It is a truism to say that today's consumer pays less and less attention to advertising messages. They have gone blind and deaf in order to protect themselves from the omnipresent din. They have developed mechanisms that protect them more effectively than Ad Block. They have learned to scroll without seeing ads, videos that — nota bene — some advertising ecosystems proudly count as viewed anyway. And the marketer and the agency swell with pride.

But why doesn't the sales funnel close — why doesn't the purchase happen? Why are empty leads generated, and why does the customer show no loyalty at the shelf? Why? Because they couldn't care less about us and our brand. They saw it somewhere, heard it somewhere, tried it somewhere, but didn't remember it, felt nothing new — unless you count boredom. The omnipresent effect of most marketing campaigns: SO WHAT?

Our case was not easy. A moderately known brand in Poland, a moderate (with a tendency toward small) budget, strong competition, and a hard-to-reach target group: well-earning men over 35. Classic, self-confident alpha males. They have money, they have power. All that's missing is (just) a few new status symbols, e.g., an expensive coffee machine.

Hey! Let's tell them that our machine has a Thermoblock, thanks to which the coffee will be hot from the very first cup... Or let's add that only we have 30 kg tamping!

SO WHAT?! Why would he want to click on a banner about tamping? Why would he even want to let himself be invited to our website to talk about the machine's construction? And finally, why would he choose us instead of the competition, which bought more GRPs and is literally everywhere?

Why? Because we used a very clever psychological trick. To put it bluntly... we slapped him in the face. We made him notice us, and he either got really angry or got engaged with our campaign. But let's take it step by step.

First, the strategy. We checked what the thesis of the coffee machine market was. They all communicate similarly, saying "choose us, because we are the best, most expert coffee machine." Our proposal for KRUPS was the antithesis of that communication. If you choose KRUPS, it means that YOU are the expert, the connoisseur, because you know what is good, what is quality, and what makes coffee exceptional. If you don't feel that difference, then... we have nothing to talk about.

A slap in the face of an alpha male? What do you mean we have nothing to talk about? What do you mean I don't feel the difference? Of course I feel it, and I know how the taste and aroma of average coffee differs from that perfect one from a good machine. I'll prove it to this smug brand. I'll click that banner and at least check why they're provoking me so brazenly. I'll go to that website. That's exactly how it was thought out and done... 51,000 times. A discussion erupted under the ad posts, and the average CTR reached as high as 2%. What's more: the bounce rate on the website was ONLY 16%! The average time spent on the site was as much as 2 minutes!

If we had stopped at that stage, the campaign would have been merely controversial — noticed, but leaving a sense of dissatisfaction. And because we believe very strongly in the psychology of consumer behavior, we wanted to give him the potential for a very pleasant exchange of "strokes" within the framework of Eric Berne's transactional analysis. Every human being needs strokes to live, that is, all kinds of stimuli, positive and negative, that we receive from other people. After a strong blow at the beginning, we wanted to give consumers a portion of positive experiences so that, inspired by the brand, they could get strokes from other people.

So the consumer who had been slapped in the face, upon entering the website, was... tenderly stroked by another consumer (most often a blonde woman ;-)

We organized the world's first test of coffee delivered from online to offline. How did it work? The consumer, educated by the brand to be a coffee connoisseur, chose online the type of coffee, e.g., cappuccino, latte, espresso, and then indicated the person to whom he would like to offer the coffee in real life (guided, of course, by a predefined typology — woman/man, young/older)! Since our target group was men, they most often gave the coffee to a young woman.

The rest was on our shoulders. In 3 Polish cities, we set up Krups sampling stands with delicious coffee, which was handed to the selected passerby by someone online! In return, he received a pleasant "stroke" from that person: a video with an opinion about the coffee from the Krups machine and thanks for the treat.

Over 3,500 people handed out coffee online. Consumers involved in the campaign received, as a thank-you, a video from the person who actually received that coffee on the streets of Polish cities.

At the special request of the individuals, they could exchange their email addresses. What is the side effect of the campaign? Apparently, one nice couple of true coffee connoisseurs who definitely have something to talk about!

Author:

Małgorzata Celarek
Creative Strategist at VanLeif
www.vanleif.com

Strategy, creative, production and overall supervision of the campaign – VanLeif
Performance campaign – Performance Media