The agency wanted to create a conversation around a professional issue, specific to our own “market”, people from brands communication (agencies & clients) : the tendency to use social causes only as a subject of communication, with a lack of concrete and legitimate actions behind. Creating mistrust and skepticism among consumers. We needed to make an impression, creatively and symbolically, to ignite the conversation. This is what we did.

“Next Leading Brands” is the name of a study we did with BVA to learn more about French people habits after the Covid pandemic. One learning was that they were more skeptical than ever about the sincerity of brands claiming commitment to social causes, expecting a little more of action, and a lot less of conversation. To advertise the study, we focused on one meaningful result, demonstrating the importance to re-think together the way we use social actions as communicative tools.

We created a fake product to advertise: Full washing. First looking like a washing powder commercial, it quickly turns into something more unexpected. The stereotyped character starts explaining how to “wash out” your brand using all the different “social washing” options at the same time. Through the commercial the character herself realizes that there is something wrong in what we are saying. At the end, the brand has disappeared, and the result from the study appears. The last claim “What brand will you be tomorrow ? ” encourages to download the full study and to start the conversation, advocating for concrete and legitimate actions vs. words.

Our main audience was “ourself”. Meaning people from the marketing and communication world. So we decided to do an ad, playing with the stereotypes and the codes to better critic ourselves, with humor.

The ad has been “treated” like an ad. We posted it online, mainly on Linkedin, and pushed it through sponsoring. Of course, we did a traditional PR release.

With only €3K of media budget, we reached 1 million views.

The video has been widely shared and commented.

With more than 50 media impressions, marketing and communication medias but not only,

we managed to start a real conversation about the role of brands and the role of advertising agencies. Beyond the “paving stone in the ponds” effect, articles and editorials appeared to share point of views about this topic in the following weeks and months.

Finally raising enough interest to be chosen by a famous modern Museum, the MAD as the first agency work entering the permanent collection.

Brand purpose is everywhere today. Every brand needs to show they are fully integrated in the society, and act in a way to help and do better. So it's very important, in order to keep or gain the trust of the consumers, to be also responsible when it comes to communicate about it.