Ged Carroll

Category: branding | 品牌推廣 | 브랜드 마케팅 | ブランディング

The dictionary definition of branding is the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design.

I have covered many different things in branding including:

  • Genesis – the luxury Korean automotive brand
  • Life Bread – the iconic Hong Kong bread brand that would be equivalent of wonder loaf in the US
  • Virgil Abloh and the brand collaborations that he was involved in
  • Luxury streetwear brands
  • Burger King campaigns with Crispin Porter Bogusky
  • Dettol #washtocare and ‘back to work’ campaigns
  • Volkswagen ‘see the unseen’ campaign for its Taureg off road vehicle
  • SAS Airline – What is truly Scandinavian?
  • Brand advertising during Chinese New Year (across China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia)
  • Lovemarks as a perspective on branding
  • BMW NEXTGen event and Legend of Old McLanden campaign
  • Procter & Gamble’s Gillette toxic masculinity ads
  • Kraft Mother’s Day campaign
  • Kraft Heinz brand destruction
  • Porsche Design in the smartphone space
  • Ermenegildo Zegna
  • Nike’s work with Colin Kaepernick
  • Counterfeit brands on Instagram, Alibaba and Amazon
  • Gaytime Indonesian ice cream
  • Western Digital
  • Louis Vuitton collaboration with Supreme
  • Nokia
  • Nike Korea’s ‘Be Heard’ campaign
  • Mercedes SLS coupe campaign
  • Brand collaborations in Hong Kong
  • Beats headphones
  • Apple
  • Henrion Ludlow Schmidt’s considerations of branding
  • Cathay Pacific
  • Bosch
  • Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid
  • Microsoft Surface launch
  • Oreo Korean campaign
  • Chain coffee shop brands and branding
  • Samsung’s corporate brand
  • North Face’s brand overeach in South Korea
  • Mr Pizza Korean pizza restaurant and delivery service brand
  • Amoy Hong Kong food brand
  • Chevrolet Corvette ‘roar’ campaign promoting a build your own car service

  • Luxury wellness

    The rise of luxury wellness comes down to a convergence of different factors that have reshaped both the luxury and wellness industries.

    • Products ain’t what they used to be
    • Existing high-end health and luxury wellness
    • Luxury wellness and consumer behaviours
    • Wellness has become blended with health, providing opportunities for luxury brands.
    • GLP-1 changed everything

    Products ain’t what they used to be

    Before we dive into luxury wellness, it’s helpful to understand where the luxury industry stands at the moment. The strategies that have worked since the early 1980s now seem to have come unstuck. To make sense of this shift, it’s worth reviewing the past and current landscape.

    The new luxury

    There’s a perception (which I believe is largely false) that the traditional attributes of luxury have fallen by the wayside. Scarcity, quality, craftsmanship, design, and heritage are thought to no longer matter.

    A classic example of this viewpoint is Jaguar’s attempt to discard its heritage and reinvent itself as something new. I would argue that while Jaguar may have been prestigious in automotive terms, it was never truly a luxury brand. Jaguars suffered from quality issues that should not have occurred, and they struggled in the premium segment of the market, remaining loss-making for years. Whether or not Jaguar will succeed in transforming into an electric competitor to Rolls-Royce remains to be seen.

    Another aspect to consider is how global supply chains can now deliver products of comparable quality to those made by artisans. I have a bit more sympathy for this viewpoint. However, these global supply chains were originally trained to act as subcontractors for luxury brands that pursued massification, cutting quality standards along the way.

    Consumers seem to undergo a ‘luxury maturity journey’. This journey is accelerating in certain markets. What Japan experienced over 30 years, China went through in just 10. Countries like Thailand are even moving through this journey faster. Over time, consumers in these markets have begun to move away from obvious logos and status symbols to place greater value on quality and experiences. This shift partly explains why quiet luxury is gained traction around the world.

    In countries like China and India, local artisans and ateliers are highly appreciated. This shift means that historic luxury brands are likely to face disruption, just as other sectors have been transformed by Chinese firms. And this is happening at a time when many luxury brands are becoming less ‘luxurious’ by opting for a global mass-market approach.

    The pioneer in this approach was fashion designer Pierre Cardin.

    Pioneer Pierre Cardin

    Luxury went downmarket through licensing, a strategy pioneered by fashion designer Pierre Cardin. In the early 1970s, he saw the potential of licensing, recognising that the demand for goods bearing a fashionable name presented a lucrative opportunity. Cardin’s insight was that luxury goods, in the post-war economic boom, were no longer only for the ultra-wealthy but also for the middle class. His brand signed over 850 agreements in 140+ countries, covering everything from clothing and accessories to furniture, household products, cars, and fragrances.

    The ubiquity of Pierre Cardin products diluted scarcity, quality, and blurred the brand story. He later repeated this process with French restaurant Maxim’s, demonstrating that luxury was as much about experience as it was about the product.

    1981 Evolution I by Pierre Cardin

    When you could buy a Pierre Cardin wallet or suitcase from Argos, what did it say about you? It certainly wasn’t a great status symbol. Other brands, like Ralph Lauren, did a better job of choosing their licensees.

    LVMH leads the way

    Bernard Arnault supercharged a formula for Louis Vuitton that Henry Racamier had pioneered when he built out an international network of Louis Vuitton-owned boutiques, including Tokyo and Osaka, Japan by 1978.

    Racamier’s formula consisted of two parts:

    • Louis Vuitton sold to the middle class as well as the very wealthy.
    • Louis Vuitton controlled its products route to market offering control over the experience, premium pricing and perceived aspects of scarcity.

    For the next four decades, LVMH went on a remarkable growth trajectory, acquiring luxury and beauty brands, duty-free retail, and even hotels. LVMH rode the rise of Japan, up to the end of the bubble economy, then moved on to Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong. China’s luxury market skyrocketed when the country joined the WTO, solidifying its place in the global economy.

    The United States continued to be a steady consumer of luxury products.

    During the 1990s, French retailer Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR), now known as Kering, began replicating LVMH’s success, starting its own luxury conglomerate with the acquisition of Gucci in 1999. Meanwhile, Richemont acquired a number of legacy luxury brands as an adjunct to its predecessor’s tobacco business in the early 1990s and then continued to build.

    The internet expanded access to luxury products through multi-brand retailers like Net-A-Porter and Farfetch, driving significant growth. These online retailers competed with top-tier department stores like Bon Marché, Lane Crawford, and Harrods, who slowly built up their e-commerce capabilities.

    Eventually, brands embraced direct-to-consumer online stores to complement their global networks of boutiques. This shift is why newer mass-market multi-brand online boutiques have struggled:

    • Matchesfashion went into administration and took Browns with it.
    • Farfetch was sold in a firesale to Korean e-tailer Coupang.
    • YOOX was merged with Net-A-Porter and eventually bought out by MyTheresa from Richemont.

    Even luxury brands themselves have encountered a few hurdles along the way:

    • The end of Japan’s asset bubble in 1992
    • 2008 financial crisis
    • Xi Jinping’s move towards common prosperity which peaked in campaigns during 2013 & 2021
    • COVID-19 and post-COVID economy

    Luxury sector fallout

    By mid-2023, the luxury industry started to show signs of stagnation, with low or no growth. Multi-brand luxury e-commerce sites either went bankrupt or were bought out. A few notable beneficiaries included:

    • Mytheresa – a German e-tailer that focused on the wealthiest clients in this sector rather than broader middle class appeal.
    • Hermès – who are focused on the high end of the luxury market.
    • Brunello Cucinelli – a focused ‘quiet luxury’ brand known for their high-end cashmere garments

    The key issue with many luxury brands (Burberry being a prime example) is that they lost the essence of what made them truly luxurious. As they shifted from style to fashion, and from artisan craftsmanship to mass production in China, they lost their uniqueness or incomparability as Jean-Noël Kapferer put it.

    While champagne can only come from the region around Reims, most Burberry products are made in China, with only two remaining factories in the UK, including a textile mill.

    The key issue with many luxury brands (Burberry being a prime example) is that they lost the essence of what made them truly luxurious.  As they moved from style to fashion, and, artisan to Made In China – they lost uniqueness or incomparability as Jean-Noël Kapferer would describe it.

    While champagne can only come from the region around the city of Reims, most Burberry products are made in China as well as a couple of remaining factories in the UK – one of which is a textile mill.

    Louis Vuitton x Supreme on the secondary market

    A second aspect of the change was blurring the line between streetwear and luxury brands. Luxury looked cheap and streetwear looked exceptionally premium. The nadir was Balenciaga’s collaboration with sports apparel brand Under Armour.

    Ways forward

    Given that the mass growth of luxury products has hit a ceiling, what options do luxury companies have?

    The focus has been a slow pivot to services and experiences. For instance, Panerai has the Panerai Xperience Programme where purchasing a limited edition watch gives you access to unique experiences, such as training with US or Italian special forces operators.

    LVMH owns three luxury hotel chains: Cheval Blanc, Bulgari Hotels & Resorts, and Belmond. Dior has spas in Cheval Blanc Paris and other non-LVMH hotels like The Dorchester in London. The increasing focus on wellness makes sense for luxury conglomerates.

    Given the challenging circumstances in the luxury sector, Infosys’ outlook for luxury wellness presents a tempting opportunity. The global premium and luxury wellness segments have been performing well. The global market for luxury items was valued at approximately $366.2 billion in 2023 and is projected to expand at a CAGR of 6.8% from 2024. By comparison the Swiss watch industry is projected to grow by less than three percent.

    Existing high-end health and luxury wellness

    Luxury wellness has already been well established, there high end spas and resorts are in numerous countries, in particular Switzerland and Germany. Some of these are within large hotel groups like Mandarin Oriental.

    There is also a range of multi-generation family owned businesses with low-key brands and expertise that would be hard to replicate. Some of these businesses may go back as far as the middle ages. For instance, Grand Resort Bad Ragaz can trace its history as a source of ‘health and vitality’ since 1242.

    German doctor Alexander Spengler was responsible for attracting rich medical tourists to Switzerland in 1853, convinced of the benefits of clean mountain air.

    Switzerland, in particular, started to benefit from an agglomeration of medical expertise; for instance Davos was known for specialising in pulmonary health with dedicated spas.

    Switzerland’s continued lead in private healthcare has had a positive knock-on effect in wellness related products and services. This is particularly apropos given Swiss offerings focusing on longevity.

    In marketing terms ‘Swiss formula’ is used to sell St Ive’s beauty products and a range of multi-vitamin products by various brands. St Ives has an American origin, being part of Alberto Culver, which was then bought by Unilever.

    While Spengler was enamoured with Switzerland, Germany has a long history of health resorts especially thermal spas. It also has a network of world-leading private medical clinics similar to Switzerland.

    German high-end health resort company Lanserhof is a relative newcomer. Over four decades they have progressively built their offering with a strong focus on longevity.

    Luxury conglomerates have an opportunity, and are used to accumulating small family brands. But it it is a long term project for them to go into the market place. Blurring the line between its beauty products and wellness is an easier ask, hence, Dior’s spa offering.

    Gulf countries are looking to provide services in this area and have made big strides in building capability to attract medical tourism, which is the backbone from which a country brand in luxury wellness can be built.

    The current luxury wellness space is diverse fragmented and caters for a wide range of health needs from medical to relaxation.

    Luxury wellness and consumer behaviours

    More people are prioritising their health, taking a holistic view to wellness encompassing both physical, emotional and mental health, what Statista described as ‘omni-wellness’. They are driving demand for products and experiences that support this lifestyle. This includes everything from exercise, self-care, and sobriety to getting private tests run to double-check, or instead of seeing their doctor.

    Coming out of COVID-19, there was an increased consumer focus on a number of different aspects of health and wellness:

    • Sleep quality
    • Mental health
    • ‘Immune’ health

    This intersects with the luxury market as consumers are willing to invest in premium products and services that enhance their well-being.

    On the high-end what does luxury wellness look like?

    • Personalised wellness experiences. Consumers look for customised solutions based on their individual wants and needs. Technology and data enabled brands like L’Oreal and Unilever to offer individual recommendations and drive consumer engagement. Technology integration has been a key enabler.
    • Health and beauty interconnection. Consumers spend more in products and experiences that enhance their well-being, these are opportunities for the premium and luxury industries. Consumers see well-being products and experiences as an investment in themselves, with the concepts health and beauty as inseparable in their minds, particularly for younger cohorts.
    • Scientifically-backed products rather than more ‘new age’ or alternative therapies. Consumers have increased interest in beauty innovations that leverage technology and scientific evidence to address their needs. There is a latent demand for evidence around the world, Mintel cited 85% of Indian consumers agreed that beauty brands should provide more scientific evidence to validate their claims. This is notable given the rise over the past decade of guru Baba Ramdev and his brand Patanjali Ayurved that sells traditional products in the personal care category.
    • Longevity. Silicon Valley has been obsessed with longevity, the go-to example being Bryan Johnson. Kantar claims that a desire for longevity has moved beyond Silicon Valley. Consumers are prioritising longevity; looking for preventative solutions that support wellness at every life stage. This presents opportunities to offer products and services that for specific age-related concerns.

    But medicince itself has thrown up a wildcard for the luxury sector including luxury wellness.

    GLP-1 changed everything for luxury

    I worked on the global launch of a weight management drug that went on to become used more by the rich and famous than the people it was intended for. If I had one a-ha moment, it occurred during an episode of South Park.

    “Rich people get Ozempic, poor people get body positivity”

    The rate of growth in these drugs is slowing down but not before GLP-1s had affected consumption habits. Size inclusivity that had been making progress in fashion was thrown into reverse.

    There is anecdotal evidence that GLP-1 drugs don’t only change the patient’s relationship with food, but also affects enjoyment in general. This has hit premium alcohol sales and high-end restaurants. The idea of ‘lack of desire’ has implications for the concept of luxury in general.

    Every trend has a counter-indicator

    Trends are never a clean absolute truth. There is almost a Newtonian push in the opposite direction. Political and socially progressive movements begat a corresponding reactionary movement based around online personalities and political populism.

    It would be remiss of me if I only showed you one side of the coin on luxury wellness. Haines McGregor have a perspective that claims that self-care has been replaced by indulgence, which feels at odds with the direction of travel for luxury wellness. Examples of indulgent brands include:

    More information

    Pierre Cardin, designer who transformed fashion in the 1960s, dies at 98 | Washington Post

    How luxury brands can stand out when craft becomes a commodity | WARC

    China’s beauty market is a sight for sore eyes | FT

    LVMH quarterly sales drop as luxury group warns of ‘uncertain’ outlook | FT

    Ferrari, Hermès lead global luxury brand growth in 2024: Interbrand | Luxury Daily

    Deluxe – how luxury lost its lustre written by Dana Thomas

    Kapferer on Luxury: How Luxury Brands Can Grow Yet Remain Rare written by Jean-Noël Kapferer

    Is it stylish to be fit? | FT

    How luxury priced itself out of the market | FT

    The Vogue Business Spring/Summer 2025 size inclusivity report | Vogue Business – GLP-1s blamed for stalled progress

    Hermès chief eyes haute couture push as Paris house rides out luxury gloom

    Burberry shares tumble to 15-year low amid questions over its luxury brand status – Retail Gazette

    The Collectability of Parmigiani Fleurier | Phillips

    How ‘luxury shame’ will shape sales in China for the rest of 2024 | Vogue Business

    Where to start with multisensory marketing | WARC – 61% of consumers looking for brands that can “ignite intense emotions”. Immersive experiences that are holistic tap into people’s emotions and linger in the memory. It’s also an opportunity for using powerful storytelling to communicate a brand story.

    How Ozempic is reshaping the resale market | Vogue Business – Poshmark’s data reveals a significant surge in plus-size women’s apparel listings on the platform over the past two years, including a 103 per cent increase in size 3XL listings, 80 per cent in size 4XL, and a 73 per cent rise in size 5XL. The company also reported a 78 per cent increase in new listings mentioning “weight loss” in the title or description as sellers look to get rid of items that no longer fit.

    Luxury brands roll out 50% discounts as Chinese shoppers rein in spending | FT

    Is Burberry Still a ‘Made in Britain’ Brand? | Fashion Global Conscious Fashion

    What does Hong Kong airport smell of? Or your go-to hotel? The business of scent branding | South China Morning Post

    Following a record year, the stalled luxury goods market faces a dilemma between catering to top clientele and reaching new audiences amid ongoing complexities | Bain & Company

    Yoox Net-a-Porter exits China to focus on more profitable markets

    Understanding Desire in the Age of Ozempic – The Atlantic

    100-Pound Weight Loss: My health improved. My self-esteem didn’t. | Slate

    David Beckham is ‘strategic investor’ in Hong Kong’s Prenetics to set up IM8 health brand | South China Morning Post – IM8 will focus on “cutting-edge” consumer health products, the Nasdaq-listed Prenetics said, without divulging the financial details of Beckham’s investment

    Inside China’s Psychoboom – JSTOR Daily – mental illness has transformed from a bourgeois Western taboo into a legitimate public health concern.

    The consequences of the psychoboom are both logical and contradictory. As the Chinese economy has expanded and citizens have grown wealthier, the demands of everyday life have grown in number and kind, expanding from physiological and safety concerns to a desire for love, esteem, and self-actualization. At the same time, such desires run counter to traditional Chinese values like the age-old concept of Confucian filial piety and the relatively new  ideology imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), both of which place the well-being of the collective above the happiness of the individual.

    ‘Spas and longevity clinics’: private members’ clubs shift focus to wellness | Health & wellbeing | The Guardian

    Welcome to the Experience Economy | Harvard Business Review – courtesy of Nigel Scott

    The “Why Now” for Healthcare – by Rex Woodbury

    How brands can leverage a new era of luxury in Asia | The WARC Podcast

    The Future of Indulgence – Haines McGregor

    ACCENTURE – Life Trends 2025

    ACCOR_The New Quality Of Time Report 2024

    EUROMONITOR PASSPORT – Top Global Consumer Trends 2025

    FORESIGHT FACTORY – Trending 2025

    INFOSYS – CPG-industry-outlook

    IPSOS – Global Trends 10th Anniversary Edition

    KANTAR – Top Global Consumer Trends 2025

    MINTEL – 2025 Global Beauty and Personal Care Trends

    PUBLICIS SAPIENT – Guide to Next Consumer Products 2025

    PUBLICIS SAPIENT – Guide to Next Retail 2025

    SYNERGY – Nutrition 2025-2026 Trend Report

    STATISTA – Consumer Trends 2025

  • January 2025 newsletter

    January 2025 newsletter introduction

    Welcome to my January 2025 newsletter, this newsletter marks my 18th issue. As a child 18 represented experiences denied. 18 and R18 in the UK and Ireland is broadly equivalent to Hong Kong’s ‘category III’ or the US R and NC-17 ratings. This was prior to the Marvel universe infantilising adult cinema.

    12 jade zodiac

    18 is considered lucky in both Chinese culture and numerology. Talking of lucky, January 29th sees the lunar new year, which will be the year of the snake. According to Chinese horoscope, so 2025 should be a good year for my Chinese horoscope sign in terms of professional and financial areas. Here’s hoping.

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    Strategic outcomes

    Things I’ve written.

    • Japan Re-Emerges + more things – if nothing else visit this post for Ulrike Schaede’s talk on Japan’s reinvention over the past four decades.
    • Interpublic acquisition by Omnicom – a slow read, rather than a hot take. It got a bit of traction when I published it thanks to Stephen Waddington for sharing it on his Facebook group House of Marketing and PR
    • Foreign workers + more stuff – a mix of stuff from around the web including a documentary on how Filipino, Indonesian and Burmese domestic workers in Singapore have banded together to found a mutual support community around a shared love of roller-skating.
    • CNY 2025 – a round-up of ads and observations in the run up to the year of the snake. I haven’t written this as an article on LinkedIn this year, as LinkedIn’s video embed function no longer seems to work properly in articles.

    Books that I have read.

    • I managed to finish The Peacock and the Sparrow – IS Berry drew on real-world events such as the Arab Spring political movements and the Fat Leonard scandal to provide a story that moves between Bahrain to Cambodia and back. There was also a universality to the book, for instance it captured that worst excesses of the expat experience that resonated with my own experience and was something I sought to studiously avoid when living in Hong Kong. I was surprised that the book implies that the post-petroleum phase of Bahrain’s development, seemed to happen so abruptly. This was at odds with the gradual decline in petroleum production that we’ve seen in North Sea oil production and mid-west oil fields prior to fracking. Bahrain is a former petro-state that has now pivoted to Gulf area tourism and related services industries.
    • Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway. I am skeptical of works that look to fill in the universe created by a deceased writer. Christopher Tolkien’s efforts were as much an academic study of JRR Tolkien’s archive curated for the completist reader. Ian Fleming’s James Bond franchise was overrated when he was still alive. It didn’t merit the ten authors that have worked on expanding the book canon to date. John Gardner’s own enjoyable character Boysie Oaks, (similar to Len Deighton’s protagonist in The IPCRESS File) was overshadowed by Gardner’s stint writing Bond books. Nick Harkaway’s book pleasantly surprised me. Harkaway’s real name is Nicholas Cornwell and he was the son of David Cornwell aka John Le Carré. He literally and figuratively grew up as his father wrote the great George Smiley trilogy (Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy; The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People) and the BBC adaptations. Karla’s Choice feels and reads ‘right’ and slots neatly into the Le Carré lore. I can highly recommend it as a read. Despite it being a period piece, Russia’s resurgence gives it a strong sense of zeitgeist.
    Palo Alto
    • Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World by Malcolm Harris. Harris’ book is curate’s egg. On one hand it’s is a politically left polemic by the author on how the world is based on slavery, genocide and other forms of exploitation – which manifested in the authors trauma of a privileged upbringing in Palo Alto. Amongst all this Harris manages to write a Bay Area history that surfaced nuggets that I didnt know from the range of previous books on the area that I had read. Included in them is quotes from Silicon Valley pioneer Wilf Corrigan on offshoring chip manufacturing and packaging. It’s an oddity. If you like left leaning political theory, or a history of technology buff who is prepared to wade through the editorialising it might be worth your while.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    The Sun Also Rises, But Not on Magazines

    There are times when you reach a personal tipping point in your view on something. It can feel shocking, nauseous in a visceral way. I have only been there a few times.

    With the dot com boom it was talking with financier at an incubator fund sometime in April 2000. Pegasus Research’s iconic quantitative research on ‘burn rates’ had been published a month earlier and had started to become more known if one read around enough. So I asked him how they thought that they would be making money and his response was:

    Ged, I am really surprised that you asked me that. Don’t you realise, we’re trying to move at ‘internet’ time. We’ll think about monetising it later on.

    With some notable exceptions like Monocle magazine, print media has been struggling.

    Wired Jan / Feb 2025

    Over the Christmas period I was reading the January / February 2025 edition of Wired magazine (published by Condé Nast). Right from unwrapping the magazine from its postage packaging something felt wrong. The magazine felt light; very light. Thankfully the print stock and graphic design was up to its usual standards. So I did a quick page count and noted the number of advertisements in the magazine.

    • 88 pages
    • 5 adverts from paying advertisers
    • 3 adverts from Condé Nast
    • 1 advert for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The advertising space might have been donated by Condé Nast

    I was alarmed at the decline. Seeing declining magazine media spend on slide ware is different to feeling it happen on a publication that you loyally subscribe to. Thankfully my other usual print magazines Monocle and Japanese style magazine HailMary don’t seem to have had a similar exodus of advertisers yet. But it put me on alert about the precarious health of magazine print adverts as a medium. Creative magazine print done right can provide experiences that TikTok can’t.

    • Think about the size of visual real estate
    • The tactile experience of the page which helps with memory formation
    • Being able to smell a product fragrance on the page
    • Sampling opportunities
    • The ambient reach of re-reading or being left in a shared environment
    • Creative offline to online linkages

    For the right brands it offers targeted upper funnel experiences that can then be reinforced digitally.

    Which brought me to Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises as I groped around in my head trying to find the words to explain what was happening to magazines as a advertising medium:

    “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

    “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

    The value chains driving the creator economy.

    I spent some time during Christmas reading Influencer marketing unlocked: Understanding the value chains the paper was written by 15 academics following the 12th Triennial Invitational Choice Symposium held at INSEAD’s Fontainebleau site. Having worked on influencer campaigns on and off for the past two decades I was curious to see what progress had been made in the thinking underpinning influencer marketing.

    Measuring ROI is still complex, as are the challenges that influencers face balancing ‘editorial’ integrity with promotional content.

    Brands continue to struggle with measuring ROI beyond short term metrics and puts a focus on engagement. Metrics on long term impact (if any), sales and profitability are insufficient. The authors recognised that there were gaps in proving causation between engagement and sales or long term brand equity.

    There is still work to be done understanding the marketing impact of influencer marketing on both influencer and brands including:

    • Customer acquisition, retention and lifetime value
    • How can authenticity be maintained in paid promotions

    There is still the tension between brands need to qcquire and develop customers vs. influencers own need to cultivate ‘follower equity’. Influencers also depend on their relationship with the platforms they exist on, which can snuff them out if they no longer fit the ad revenue created vs. the revenue the influencer gets through promotions. Platforms boost influencers until a certain point and then limit their reach to maintain control.

    China’s ‘closed loop’ ecosystem was considered to be more effective. This is platforms such as Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese market twin) and Pinduoduo aka ‘together, more savings’ seem to do better due to tight integration between content and commerce. Then there is the live-streaming business which is basically QVC on social media. TikTok and Instagram Commerce are still playing catch-up. Chinese influencers are thought to have a lifecycle of up to five years, which is why MCNs use an ‘idol’ development model.

    Creative consistency

    Creative consistency was one of 2024’s marketing efficiency tenets thanks to research conducted by System1. System1 studied how consistency affects creative quality, stronger brands and greater profits.

    When comparing the most to the least consistent brands, analysis found that a higher proportion of consistent brands reported larger sales value gain, market share gain and profit gain.

    Chart of the month: decline in digital health investment

    The FT published an article just prior to JP Morgan’s annual Healthcare conference. The article put some sober perspective on the current state of investment in digital health innovation.

    Investment in digital health

    Things I have watched. 

    E.T. – The Extra Terrestrial – I hadn’t seen ET since I watched it as a child in the cinema. Watching it again as an adult was like watching a different film. From the atmospheric introduction prior to the stars cape onwards, it felt emotionally heightened, with more of a direct line back to Spielberg’s earlier Close Encounters of The Third Kind in terms of look-and-feel. There were references that I didn’t get at the time (for instance takeaway pizza and Reese’s Pieces weren’t really a thing in the UK). I got to appreciate Spielberg’s use of distraction, light and colour grading as an adjunct to storytelling. Finally, the shameless product placement surprised me. 1980s America was a very consumerist society with ultra-processed food that would cause convulsions in The Guardian newsroom – but the product placement was far less subtle than modern Korean dramas. I could see why Hershey’s Reese’s Pieces got an apparent sales uplift from the film.

    Bangkok Dangerous – A Thai take on Hong Kong’s ‘heroic bloodshed’ genre emblematic of John Woo films. The directors Danny and Oxide Pang are better known for horror film The Eye. Bangkok Dangerous feels more alive than its Hong Kong peers thanks to Danny Pangs editing and Oxide Pang’s over-saturated colour grading. The brothers careful use of cinematography, inventive storytelling and sparse dialogue make this debut film film feel so polished. Finally, the brothers manage to make city the star, in a similar way to Wong Ka-wai’s films in Hong Kong.

    Persepolis – A film adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel published in two volumes Persepolis and Persepolis 2. Persepolis tells the story of Marjane’s life from childhood in Paris and pre-revolutionary Iran, how she experienced the revolution. She was sent away by her upper middle class family to Vienna for secondary school. Afterwards she went to university in Iran, was treated for depression and attempted suicide. The story ends as it began with Marjane returning to Paris. The film is true to the graphic novel in terms of style – think a modern-day Tin Tin. Like the book, the story is an emotional rollercoaster ride. It’s subject matter feels equally relevant now, as is did when Satrapi originally wrote her story.

    Useful tools.

    Advertising awards list

    Probably not that useful for me at the moment, but The Thought Partnership have put together a list of awards listed by entry deadline covering the whole of 2025, which should be handy for advertising, marketing and public relations agency marketers.

    Adobe Acrobat Pro alternative

    Adobe Acrobat Pro is a useful piece of software, but it’s not worth almost £20 / month. PDF Reader Pro gives you a lifetime licence for the same functions for a one off payment of $25.

    Long term tracking

    Use Apple AirTags but have battery charge anxiety because you forget when you put the battery in? I know I did for the one in my travelling IT kit bag. And I found a solution. Elevaton Lab’s TimeCapsule 10-year battery case. its a two-piece black plastic slap held together by screws. Inside a couple of Duracell AA batteries will give a decade of operation for your AirTag. Sparingly use a little bit of gasket maker on the two halves seams and LocTite Threadlocker on the screws gives you a nigh indestructible tracking module.

    The sales pitch.

    I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements; or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.

    More on what I have done here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my January 2025 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and onward into the year, and for those of you celebrating the lunar new year on January 29th 恭喜發財 (Gong Kei Faat Choy).

    Don’t forget to share if you found it useful, interesting or insightful.

    Get in touch if there is anything that you’d like to recommend for the newsletter.

  • CNY 2025

    CNY 2025 or Chinese new year 2025 is shorthand often used as a hashtag on social media to circulate songs, sales promotions and advertisements from across China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. I started off this post into gathering some of the best examples of CNY 2025 advertising just after Christmas and there was a poor range of adverts just a month out from CNY 2025. Imagine if there were no Christmas adverts appearing by the third week in November?

    Small businesses like the Davely Bakery Café in Malaysia had started promoting organic social content on their Facebook page by November 19. (In markets such as the Philippines, Hong Kong and Malaysia, Facebook is still big business.)

    CNY 2025 - Davely Bakery Café

    But where were the large company promotions this close to the festival? Brand campaigns only really started to appear from the second week in January onwards.

    CNY 2025 themes that I took away from researching this post:

    • Increased emphasis on demand generation and sales promotions.
    • Less big brands advertising than previous years.
    • Campaigns were run over a shorter period. Roughly half the six weeks I would have expected for successful brand building campaigns.
    • Less of a focus on storytelling and deep emotional cues than previous years.
    • Lower production values as a whole than previous years.
    • A move towards bus wraps in Singapore for CNY 2025 campaigns. These were replicated in ‘bus simulator’ games popular amongst transport fans in Hong Kong and Singapore. This replication was less about a ‘brand gaming strategy’ and more about fan curated bus skins for absolute fidelity to their favourite bus routes.
    • Less emphasis on creative consistency than in previous years.
    • Shorter ads, each with a lot of 15-second edits.
    • Increased use of humour.
    • Increased use of songs, presumably to gain earned and shared media support – very hard to do successfully as a strategy when there are so many songs to choose from.
    • Lazy use of celebrities – I hadn’t see this in previous years doing this.

    As a marketer, I saw things in CNY 2025 that I thought was good and things that I worried about in these changes between CNY 2025 and previous years:

    • Smarter memory structure building: fluent objects such as Kevin the First Pride nugget, the use of jingles and ear worm songs, the use of humour
    • Red flags for brand mental availablility: a lack of creative consistency, shorter ads and lazy use of celebrities. Shorter ads can, if done right be used to build brand, BUT, there are a number of factors to consider when doing it successfully. These include variety of formats, reach / marketing penetration, repetition, single-minded creative execution and the thumb-stopping factor.

    Reading the ‘tea leaves’ I suspect that marketing budgets have been cut, and brands might not be expecting as much of an uplift this year as China’s poor economic performance affects its neighbours.

    China

    Apple

    Apple continued its shot on an iPhone series. The Chinese New Year film is run in lots of markets but primarily made for China. I am surprised that this got past the censors. Time travel is usually a a no-no. It also reminds China’s currency economically challenged consumers of the 1990s go-go years of year-on-year double digit growth. The core aspect of the creative is the direct questions that younger family members receive.

    CNY 2025 is the first time that Apple didn’t have a Chinese film maker shot its film. Finally, Apple’s film comes in at a whooping 11 minutes 59 seconds although a good minutes is the credits.

    Bottega Veneta

    Bottega Veneta’s Chinese New Year film is all about vibes. There were some interesting styling choices in the film. The older guy with the women’s hand bag. That most of it seemed to be around older alleyways that have been refurbished. The lady in the 1980s era Jaguar. Pre-1997, a number of more anglophile Hong Kong businessmen used to get driven around in Jaguar and Daimler cars with a large V12 engine – that spoke to old money in this film.

    I was stuck by the lack of explicit references to new year, which you can also see in the Miu Miu film – what there is are more subtle cues.

    All of which is a world away from many luxury brands slapping a snake on everything this year.

    Gucci

    Gucci taps into the traditional multi-generational party and memories of ‘snake’ new years of the past. It’s probably the strongest bit of storytelling and the most cinematic of all the films that I have looked at this year.

    Miu Miu

    Prada sub-brand Miu Miu is one of the few stand out brands in a tough 2024 for the luxury sector. This Chinese New Year film is playful, borrowing from Asian mid-century set design and 1990s era Chinese electronica to tell a small story.

    Hong Kong

    Coca-Cola

    Coca-Cola has a dominant position in the soft drinks market thanks to its dominance in distribution. The only places I could buy Pepsi was in my local Pizza Hut when I lived there. This year they focused on out of home posters to reinforce memory structures. The unusual aspect to the campaign was that it went up in early February at the end of Chinese New Year. That’s a bit like launching your Christmas advertising on New Year’s Eve. Not sure why that’s happened.

    coca cola hong kong

    Giordano

    Multinational clothing brand Giordano promoted a CNY 2025 collaboration featuring the Kung Fu Panda character on its social media accounts. The preponderance of red in the clothing isn’t only about it being a seasonal colour, but also you are supposed to wear new red clothing for the new year.

    This social media film was run on channels in Hong Kong, Malaysia and other countries where Giordano has a presence.

    Malaysia

    100PLUS

    100PLUS is an isotonic drink similar in function to Gatorade or Lucozade Sport popular in Malaysia and Singapore. Its advert for Malaysia promotes the drink as alternative to colas during new year celebrations. A secondary aspect is the opportunity to win a free prize draw. The blue in the outfits is to presumably signal the blue in the brand and packaging.

    It’s slightly unusual in that it doesn’t feature multi-generational family members, which I suspect is down to a single-minded focus on teens and young adults.

    Aeon

    Japanese supermarket Aeon highlighted their CNY themed collaboration with Italian artist TokiDoki as a music video format that you could sing along too. It’s a little too mild to be an aggressive earworm of a tune.

    Aglow Clinic

    Aglow Clinic is an aesthetics clinic in Malaysia that treats a range of skin conditions including sun spots. They partnered with social media personality Roderic Chan to make this film. Considering the small size of the brand they hit well above their weight in terms of production values.

    Aiken

    Aiken is a Malaysian based beauty brand. The creative was done by the media buying agency and features Malaysian influencers as the talent in the advertisement.

    Aiken wishes you Double the Brightness for a Brighter Year! is clever word play that implicitly links feeling beautiful and the promise of good fortune. This advert went out very late into the market for 2025.

    Carina

    Carina is a household tissue brand in Malaysia, similar to Kleenex in the UK and Ireland. It has gone down the ear worm route with its song. The montage of footage feels crowdsourced.

    Eu Yan Sang

    Eu Yan Sang did separate creative for Malaysia. There are higher production values than their Singapore creative and storytelling that ties back to creating memories and tradition being a key part of Chinese New Year. The advert sought to show that the family weren’t wealthy, but had food on their plate, good manners and retained their cultural roots. As a first-generation emigrant myself this one spoke to me.

    First Pride

    Tyson Foods First Pride range of processed chicken product including chicken nuggets and satay slices featured a simple sales promotion with a sweepstake format. The advert also introduced a fluent object ‘Kevin’ the chicken nugget on a TV advert.

    Kevin had previously been shared only on out of home formats. It would be interesting to see if and how they make future use of Kevin.

    Guardian

    Guardian is the Malaysian brand of the better known Asian pharmacy retail chain better known as Mannings in Hong Kong and China. A UK analogue would be Boots. It has higher production values and evokes togetherness, good fortune and memory-making for our young protagonist. Click here to see on YouTube.

    guardian cny 2025

    Haier

    Chinese white goods manufacturer took an unconventional storytelling approach. it’s the kind of creative concept that could be used year on year, just changing the product line-up.

    Harvey Norman

    Electrical retailer Harvey Norman ties into the fact that bargains are a constant discussion around the table during Chinese New Year (and any other family gathering). The production feels rather low rent compared to other adverts here.

    HongLeong Bank

    HongLeong Bank took the story of two customers that fitted neatly with the festivities around Chinese New Year. It gives a good old tug on the heart strings.

    Julie’s

    Julie’s a is a biscuit brand that tries to focus on the human side of food. Given the visiting and gifting culture for Chinese new year – the opportunity is ideal for its brand. I was surprised by the high production values of the advert. The 3d animation is creatively consistent with work that they’ve put out over the past year. As a direction the CNY 2025 campaign is very different from their last festival campaign for CNY 2022.

    Julie’s can continue to run this campaign after CNY 2025 is over due to the lack of overt seasonal themes in the advert.

    KitKat

    KitKat Malaysia have attached the Chinese New Year creative back to ‘have a break, have a KitKat’ for creative consistency. There is enough in here to say new year. But a sufficiently light touch that they could use it year-in, year-out – so long as the brand uses the same promotional packaging design.

    If they had used snake imagery, it would be one-and-done.

    Knife

    Knife are a food flavourings brand from Malaysia. Their main advertising push is for Chinese New Year and they have made a constant effort to bring creative consistency and storytelling into their work. CNY 2025 is no exception to this approach.

    https://youtu.be/Oxo8jP-67tE?si=aSnwKB5YVxoT96z_

    Lay’s crisps

    Lay’s (known as Walkers in the UK) highlight their role as a snack at new year’s gatherings. The ad promotes a new year themed sweepstake including mahjong sets.

    Lotus’s

    Lotus’s is a supermarket market chain. In Malaysia, the shops were formerly Tesco Malaysia and sold on to a Thai retail group. This film focuses on the stress of preparing for new year, together with sales promotions. Aside from holding red t-shirts with the ‘Fu’ symbol on them, this sales promotion video could be for any time of the year. The 1970s called and wants it’s ad creative back from this Malaysian supermarket chain.

    Melinda Looi

    Malaysian fashion designer Melinda Looi came up with a homage to Wong Ka wai’s In The Mood For Love. The advert nails the mid-century elegance but struggles to get the cinematic richness and tension of the original.

    I respect that they gave it a good try and love their ambition; but it’s like Ted Baker trying to pull off the introduction to The Italian Job.

    Mr DIY

    Mr DIY is a hardware chain similar to Lowe’s in the US or B&Q in the UK. Their advert riffs on the heightened tensions of family get togethers and the relative popularity in Hong Kong film making of court room dramas – to add a bit of cultural relevance. It taps into the stressor of very direct questions similar to BRANDS Singapore campaign.

    Mr Muscle

    Household cleaner brand Mr Muscle had a Korean celebrity record a CNY 2025 specific message for their Facebook page viewers.

    The advert features Korean drama and film actor Kim Seon Ho. In common with other Korean celebrities he endorses a variety of brands in Korea and other Asian countries. For some of the brands endorsed, they have had record sales which they attribute to working with Kim. It’s not sophisticated but will appeal to his many fans in Malaysia.

    Munchy’s

    Munchy Food Brands is a Malaysian snack brand. The advert itself is pretty self explanatory. Like Watson’s they are leaning hard into trying to create an ear worm to aid long term brand recall that’s complete with an EDM-style drop.

    Nivea

    Nivea looked to promote their men’s products as a way to solve for the stress of direct family feedback on how you look. It has been shot for mobile.

    Pantai Hospital

    Pantai Medical Group runs a private hospital in Malaysia that caters to more well-off Malaysians. The emphasis on healthy food in the advert relates to the central role that food plays in Chinese New Year celebrations.

    Their elective treatments are likely to be quiet during CNY 2025, so they have provided the option for health-focused external catering. It’s an interesting product innovation for those close to their hospital in Penang. The behind the scenes clips at the end draws on Korean and Hong Kong productions. The best known in the West would be the blooper reels that used to appear at the end of Jackie Chan films.

    https://youtu.be/2tKxHrCldts?si=WIQqF1PRPsyzdKEG

    Petronas

    Petronas is the Malaysian national oil company. There is a natural fit with CNY 2025 because children go home to see their parents and siblings. Later on during the celebrations they will drive to visit relatives. On the Malaysian peninsula you could be a long time in heavy traffic, so pit-stops for fuel and refreshments are pretty much obligatory.

    Ribena

    Brutally short creative with the tagline left right at the end. ‘Ooo Juicy Fu’ – the fu is a reference to the Chinese character fu symbolising ‘fortune’. It is creatively consistent with campaigns that Ribera ran for Ramadan and the previous CNY in Malaysia.

    Shopee

    Shopee is a mobile marketplace think Shopify, Depop or Uber Eats in an app. Like Watsons Malaysian campaign it relies on a ‘new years’ song. Why a song? Entertainment during Chinese new year features newly composed catchy earworms. These may come from film series put out as family entertainment for the new year like the All’s Well, That Ends Well series of Hong Kong comedies, or television and adverts.

    Watsons

    Watsons is a Hong Kong-headquartered pharmacy chain with stores across Asia and a strong focus on health and beauty products. It’s parent company AS Watson is a set of diversified retail brands including:

    • Superdrug and Savers in the UK
    • Rossmann
    • Fortress (a PC World or Best Buy analogue)
    • PARKnSHOP, Taste, FUSION, GREAT FOOD HALL – grocery stores
    • Watson’s Wine

    They have been teasing a song related Chinese New Year campaign for Malaysia to embed in your memory structures, but were only showcasing the song 2 1/2 weeks before CNY 2025. Rapid screening of sales promotions drown out the ‘Happy Beautiful Year’ themed brand building effort.

    https://youtu.be/KpAXOYxxGvc?si=jzwNGGW5HXz8pbHk

    Yakult

    The Japanese yoghurt drink brand used some good fortune themed imagery to promote a brand sweepstake. A very simple execution that could be used again in future years.

    Singapore

    BRANDS

    BRANDS is a food and supplement business. Traditional Chinese Medicine often recommends eating particular foods to treat different ailments, which is why BRANDS essence of chicken sits in a kind of ‘wellness’ space.

    Their advert draws on the universal experience of very direct questions that people have to field from relatives when they go home for Chinese new year.

    Eu Yan Sang

    Eu Yan Sang run traditional Chinese medicine and related wellness foods shops and clinics across Asia. This Singapore ad focuses on the challenge of gift giving and the close link between good fortune and good health. Unusually, they’ve also run a second lot of creative promoting their CNY themed hamper designs as well.

    https://youtu.be/dGc3_cDjtCA?si=pTA3fXpeL481jw-P

    FairPrice

    FairPrice is a Singapore institution. Like the UK’s Co-op, it is a supermarket owned by the National Trade Union Congress and is the largest grocery chain in Singapore owning both supermarkets and convenience stores.

    The ad focuses on everyday Singaporeans with many of the shots modelled on HDB flats – Singapore’s public housing. The colour grading and small moments designed to evoke different types of nostalgia from the rituals of family and the Chinese New Year.

    Hockhua tonic

    Hockhua is a Singaporean local wellness foods brand who did a simple sales promotion for their hampers to be provided for the new year. The cut-off time then gave the brand a few weeks to assemble to the appropriate amount of hampers.

    Lazada

    E-tailer Lazada leads with sales promotions. The imagery draws on Fu xing, the god of good fortune who you would pray to in order to get a prosperous new year.

    Ministry of Digital Development and Information

    The government of Singapore used Chinese new year to reinforce a common Singaporean identity and celebrate the 60th anniversary of the city state. Sing-a-longs are a part of Chinese new year. The video featured a 1980s song that was originally recored by the artists in 1998 re-recorded by them for the government department encouraging t he citizens to look out for each other. The video was published just days before new year and relied primarily on the reach of the former prime minister’s Instagram account. It shares a common theme of small but joyful moments with the FairPrice CNY 2025 advert.

    Thailand

    This is the first year that I have covered a Thai market campaign. Thailand has a significant ethnic Chinese minority (between 10 – 15% of the population depending on which estimates you reference). Like Indonesia, Thailand integrated them for political reasons and many of them no longer have Chinese sounding family names – but the traditions live on. A second aspect is the increased role in the Thai economy that Chinese expats and tourists now play.

    Central

    Central is a premium department store in Thailand (think Peter Jones in London) and has a mid-tier brand called Robinsons (think Debenhams or House of Fraser). You have a stylistic version of the new year dinner and a cool grandfather who owes a lot to mature Japanese hipsters and The Sartorialist. The film has high production values and leans on vibes rather than storytelling, but is distinctive.

    You can find my previous reviews of Chinese New Year ads here.

  • December 2024 newsletter

    December 2024 newsletter introduction

    Welcome to my December 2024 newsletter, this newsletter marks my 17th issue. MIT computer students described 17 as the least random number following research asking respondents to provide a number between 1 and 20, 17 was the most popular answer.

    In some Chinese dialects 17 can be considered unlucky as it sounds similar to ‘life of anger’. I am hoping for a life of relaxation rather than a life of anger over the Christmas holiday period.

    Christmas lights in the garden

    I have found London to be cold, but not necessarily crisp, but the dark days will start to become lighter soon.

    Whatever the holiday season throws at you, and whatever your favourite festival of choice to celebrate is called. Have a great one! (Here’s a soundtrack for the vibes.)

    Being thankful

    A good deal of December is about being thankful. The people and things that I am being thankful for (a by no means complete list).

    My strategy fam: Parrus Doshi, Lee Menzies-Pearson, Sarath Koka, Colleen Merwick, Rob Fuller, Alice Yessouroun, Zoe Healey, Ian Crocombe, Michael Zarri and Calvin Wong, MBA.

    My clients and partners this year including: Craft Associates, Havas, PrecisionAQ, & TANK Worldwide.

    Other smart people in and around the industry: Stephen Potts, Darren Cairns, Robin Dhara, Nish Lad, Katy Howell, Nigel Scott, Rory Natkiel and Tom List.

    Things: WARC, the IPA., IPSOS and Meltwater.

    With that done, let’s get into the December 2024 newsletter!

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    Strategic outcomes

    Things I’ve written.

    Things I have written over the time covered by this December 2024 newsletter.

    I will be dropping my review of 2024 on December 31st (technology permitting); here’s my review of 2023 to give you a feel about what you can expect to see.

    Books that I have read.

    I have been a bit slack on reading this month, but have made up for it with film recommendations below.

    • I am stilling reading it at the time of writing, but I am really enjoying reading The Peacock and The Sparrow by I.S. Berry. The book rides a resurgence of espionage as a genre. Unusually for books it covers the early 2010s in Bahrain with a clear-eyed look at the civil disturbance that happened at the time. Obliquely, the book also deals with the post-petroleum phase of Bahrain’s development. Bahrain is a former petro-state that has now pivoted to Gulf area tourism and related services industries.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    2025 trends reports.

    Matt Muir of Web Curios fame reminded me of the annual strategy and ad planners ritual of collating annual trends reports. While they aren’t the most scientific piece of work, they give you a good idea of what the corporate publishers who paid for them think in terms of:

    • What they think their future business looks like
    • What they think they need to say to remain relevant in the next year

    Thanks to Ci En Lee and Amy Daroukakis who help wrangle this effort.

    Things I have watched. 

    Election 2 – Johnnie To’s trouble with the Hong Kong and Chinese government following his interview with the BBC meant I bought a lot of films I will be sharing here over the next few months. I watched Election last month and followed it up Election 2. The sequel focuses on Louis Koo and Nick Cheung’s characters from the first film amongst others. It’s a film that pulls less punches and alludes to the machinations of how the Beijing government captured control of the Triad groups in Hong Kong. Needless to say, unlike the first film less than two years earlier, Election 2 didn’t get released in China.

    The Hitcher – The Hitcher is an amazing film for a number of reasons. Rutger Hauer’s performance as John Ryder is amazing. You have a really taunt horrific thriller of a story, completely at odds with the film’s 15 certificate. The story is matched by a director who wrung a big production out of a small budget. The cinematography at times is breathtaking, shot in the deserts of California. When it got released on Blu-Ray I had to watch it.

    I vividly remember the first time I watched it, with my mate Joe. His folks were away for the weekend and we hit the local convenience store bought an armful of snacks and fried up a packet of Bird’s Eye frozen paella prior to sitting down and watching the film. We were glued to the screen watching a rental VHS copy of The Hitcher. My friend Joe’s house backed on to a copse and a couple of tramps dossed in the small wood during the summer. While we were watching the film, a vagrant tried his back door, which was locked and scared the living daylights out of us. We ran him off wielding whatever we had to hand in the kitchen. I had to lock all my windows and doors before I pressed play this time around.

    Rare Exports – Rare Exports is an amazing Christmas film made in Finland. It’s funny, touching, action-filled and horrific. It’s a modern twist on the Krampus legend.

    Troll Hunter – Troll Hunter is a Norwegian film borrowing from the found footage genre including the likes of The Blair Witch Project and Canniblal Ferrox. A documentary film maker seeks to find out more about a mysterious hunter who is thought to poach bears out of season. The reality is far darker.

    Useful tools.

    Maven

    If you’ve followed technology and social platforms for the past three decades you’ve probably heard the name Ev Williams. He was one of the founders of Pyra Labs who developed the Blogger platform that powered Google’s blogspot.com blogs, publishing platform Medium and microblogging platform Twitter. Maven is his latest social platform looking to provide a healthier alternative to other platforms focused on the dopamine hit triggers of followers, likes and comments.

    It’s too early to see whether Maven will be successful, and people have lots of platform choices from BlueSky, Threads and Mastadon to Reddit. Give Maven a try here.

    The sales pitch.

    I have enjoyed working on a number of projects for Havas and am now taking bookings for strategic engagements from January 2025 onwards; or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.

    More on what I have done here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my December 2024 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and onward into 2025.

    Don’t forget to share, comment and subscribe!

  • Advertising archive list

    An advertising archive can come in all shapes and sizes from a hobbyist love of a particular brand as advertising archive through to professional resources for academics, marketers and intellectual property lawyers. I am not going into an argument for what is, or is not advertising as I don’t think it would be particularly productive for this post.

    Without further ado let’s get into all things advertising archive related.

    The list

    Absolut Ad

    Absolut

    Absolut Ad – a hobbyist website that collects Absolute Vodka ephemera as a one-brand advertising archive.

    Adaily

    Adaily – Adaily has a ChatGPT-like interface that allows you to interrogate its advertising archive of award-winning campaigns for inspiration. Their database currently only goes back as far as 2018.

    Ad Branch

    Ad Branch – a blog that hasn’t been posted to since 2013 that presents advertising work from some of the best known American brands.

    Ad Forum

    Ad Forum – Ad Forum has a wide range of award-winning ad formats from a range of awards including its own PHNX awards – which covered campaigns from around the world.

    Adland

    Adland Superbowl Commercials – Adland is a great source of US advertising industry news. Their advertising archive of Super Bowl commercials represents some of the best examples of video TV advertising creativity.

    AdsMagic

    AdsMagic is a YouTube video channel as advertising archive. It hasn’t been updated in four years, BUT, is still full of creative inspiration.

    Ads of Brands

    Ads of Brands – nice searchable site, lots of yellow if that’s your thing.

    Ads of the World

    Ads of the World – part of the Clios Network of sites, created around the advertising awards. It has global reach and well respected.

    Ads Spot

    Ads Spot – subscription based advertising archive with global reach in terms of its content examples. The search function is just ok.

    Advert Ge

    Advert.Ge – minimalistic design of the advertising archive with global footprint and details on who did the creative. Good for inspiration, but can’t be embedded in a presentation.

    Agency Asia

    Agency Asia – good for discovery of inspired print and television advertising. The video is embedded from YouTube.

    Best Ads on TV

    Best Ads on TV – while the website feels as if it was designed in 2003, it surfaces some great inspirational advertising.

    Campaigns of the World

    Campaigns of the World – is based on user-submitted campaigns, lots of good stuff there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of it was student projects rather than advertising used ‘in the wild’.

    Creative Brief

    Creative Brief – a rival to the likes of Contagious in terms of ‘marketing intelligence’. Creative Brief’s content skews progressive and UK market focused. Your mileage may vary.

    Creative Criminals

    Creative Criminals – a useful site that leans more towards the need of strategists having case studies rather than creative inspiration.

    Daily Commercials

    Daily Commercials – an advertising archive built by agency submissions with a range of international markets represented in its archive. In terms of completeness, it could challenge some of the sites based on award entries.

    Deck of Brilliance

    Deck of Brilliance – the advertising archive is grouped into 52 creative provocations using the ads as examples that illustrate the theme rather than a conventional brand / category / country organisation that you might see elsewhere.

    Famous Campaigns

    Famous Campaigns – a mix of campaigns and activations with a big focus on the UK.

    History of Advertising Trust

    History of Advertising Trust – supported by some of the UK’s largest brands and agencies. It has over a century of searchable archives.

    Internet Archive

    Internet Archive – although overlooked the search function of the internet archive is a great place to go for inspiration as you have an advertising archive in different formats for many brands. Its content isn’t indexed that well in the major search engines. An honourable mention to Flickr which always pleases with its serendipity.

    Little Black Book Online

    LBB (Little Black Book) is a more accessible resource than the likes of Campaign or AdWeek. It has managed to collect some great work together in one site in their Creative Library section. They also build profiles of ad folk based on their Immortals awards programme, here’s mine.

    Lürzer’s Archive

    Lürzer’s Archive – Lürzer’s Archive is the Wallpaper* or Monocle of the advertising archive world. A strict paywall and a love of print and typographic design with usefully themed books as well as the digital archives. It’s beloved of university students who think that they are creative saviour that the advertising industry needs, client services drones who want visually appealing coffee table decoration and pretentious strategists like your humble writer. Their archive is surprisingly good but focuses on quality rather than being comprehensive in nature.

    The Advertising Archives

    The Advertising Archives – an Instagram account of a paid-for archive of print vintage advertising, marketing ephemera and stills from TV adverts.

    The Drum

    The World’s Best Ads of All Time – The Drum pulled together some of the best adverts tougher in their editorial team’s opinion.

    The Inspiration

    A mix of email newsletter and online collection. What The Inspiration loses in comprehensiveness as an advertising archive, it gains in not being attached to a pricey subscription.

    The One Club related archives

    The One Club for Creativity (One Show Awards archive) – an archive of award-winning campaigns for inspiration as advertising archive focused on the healthcare sector. Check out their archive of winning entries for the Young Ones student awards covering a range of consumer-facing brands ONE Screen focuses on advertising film entries here, the ADC award archive only covers the past decade of the awards century plus activity, so while vast in terms of area of brand related design from architecture to typography, it could be so much more.

    .Coffee

    .Coffee – the great thing about .Coffee as an advertising archive is the grouping of examples around industries like travel, tourism & transport or beauty.

    Related to advertising archive ideas

    Activation ideas

    Activation Ideas

    Creative moment

    Creative Moment – is a free to access archive of campaigns curated by creatives for creatives. It covers:

    • Advertising
    • Broadcast
    • Experiential
    • Out of home
    • Print
    • Public relations
    • Social
    • Video

    Packaging of the world

    Packaging of the World – Mark Ritson wrote a recent article about the importance of product for marketers. The gist of Ritson’s argument was that product is central to marketing, yet most brand marketers tend to focus on the communications part of the marketing mix. With that in mind, I thought it made sense to share packaging of the world.

    Two more things

    Portfolios such as mine also act as an advertising archive that you can explore. I have compiled a complete and ongoing list of advertising archive related links in the Pinboard social bookmarking tool. If you haven’t subscribed already, I would strongly recommend it for research and inspiration purposes – once you get used to it it’s life-changing.