Harvey the dog gets clever
In the rapidly evolving world of TV technology, Thinkbox has to be seen to lead if it is to be credible says Dominic Mills. So how has the marketing body for commercial television fared with its latest campaign?
It can’t be that easy being the agency or agencies working for one of the generic media promotion bodies like TV, radio, posters or the press.
Everything you do is held up to close scrutiny by multiple clients, as well as by the industry at large. Any advertising you do to promote your medium has to be exceptionally good; if it isn’t, clients will go: “You’re telling me how impactful your medium is and you can’t even make a decent ad.”
And media strategy and placement has to be bang on; if it isn’t clients will go: “You’re telling me targeted and effective your medium is, but I’ve never seen your ad and I don’t know anyone who has.”
These days too, you’ve got to use every platform or technology platform at your disposal too; if you don’t, well…you know what people will say.
In a nutshell, they have to set the bar high and lead by example.
So let’s hear it for Harvey the Thinkbox dog and his mate Rabbit, who this week have got all clever.
He’s gone VoD on ITV’s new Ad Explorer option and C4’s Ad Link and Ad Extend formats. Plus he’s indulging himself this coming Saturday in a bit of second-screen activity via ITV’s Ad Sync service during The X-Factor.
(By the way, a word to the broadcasters: please come up with some better names for your super-whizzo new tech developments than Ad this or Ad that. Individually they may be ok, but when you see them all laid end to end they, like my brain, turn to mush).
Now you may be wondering how many of The X-Factor audience will go “blimey, that Harvey is really showing off advances in TV technology with advertising that is immersive, engaging and totally captivating way. I must find out more now.”
Answer: er, not many (who control decent media budgets anyway), although no-one should ever underestimate the British love affair with furry, cuddly animals, a national characteristic which Thinkbox has anticipated by preparing additional content involving a casting session for dogs who want to get on TV (hmmm, sounds a bit like some of the contestants on X Factor already).
But that is not really the point. Any that do interact with Harvey will give Thinkbox some information and understanding itself about audience behaviours in this complex TV environment and the opportunity to share that with the industry.
More to the point is that Thinkbox has to be seen to lead, and nowhere is that more important than in the rapidly evolving world of TV technology, if it is to be credible and relevant.
A final thought: it strikes me that, by the time you add all the bells and whistles to a full-on ‘new’ TV campaign – extra content, social media, apps, real-time response and so on, plus planning and implementation – there’s a huge amount of extra work involved for all. It better be worth it.
The TSB: it’s so boring it’s good
A friend’s dad was one of those old-fashioned bank managers: upstanding member of the church, the Rotary Club, golf club and everything else that mattered in the town. He knew everyone within a 20-mile radius of the town, and the the intimate details of many of his customers’ lives.
He once told me the secret of banking: “It’s 3-6-4,” he said. “Pay your depositors 3%; lend it out at 6%…and be on the golf course by 4pm.”
He was, of course, incredibly boring, if in a nice way. But I think he was serious.
Anyway, he would have approved of the new TSB, which returned to the High Street last week under the slogan ‘Welcome back to local banking’ and this 2.30-minute film entitled ‘Our Story’. Even the full name, Trustee Savings Bank, smacks of probity and decency.
You wouldn’t want to have the TSB round to dinner, but you would want it to look after your money.
And that’s the whole point, as the animated film explains. It tells the story of the Reverend Henry Duncan, the Dumfries churchman who founded the bank in 1810. You get the gist: it’s a celebration of the good solid virtues of thrifty Scots Presbyterianism, local commitment, community responsibility and staying true to your roots.
It’s an intelligent, if – given the history of the bank and recent events – fairly rational piece of positioning. When all its competitor banks are tarnished by the global excesses of casino banking, being boringly solid and local is a real plus.
So, how do the other banks respond? Bank watchers will have noticed a splurge of advertising, mainly in the press, last week by the likes of Lloyds, Barclays, NatWest First Direct and Halifax.
Barclays wants us to whisper in its ear how it can get better, NatWest wants to offer us a cashback reward card, and Halifax and First Direct are offering us bribes of £100 upwards to join them.
This, however, is only tangentially linked to the TSB – they certainly don’t want to lose business to it – but actually a direct consequence of a regulatory change which comes into effect today. This is the launch of the Current Account Switch Service, a guarantee scheme designed to help customers move banks and therefore promote competition.
As anyone who’s ever threatened to take their overdraft somewhere else knows, moving bank accounts is a nightmare. Inertia has truly been the banks’ friend.
Where does this leave the TSB? As the new kid on the block, and with a launch coinciding with moves to make switching easier, it’s got a head start.
And being local and boring is bang-on where any retail bank – certainly a new one – needs to be. HSBC had a go with being local (remember the ‘world’s local bank’ slogan?), but that didn’t stop it spunking away money locally – in the American rust belt, as it happens.
As positionings go, therefore, the TSB’s ‘welcome back to local banking’ is both timely and relevant. It’s certainly much more of the Zeitgeist than this slogan – “the bank that likes to say ‘yes'” – from the 80s.
But its bank managers won’t be out on the golf course after work. The Reverend Henry Duncan would not approve.