion of ‘The Lynx effect’ is a bit dated. While over the years we have enjoyed watching “the geek get the girl”, it has all become a little bit, for want of a better word, samey. "The Lynx effect" has now become more associated with one's fantasies, as opposed to one's aspirations. 

The modern metro-sexual male is no longer preoccupied with being the “lad’s lad” or “a babe magnet”, leaving the brand out of touch even with hormone driven teenage boys. The sexual binaries that were prevalent in the early 90’s are no more. The lines have become blurred. In today’s society Lynx's stereotypical appeals to notions of masculinity no longer resonate.

So how does Lynx shake off their old image and re-establish itself as a modern brand, designed for the modern man?

After ending a 20 yearlong partnership with ad agency BBH, this task has fallen to 72andsunny Amsterdam. The latter is now charged with masterminding the deodorant's new advertising and rebranding strategy. In line with their brand makeover, Unilever (the parent company) have launched a new range of grooming products for men. 

The packaging of the range, designed by PB Creative, reflects a better quality, more sophisticated product, well the advertising campaign echoes modern society's emphasis on individuality. Lynx want to encourage men to be comfortable in their own skin  - oh, with a little help from Lynx products..naturally.

So, why the sudden change? Well, nothing beats a good bit of old fashioned market research. 

The repositioning was borne out of their independent research that found that not only do women overwhelmingly find men more appealing when they are “being themselves” but also that only 15% of men in most countries would define themselves as attractive - ummm wasn’t that the same bit of insight that spawned Dove’s Real Women campaign?

Anyway, Lynx used these finding to build a new strategy hence the tagline “Find Your Magic.” The campaign shows that guys will get the girl by being themselves and while urgung the 85% of men who don’t believe they are attract to think differently about themselves. I guess Christian Aguilera had already patented “You are beautiful no matter what they say.”

As Stephanie Feeney, director of strategy at 72andSunny Amsterdam, puts it,  “Masculinity has changed”. It is now socially acceptable for guys to express themselves individually with their clothes, music, and hair (thanks Becks). And this campaign is representative of the modern man.  Now, while a comparison to Dove’s Like A Girl or Sports England’s “This Girl Can” on the empowerment front would be tenuous - the humour in the ad softens the impactfulness of the underlying message, and arguably making it too serious would take away one of brand's playfulness - it is still a ballzy call for men to be themselves while reassuring them that being themselves is still attractive. Or as Stephanie Feeney so eloquently explains,

“Where we’re trying to move the brand towards a celebration of individuality...whatever your thing is, as long as it’s true to you, then be confident in it, express it, and work it!”

In short, I am with 72andSunny Amsterdam Managing Director Nic Owen when he says that he is glad to help the brand move away from its crude “spray-and-get-laid advertising.”

This ad speaks for itself. What a brilliant piece of creative work.

Creative agency Sunshine have been appointed by BBC Three to help them make the transition from a traditional on-air broadcasting channel to an exclusively online platform.

Sunshine have collaborated with the writers and stars of BBC Three comedy ‘People Just Do Nothing' to produce a series of sixty-second comedic spots that will play out across BBC channels.

With the channel's 16-34 year-old audience firmly in mind, the first part this three-stage campaign is a video featuring‘People Just Do Nothing’ very own Chabuddy G telling the nation that “BBC Three isn’t closing, it’s moving to the interwebs.”

Sunshine's Executive Creative Director Hollie Newton explains the logic behind this unorthodox comedic approach:

“There’s no point hitting people with a mountain of straight information. If you want an audience to take in multiple messages, you have to entertain them. Make them laugh."

Share in the laughs below!

As the saying goes,"Life is too short." So in the midst of all the January health ads pandering to our best intentions for the New Year, it's refreshing to see an ad that accepts the fact that we are only human. As Lucky Generals (who created the ad) puts it "You shouldn't have to live like a monk."

Yes, on January 1st we all did say "I am going to walk to work"/"I am going to go to the gym 5 times a week"/ "No more junk food for me". 

But let's face facts;

1. It rains quite a bit in the UK. 

2. The gym is very busy Mon-Wed so it is better to go on the weekend.

3. We all love a cheeky kebab on a night out.

We all want to be healthy but at the same time we all like a treat from time to time. And that is what I love about this ad, it recognises that fact and makes light of it with the tagline "Be A Bit Good"! 

Besides, Popchips are only have half the fat of regular crisps so I can easily incorporate a couple of packets into my new healthy diet......right?

HM Revenue & Customs have been using social media and out of home adverts to spread messages of 'inner peace'  as part of a new marketing campaign to get self-assessment tax forms filed ahead of the January 31 deadline. 

The advert plays on the fact that tax returns can be very stressful and big headache for the self employed. There are a lot of tasks that we push back, "I will doing it next week", and tax tops that list. 

This campaign serves a friendly reminder that even though it can be boring, hard and very time consuming, once it is done it is a massive weight off your shoulders.

It can't decide whether this just pure tongue in cheek and good fun, or a bit too blatant?

What do you think?

In an effort to capitalise on January's healthy living phenomenon, Virgin Active have join the countless other gyms in vying for your membership. 

But instead trying to compete on price points. Yawn. Virgin are taking a smarter approach.

Focusing on the reasons why people go to the gym, instead of why people should chose their gym, this new campaign adopts a truly customer-centric perspective.

The vast majority of us go to gym "just to stay healthy", so we can keep do all the activities that we love. It more about staying in shape than looking good in the mirror.

Virgin has picked up on this subtle but important insight, to create the "we have got an exercise for that" campaign. This presents the use of their gyms as way to keep you doing your favourite activities. 

Instead on focusing on the gym itself, this campaign focuses on the users and what really matters to them. And that certainly isn't whether Virgin Active has the latest running machine!

People want to stay fit so they can play with their children, go on adventure holidays or going skiing in bunny outfits...... well some of us anyway. 

The reality is people would rather spend time doing the things they love then hours and hours in the gym. The only reason we go to the gym for an hour or so every other day is so we can keep the doctor away. Therefore, the gym is a means to an end, a fact that Virgin Active knows and embraces!

Aviva has launched a new app that monitors your driving skills. The point of the app is that once you’ve driven 200 miles, you’ll get an individual driving score out of 10. Safer drivers scoring 7.1 or more could save an average of £150 on Aviva car insurance.


Pretty boring stuff right? Wrong.

The new app is being promoted on the basis of playful rivalry; whether that be between the family, partners, the sexes or the counties. For example, taglines like; 
"Who are the safest drivers, county or city folk" are plastered across the out of home material.

The television campaign, the first execution of Aviva's new ‘good thinking’ global brand strategy, features a family from Newport using the Aviva app to discover who is the safest driver. 

The next instalment of the campaign revealed which member of the Newport family won the driving challenge.  And a final instalment will highlight how by sharing their score with Aviva, customers can lower their premiums. 

The use of a real family, the story, and the interactive nature of this campaign has turned a bog standard marketing tool into the next Angry Birds. Okay, maybe not. But it has certainly got people downloading it with over 50,000 downloads in the first week. 

In recent times we have seen the success of "storyboard" adverts, with the most successful being Compare The Market's -"Compare The Meerkats." True, this will never last that long but the use of a likeable, relateable family helps audiences connect with the adverts and makes them more receptive to what is being advertised. Furthermore by focusing on the rivalry, as opposed to the app itself, makes the app seem as a fun tool to settle some long standing debates, not a means to get you to sign up to Aviva car insurance. 

The Aviva's marketing team and Adam&Eve,who created the ad, have created a campaign and app that is not only engaging but has successful effected consumer behaviour. Aviva has created an app that is not just functional i.e banking apps but thats also fun! Aviva understands that digital offerings should not be seen as supplementary, but as something that is really important on the customer journey.

Aviva wants to be a "digital first" company as it rolls out more online services.  As Aviva UK & Ireland customer marketing director Lindsay Forster explains,

"In the way we market and promote the brand we will be far more digitally-orientated". 

With the success of this current app and their plans for the future, Aviva is set to be front runners in the digital space!

Always the pioneer when it comes to their marketing strategy (Glocalistaion- "The World's local bank"), HSBC have incorporated social media as a central part of their #StartsToday campaign.

#StartsToday is about helping you achieve your ambitions with a range of products and new offers to help you get your aspirations off the ground. Using Instagram style pictures accompanied with an explanatory hashtag, HSBC wants people to visualise their aspirations for the future in way that is familiar to them.  

January is notoriously the time when our hopes and dreams for the coming year are at the forefront of our mind. So when everyone is looking for a mean to achieve their goals, HBSC steps in to  offer a solution in the form of their #Startstoday campaign. Two small words, but two words that hold so much weight at this time of year.

The use of simple, relatable images with limited text is also refreshing. All to often ads for the banking sector heavily feature numbers and percentages that by enlarge mean nothing to the average passer by. 

By using familiar images allows the viewer to interpret their meaning on a personal level which in turns helps them to connect with the ad more. Furthermore, the use of images that do not specifically relate to banking i.e running shoes allows HSBC to be associated with more than just money, it becomes associated with ones lifestyle.

All in all, a very good campaign.

Breaking a habit or changing established behaviour is a notoriously difficult task. So not just encourage it?

Everyone falls victim to that impulse buy from time to time. Most of this type of buying is done on the internet and Amazon is one of main places people go to practice this vice. This campaign, therefore, encourages such behaviour.

Using humour as its main tool, it shows the act as less naughty and more 'normal'. It seemingly justifies impulse buying as logical and natural, while highlighting how their easy-to-use shopping app can help you impulse buy to your hearts content.

Lucky Generals created the two ads for a campaign. Each of the spots shows an Amazon customer being reminded of an item on their shopping list and then using the app to buy it. But this could just as easily be random item that just comes to mind that you had intention of buying.

It is truly a great campaign, but when we can't pay the rent at the end of the month we all know who to blame!

As part of the their #loveyourimperfections campaign, Match.com continue to help reduce our apprehensions about online dating. 

Online dating services are plagued with profiles that represent an individuals "ideal self" as opposed their actual self. The ideal is a person's conception of how she/he would like to be, whereas the actual self refers to our more realistic appraisal of the qualities we or don't have. So someone who goes to the gym 2-3 times a week, will say that they go 5 times, someone who is 5 9" has an online double which is 4 inches taller, and so on and so on. 

It is quite understandable that people want to portray themselves in the best possible light and that can lead to a slight exaggeration of the truth. But with all the the cat fishing scandals of the noughties people are losing confidence with online dating. Singles don't want to spends and hours and hours getting to know someone and falling in love with that individuals online persona only to find out that their prince/princess is really a frog in real life.

But it isn't only the threat of people pretending to be something they're not. The ubiquitous nature of these inflated profiles means that people feel anxious about putting their "real" self out there for fear of judgement. That's were the #loveyourimperfections campaign comes in. This refreshing strategy uses this consumer insight to make a campaign which reflects brutal truth.  It warns off the fakes and encourages people to be themselves online.

It tells prospective users the simple truth- None of us our perfect. But that does not mean there is not beauty to be found in our imperfections. This is reflected in the latest out of home material which are simple, uses real users (blemishes and all) and has a witty little imperfection plastered across it.

The #loveyourimperefction is positioning Match.com as: The online dating service were singles can meet "real" individuals, not profiles. Hey, thats a pretty good tagline wouldn't you say?

Very simple play on words, but I love it!

Eager to capitalise on the January's healthy living phenomenon which typical sees an uplift in green tea sales in the first month of the year, Clipper hope to attract new “considerers” as well as existing green tea drinkers to the brand.

The New Year Revolutions campaign will seek to encourage consumers to “turn over a new leaf” in 2016, and combines an outdoor and transport campaign with a playful online video, shot using hidden videos inside Clipper’s 'Truthful Green Tea Shop.'

The outdoor campaign is expected to reach 90% of adults across London and the South East during January. The YouTube video will be shared extensively through the use of bloggers and social media. It is hoped that more than a million people to watch the video during the course of this year.

The campaign was developed and created by Big Fish. The online video was produced and filmed by Exposure.

Personally, I still need to add a little honey to my green tea, but hey, each to their own.

The image of a malnourished, barefoot, african toddler collecting dirty water or searching through rubbish for food, does not have the same effect on us as it would've 10 years ago.

Sad, but true.

That is not to say it doesn't break out hearts. But its no longer enough for us to reach into our pockets to help fund the solution.

The simple fact it is that every charity has uses this image and the proliferation of such images has resulted in the vast majority of those who are in a position to help have become desensitised or no longer believe that their money makes a real difference.

There in lies the brilliance of this new campaign. It focuses on the positives and want You have already achieved!

So how did the do it?

Firstly, it starts with a positive message. All to often we see these type of appeals start with horrific images, and that's makes us do two things. Switch channels or switch off. This campaign starts by saying "The countdown to ending extreme poverty has begun."This immediately indicates to the viewer that this is not the usual charity appeal and worth working to see why.

Secondly, the novel use of real British donaters, with whom the viewer can relate, makes them at feel that they too can be part of this larger project. Unlike the traditionally ads which only shows the aid workers contribution this add shows all the contributors. Aid workers, donators and the impoverished people themselves are all seen to be working together to eradicate the disease of extreme poverty.  Seeing thus people who you helping, helping themselves is also 

Finally, It has long been proven that we love to feel part of the collective. And for many years now advertisers have used social marketing messages that involve call to action that makes you seem part of group. An example of this would be: "Join your fellow citizens in helping keeping these streest clean" instead of " Help keep these street clean." Believing that you adopting the behaviour the majority makes you more willing to participate in the activity. This is the technique that oxfam are using here. They are inviting you to join the countless others who are doing their part in eradicating poverty in a way that shows that you can really make a difference.

Sign me up!