Laura Brown Strategic Planning Portfolio

laura.e.brown2@gmail.com@saysLauraBrown

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This portfolio is an overview of four separate case studies from the Account Planning Bootcamp at the Miami Ad School in Sydney, Australia.

We worked in teams of account planners and creatives, and each week we were given a client brief to crack. My role as the planner was to write the creative brief and direct the strategy, but I also played a central role in engineering the creative idea.

My strategies for Snickers and Blackberry won the weekly class challenge. I was also received the Top Dog reward for overall first in class.

INTRODUCTION 3

SNICKERS 4 Expand the brand beyond the category

AIRBNB 7 Use members to convert non-members

BLACKBERRY 11 Bring back a dying brand

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART 14 Create a highly sharable experience

Great views from

here!

An Overview of Strategy.

The girl from Dekalb, Illinois.

Hello there. My name is Laura and I’d like to be your account planner.

We spend a lot of time talking about the brand journey: Where are we now? Where do we want to be? How do we get there?

But we should chat about our own brands as well.

The way we approach challenges is as varied as our own journeys to arrive here. I can be the pragmatic farm girl from Dekalb on occasion, but I can quickly pull on the hat of the hospitality industry pro. Or the data analytic. Or the theatrical pitch presenter. Every good planner should have a different story, with a rich background weaved through a variety of careers and interests. It’s our insatiable curiosity about the world and deep love of culture and people that drives us to keep digging, to keep seeking answers.

Thank you for reading. After all, patience, like brevity, is a planner virtue.

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SNICKERS

Dominating the confectionary category isn’t enough for Snickers. Its real competitors are energy drinks, muesli bars and bananas. Engineer a campaign that could replace BBDO’s ‘You’re Not You When You’re Hungry”. Take this brand to a new place.

The Brief

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Snickers owned the ‘filling snack’ category 20 years ago, but energy drinks and vitamin-fortified snacks are where millennials are now seeking sustenance, especially as enjoying a candy bar requires permission.

Snickers can hold its own in the hunger-bash category. It’s packed with peanuts, caramel and nougat, and its easy to eat on-the-go: no blender or microwave required.

He’s constantly negotiating his place in the friendship group. He cares about how he’s seen and when he doesn’t feel 100%, his place is weakened in that group.

At the same time, he wants to stay true to who he is, because he knows deep down that he is awesome.

Brief in a Tweet: Get hungry guys to reach for a Snickers first

when they’re feeling out of whack.

Target: Young guys with massive appetites who don’t feel at the top of their game when

hunger strikes.

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Insight Don’t let yourself get hungry because you want to be at

the top of your game.

Strategy Restore yourself back to full.

Creative Idea You just need to

top up your charge.

Peanut Power

Around 4pm, two unrelated but equally debilitating things happen:

1. Your phone is on the last bar of battery

2. The fog of hunger starts to creep in

How about a candy bar that truly gives you a charge?

Introducing ‘Peanut Power’, the solar-powered wireless cell phone charger. Available at bus stops,

campus cafes, outdoor music festivals and neighbourhood bars, you can find them right at the

crucial moment when you need charge.

The Idea

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The Brief

AIRBNB

Airbnb has a highly motivated, passionate community of over 10 million members. Explore how Airbnb can creatively empower their existing community to grow the idea of ‘belonging’ out to a new audience.

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Airbnb is a platform for renting accommodation from private homes and is changing the way that we consider travel. To grow Airbnb, we needed to find a way for the 10 million members to show non-users that the non-hotel way is the best way.

Hotel chains and guidebooks standardise travel to the largest common denominator, whereas Airbnb offers an an authentic city perspective. Experiencing the city as a local rather than a tourist is a key motivator for many Airbnb users, and belonging is a universal need that transcends culture barriers. With that insight, we found a way in.

Brief in a Tweet: Get Airbnb users to show non users how

good it is to be a local anywhere.

Hosts

• Proud of their hood and know it well.

• Fundamentally travellers as well.

Guests

• Travellers, not tourists.

• Interested in authentic experiences.

Target: Existing Airbnb users

(both guests and hosts)

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The Belonging Manifesto

Belonging happens when you’re suddenly no longer the part of the audience but rather an actor in the scene. It’s nodding reverently to the Sydney Opera House for its beauty, but paying homage to that little Vietnamese takeaway shop where they put their rolls on special for $4 after lunch, or that coffee place on the corner that has best lounges, or perhaps knowing that the 501 bus is always 7 minutes late. These little experiences elevate you to pride. These are your people. This is your place. It’s not about mileage points or expense accounts. It’s about connecting and sharing. Welcome home.

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Insight

Airbnb hosts are proud of their hoods.

Strategy Tap into the knowledge of these proud hosts to grow

the idea of belonging out to a new audience.

Creative Idea

Give the expert locals a platform to share the neighbourhood love.

Feeling proud to know the ‘secrets’ of your neighbourhood or hometown is a powerful emotion that speaks to the Belonging tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. We saw an opportunity to leverage the guide-creating behaviour that Airbnb hosts were already doing for their guests and spread this local pride with the rest of the world.

The Idea

Visit the website, select a template and

unleash your inner Lonely Planet

self.

The Local Expert

Visit the mobile app and browse

guides by interests, popular or language.

The Anti-Tourist

Download for offline viewing and go have an authentic local

experience!

Earn social kudos and Airbnb

credits to use within the community.

Ready to book? Connect through the app to Airbnb’s platform to find a

sweet pad.

If you’ve got a popular guide, you could travel the

world for free and spread the word even further!

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Vague but challenging: Breathe life back into this failing brand.

The Brief

BLACKBERRY

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In 2008, RIM was valued at $83.4 billion. At the close of 2013, the company (now known as Blackberry) was worth $3.4 billion. It currently holds a 1.4% market share in Australia, ranked distant 4th behind Apple, Android and Microsoft.

“Bring Your Own Device” is standard office protocol now when it comes to phones, so people are trying to integrate all aspects of their personal and work life into one piece of technology.

These weekday warriors take pride in the number of hours they spend on work each week, but thanks to Angry Birds, they worry that they haven’t spent every minute productively. They may use 10% of the functionality on their current smartphone because they have no desire to add filters to a photo or snapchat a video.

These iOS and Android devices give them productivity nightmares because they are content consumption devices. They need a phone that speaks their language.

Brief in a Tweet: Get the weekday warriors to champion

Blackberry again by showing how it improves their productivity.

Target: Anybody who feels that their mobile device

should elevate them to the top of their professional game.

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The Weekday Warriors may boast about their 14 hour work days, but hours worked does not necessarily result in more productivity. Give them a device that delivers efficiency so they can make their hours count more, both in and out of the office.

Blackberry is the ultimate productivity device. It gets things done easily, securely and quickly and it speaks in the language of spreadsheets and email enterprise systems.

Those ‘Blackberry Fruit’ keys aren’t just for looks, either. When matched up against an iPhone in a typing speed competition, the Blackberry finished in half the time

So, ask yourself: What would you do if you could double your time?

Insight For this audience, most smartphones are slow at

best and distracting at worst.

Strategy Champion Blackberry as the ultimate productivity device.

Creative Idea

Duplicate yourself

The Idea

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Create a low-budget experiential campaign that enables users to share their experiences during

the Light Show exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art without using photography.

The BriefMUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART

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2015 is the UN’s Year of Light, and Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art is celebrating with the spectacular Light Show installation. Featuring 20 artists and spanning 4 decades, the Light Show is a premium experience that commands an equally premium fee.

Sydney’s beloved Vivid Festival of Light will bring 2.3 million visitors to the city at the same time.

Brief in a Tweet: Get people to spread the word about the

Light Show by giving them a tangible experience to share.

Target: Social Influencers, AKA

‘The Date Makers’

Always in the driver’s seat

FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)

Socially event selective

Time poor

How they choose to spend their time is a reflection of how they want to be perceived.

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MANY CHALLENGES 1. Create an experience that can be shared, when photography is forbidden in the exhibition.

2. Drive attendance to a $20 light show, when the Vivid Fest light shows can be enjoyed for free

3. No space may be taken up in the exhibition.

4. Campaign should not be mistaken for artwork.

5. Must be within $5,000 budget and able to activate within 3 weeks.

OPPORTUNITY

By spreading the word of a premium experience through Social Influencers, the Light Show can be

the brightest event at Vivid.

Let’s create an experience that’s organically sharable.

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Social InfluencersThe key to unlocking this brief existed in the target audience and their motivations.

Insight At Vivid Fest, it was the littlest

things, like glowsticks, that brought the biggest smiles.

Strategy Bottle the Light Show

experience into a sharable keepsake.

Creative Idea

The MCA Orb

The Idea

We noticed at Vivid Fest last year that it was the littlest things, like the glowsticks in a few lucky kids’ hands, that seemed to bring the biggest smiles.

With that insight, we designed an orb with low-tech school chem lab ingredients that could be held in the palm of your hand.

As you move through the Light Show, the orb creates a second layer of light interaction in the exhibition with transforming colours. It’s only available at the MCA Light Show, but you get to keep it to light your way through the rest of Vivid Fest.

Why does it work? The museum is located in the heart of the Vivid Fest. Using the idea of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) we can engage the target audience with an exclusive experience that they can only have at the MCA.

These branded MCA orbs are mini advertisements for the exhibition and light a way for our Social Influencers to share the experience of The Light Show within their network and other visitors to Vivid Fest. 17