UK creative agency LONDON Advertising has launched a new campaign today to market itself to potential clients, in an effort to attract returning ad spend as Britain begins to come out of lockdown.
Though lockdown restrictions are starting to ease and businesses are starting to reopen, tough economic conditions inevitably lie ahead. Many brands and advertisers may therefore still be reluctant to advertise, even once they’re able to start selling their products again.
But agencies have been busy touting the benefits of advertising during a recession, backed by data from the 2008 financial crash. And LONDON Advertising believes the most effective way to relay this message is to put its money where its mouth is, and run its own large scale campaign in an effort to attract new business.
DOESN’T COST A FORTUNE from LONDON Advertising on Vimeo.
“It is a fact that advertising builds brands and fame,” said Alan Jarvie, founder and creative director of LONDON Advertising. “We believe the current situation provides a rare opportunity. Audiences are currently higher than normal and media is cheaper, as many companies have cancelled their campaigns. So, we’re doing what we would advise our clients to do; advertise now.”
The ten ads created for the campaign have been intentionally kept stripped back – each just features the company name on a green background, with voiceovers from actors Helen Mirren and Liam Neeson. With the lockdown making production of TV ads more difficult, LONDON’s spots are designed to show that brands can still create effective TV ads with minimal assets required.
REMEMBER THIS ONE from LONDON Advertising on Vimeo.
“Our campaign demonstrates the three criteria we believe work must satisfy to be effective: Is it simple? Does it stand out? Can you remember who it’s for? A lot of advertising fails to do one, two or all three of these things,” said Jarvie. “We also wanted to show it’s the size of your idea that matters, not the size of your production budget.”
Obviously there’s a reason that ad agencies don’t tend to run TV campaigns to promote themselves – their target audiences are very specific, making TV’s mass reach less valuable. To work around this issue LONDON Advertising is working exclusively with Sky News in an effort to reach relevant audiences. Cathryn Crow, head of performance solutions at Sky Media, said the broadcaster will use its viewing data to help deliver the campaign to the right audience through Sky News.
