Fear mongering or shock tactics have long been the preserve of public information campaigns that attempt to drive behaviour change, or charity campaigns.  Most brands, however, tend to avoid aligning themselves to the emotion of fear.  That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a powerful motivation in a lot of consumption decisions – fear of missing out, fear of loss, fear of being left out etc. – but brands tend to want to put a positive spin on things, promising empowerment, confidence or control instead.

Here are 5 of my spooky picks.  Three are for public information campaigns, and two for brands, one of which unwittingly scared the living daylights out of people.

Kinder Surprise, 1980s

I doubt very much whether Kinder intended their Humpty Dumpty character to frighten a nation of small children to their very core.  I was one of the people who saw it for real, on air during the children’s afternoon TV schedule, and I’m not sure what lasting effects it has had.  It was banned almost immediately from our screens.

Chip pan fire prevention advertising, 1970s

I was tiny when this ad was on air, but I will never forget it.  Anyone whose mum had a chip pan would recognise the simultaneous rush of excitement and fear when that puppy was produced from the kitchen cupboard.

That poor woman (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mrs Brown) being ‘mansplained’ by some sanctimonious didact. And check out how he suddenly takes a very accusatory tone. ‘If you don’t let it start, you won’t have to stop it.’ You can almost hear the disdain in his voice for anyone who would ever dream of using a chip pan.

Anti smoking ad ‘Natural Born Smoker’, 1980s 

This ad took Bladerunner as its inspiration. It created a dystopian future vision of the human race, distorted by evolution because of their addiction to smoking. It was utterly terrifying when it appeared on our TV screens, but also incredibly clever. Forcing people to confront the grotesqueness of what smoking could do to them, not by preaching or holding up a mirror, but by creating a character so repulsive, any sane person would want to run a mile from a cigarette.

TV license evasion, 1980s

There wasn’t a family in the country who weren’t terrified when they heard that a ‘Detector Van’ was in their neighbourhood. The Royal Mail was responsible for collecting TV license revenue at the time, and they’d put adverts in the local paper saying “TV detector vans are coming to your town”. They would drive around with their huge aerials revolving, to make sure they were seen. Whether they actually worked or were a threatening PR stunt is still the subject of speculation.

Corsodyl Mouth Wash campaign, 2016

An example of a brand that isn’t afraid to play into many people’s irrational fear of losing their teeth to make its point. The brand Corsodyl boldly positions itself as the mouthwash for people who spit blood when they brush their teeth. No skirting around the problem here. This is use it or lose it advertising.

Happy Halloween! 

McQ Thinking is a boutique brand and communication consultancy that partners with the marketing and advertising communities. Find out more at www.mcqthinking.com.

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The most compelling story I have come across recently is The Drowned Man, an immersive theatre experience by the Punch Drunk theatre group. I didn’t read this story. I didn’t hear this story. I actually found myself in this story. And, I totally got swept up in it.

In an enormous disused warehouse in west London we were asked to wear masks, and told not to speak at all during the three hour experience. We were also encouraged to ditch our friends. Consequently, we found ourselves swept up in a meta-narrative that unfolded to each of us in different snippets, scenes and sequences. It was an extraordinary experience of letting go and submitting to what ever happened next. When I regrouped with friends over dinner, we realized that each of us had experienced and participated in this story in unique ways, although we had all understood the same over-arching narrative.

Immersive theatre can be an instructive model for brands because it shows that there is potential to engage with customers at a much deeper level.

Brands need to do more than just tell their stories. They need to live them.

By seeing the brand story as something to live rather than to tell, this gives us a framework with which to start constructing a “living narrative” for the brand, that is literally played out and experienced through every interaction that occurs between the “actors” (brand representatives) and “participants (customers).”

This approach works particularly well for brands that have service delivery or an experiential element at their core.  Here are the fundamentals of the approach:

Create your brand story

Here we cast the brand as the hero in the story, and use many of the core principles of great storytelling, some of which include:

• What is your brand’s heroic quest?
• Who or what is the antagonist to your brand’s protagonist?
  - Not literally a competitor, but a cultural or categorical construct that your brand is pushing against.
• What do we learn about your brand’s character in its struggle with the antagonist?
  - What moral qualities and tangible advantages does it reveal?
  - What shadow qualities or internal dilemmas does it reveal?
  - What lessons are learned from this struggle– this forms the basis of your brand’s core belief and value system. 

Live your brand story

Very often a brand story is just a back-story, living passively in a manifesto. Your story needs to be experienced through the interactions that your customers have with your brand and its representatives, at every key touchpoint.

Here are some things to consider in deciding how to bring your story to life:

• Do you want to reveal some of your brand’s “internal conflict” in order to foster  trust? Dominos Pizza embraced their flaws publically, and used consumer criticism as the inspiration to improve every aspect of their offering, winning back the detractors and gaining new customers.
• How can you manifest the threat posed by the antagonist to compelling dramatic effect? President Obama is particularly good at this. Through his social media campaign he engages his followers in his on-going struggle, always painting those who stand in opposition as the threat that he needs their support to overcome.
• How might your employees as “actors” be empowered to convey your brand’s story in ways that feel personalized, as with immersive theatre. Zappos are brilliant at empowering their employees to do what it takes to make each customer happy.
• What “props” could you use to help you live your story? On a recent stay in New York at the London NYC hotel I was struck by the fact that all calls from my room to London landline numbers were free. For a hotel that is playing into the fantasy of the NY-LON lifestyle, this is a simple prop that enhances the story. What would prevent the hotel from going further and using actors to stage “scenes” that could further enhance the fantasy?
• How will you unfold your story at different phases of the customer journey, and through different touchpoints? Immersive theatre gradually reveals its story, rather than telling it all in one go, promoting a sense of deep emotional engagement through discovery.

McQ Thinking is a boutique brand and communication consultancy that partners with the marketing and advertising communities. Find out more at www.mcqthinking.com.

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Brand and communication strategy nearly always has some type of consumer research at its heart. I am either observing it in real time with my clients (behind a one way mirror, in someone’s kitchen or via webcam), or conducting it for them.

The quality of research undoubtedly varies – from the downright robotic   (I will stick to the discussion guide at all costs) to the truly inspiring (I am committed to solving the bigger problem and will explore rich veins as they emerge).

In fact, Unilever initiated its much debated Qualitative Accreditation Program, because of the variance in qualitative researcher standards, and the consequent paucity of “new ideas and insights that serve to move the company forward.”

Manish Makhijani, global consumer insights director at Unilever has talked about “good” qualitative research being derived from “good” thinkers. I totally agree. But, I’m not sure how their accreditation program is going to inspire great thinking.

It works by giving applicants a mock brief for which they have to write a proposal and a discussion guide, and then recruit and moderate one live group of six respondents for an hour-long discussion. Independent assessors meet the researcher to talk through the brief, watch the group, and discuss afterwards with the researcher how she/he might analyse the findings and plan for the debrief.

All well and good, but it’s only one step on the path to great ideas.

In my experience, the research that has really helped to move brands or businesses forward has done so because of the quality of thinking it has inspired either during the research (in the “back room”), or shortly after it (in the debrief session)., not just by the researchers, but among the key stakeholders (clients and agencies).

In effect, it is when the researcher is confident and able to use the insights from the research to light fires among the strategic decision makers. These researchers are able to step away from the findings and feel comfortable in taking strategic leaps, often in real time.

The goal of any researcher shouldn’t be to just conduct good research and deliver a great debrief, it should be to engage as a provocateur, helping key stakeholders make business-changing leaps.

What we need to see more often from research practitioners are the facilitation skills and confidence that can galvanise a group of smart thinkers around the central problem. In effect, researchers need to take responsibility for “activating” their research findings.

The ability to do this effectively is, in my view, a premium skill. It is something that is usually honed through the experience of working in cultures where ideas are the end product. These are positively combative environments, where having the courage to introduce, defend, and even relinquish your ideas, is demanded, in order to have break-through ideas.

If we want research to be an even more powerful strategic weapon, here are four things that could help:

1. Researchers who encourage stakeholders to take big leaps from the research findings. Instead of “clinging on” to what’s been observed, “let go” and see where it might take your thinking. It’s far better to over-reach and be wrong, and have to work backwards, than try to get somewhere interesting from a safe place.
2. More iterative research methodologies that build time in-between groups or interviews, to allow the stakeholders to workshop the emerging findings, and evolve their hypotheses as they go. Your research ROI multiplies significantly when it fuels strategic thinking in real time.
3. More attendance by parties who are truly invested in solving the problem, versus “passengers” or passive observers. By elevating the exercise from research to a “hot house for strategic thinking “ you can ensure that you have more of the right brain power available to “activate” the findings.
4. More researchers who stand out, rather than fade into the background. You don’t want a researcher to dominate a group or interview, but you do want them to drive a “back room” or debrief workshop.

So, the next time you commission a piece of qualitative research, don’t just ask whether it will be a good piece of research, ask whether it will make you and your team think better.

McQ Thinking is a boutique brand and communication consultancy that partners with the marketing and advertising communities. Find out more at www.mcqthinking.com.

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