I think most people know BBH is a bloody great agency.
Sure they’ve had a few issues in the past few years regarding their level of energy, inventiveness and drive – but despite that, they’ve still been miles ahead of most other agencies, even if their great thinking and creative has generally been executed via the usual suspects interms of media channels.
Maybe I’m biased – but I believe the future of that network is going to be driven by their Asian outposts rather than their London or NYC offices.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re European/US guys are brilliant – but in a lot of them, there’s this inherent arrogance which pisses me right off, especially when you compare it to how interesting, aware and – for want of a better word – humble, their China, Singapore and Tokyo teams are.
[See John’s A[P]SOTW assignment as an example – though he’s just buggered off to their London HQ]
Anyway, the reason I am writing this post is because I’ve just seen something they’ve done that is really good … something really, really good.
OK, so it’s for AXE/LYNX – one of their ‘glory accounts’ – but as much as you may it’s easy to do ads that say ‘turns good girls, naughty’, the fact of the matter is [1] they got the client to buy this strategy in the first place [2] they’ve been consistent to the core idea for decades across multiple markets [3] they’ve maintained the tone of voice to ensure it always draws a wry smile rather than a snort of disgust and [4] they’ve continually developed interesting work to keep the strat fresh.
So there’s this magazine in Singapore called Playeur.
It’s basically an Asian cross between GQ and FHM … lots of scantily clad Asian beauties inbetween articles about bloody tailored suits and/or expensive watches.
Anyway because reading magazines is part of my job [that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it] I buy each edition and this month, as I was just about to put it down, I saw this ad for LYNX …
Not sure if you can see it properly, but it’s basically a bunch of photos of the same guy that all look like they’ve been ripped out from various magazines.
Anyway, underneath each pic you see there’s a ‘page number’ and you suddenly realise they all relate to that edition of Playeur.
One is of a model spying on the guy [see pic 2 of this post] … another features a model wearing a locket that has this guys photo in it … another has this guys photo on the mantelpiece etc etc
In short, BBH have worked with the publisher to subtly incorporate LYNX into all the photoshoots, so that when the idea finally gets revealed, it looks like an average Singaporean guy has had a bunch of hot models lusting/seeing/stalking him because he uses LYNX.
Genius.
Of course we all know LYNX doesn’t really have that power over women [sorry Doddsy] but the inventiveness of this idea means that the brands energy and relevance [interms of tone of voice and target customer] is kept high – not to mention the fact they’ve made a normal print ad work about 1000 times harder than it normally would.
This idea demonstrates real thinking on behalf of the creatives [I am assuming it was the BBH creatives/planners who came up with this, I can’t believe a media agency would do it, despite all their claims to be media-free thinkers] so a really big pat on the back to everyone involved – including the publisher – it’s great.