Ed Leamy explains the need to put people first when innovating…
Recently, Instagram was flooded with ads for re-useable coffee pods. Single-use pods were considered unsustainable, so the innovation featured a reusable pod you would fill, use, wash and reuse yourself. Problem solved. Except that the solution completely undermined the whole reason people used pods in the first place: convenience.
It’s an example of innovation where they forgot to think about people first.
As an industry we can be guilty of being distracted by shiny new things. Adland headlines have been dominated by innovation: the metaverse, AI, NFTs. Whenever a new platform appears, there is a race to be the first to use it. In BBDO our people-first approach to innovation focuses us on the issues so brands can connect with audiences in a meaningful way.
We create innovative work, not for innovation’s sake, but in response to real business problems from real clients. Establishing what matters to people — regardless of the scale or objectives of a campaign — is always the best place to start. Most recently, ‘Unfair City’ for Dublin Simon Community, the ‘Road Safety-Verse’ for the RSA, and the new GAA e-calendar.
They all show how the creative potential for innovative executions and experiences can be amplified by filtering them through a people-first lens. ‘Unfair City’ started as a client brief to appeal to a younger donor base. Homelessness gets worse every year and the public have become desensitised to it. It has become easy to ignore and difficult for the media to cover.
For this reason, BBDO used one of the most contentious areas of tech, artificial intelligence (AI), to create a film as a trojan horse to get the media and public to engage with the crisis again. ‘Unfair City’ tells the real story of Justin Cannon. His own words were used to generate AI images, allowing his story to be told in an empathetic and impactful way.
While the innovative use of AI generated headlines, it helped Dublin Simon reach a much wider audience; with donations up 259 per cent, including a 55 per cent increase in new donors aged 18-34. At the end of last year, we built Ireland’s first branded metaverse, ‘The Road Safety-Verse’ (pictured above). Previously, the RSA had scheduled school visits.
Virtual worlds
However, research showed that passive learning was no longer as effective and today’s children learn better through play. The answer was found in how our audience spend their leisure time. The metaverse may be adland’s latest bandwagon, but children have been immersed in virtual worlds for some time over, through the use of Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite.
The Road Safety-Verse completely transformed how Irish children interact with the RSA who now reach more children more often, providing a more effective and more immersive road safety education. The Safety-Verse has now been adopted by the Department of Education and one million Irish children have access to it.
Finally, when the GAA briefed us on increasing match attendance, we looked at fans’ behaviours. For busy households, we imagined a digital product to make it easier for them to attend future matches. The technology leverages advanced algorithms and data analysis to optimise the scheduling of matches across multiple divisions and regions.
Or to put it simply, we made a tool to let the fans know when the games are. Every match for an entire season can now be added to fan’s calendars, in one click. While these three campaigns all innovated to solve different problems using different technology, they have one thing in common: the idea was about putting people first.
Ed Leamy is head of innovation at BBDO Dublin; edleamy@bbdo.ie
