
The best in the world for me
Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund
Issue 44 | September 2017
Agency
Wirz/BBDO
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Livio Dainese Executive Creative Director Fernando Perez Creative Directors Michael Schmidt, Thomas Kurzmeyer Art Director Niels Schäfer Copywriter Simon Smit Graphic Designers Alexandra Kaufmann, Gaël Tran
Production Team
Production Company Pumpkin Film Agency Producers Sebahat Derdiyok, Niole Suter
Other Credits
Managing Director Petra Dreyfus Account Supervisor Simone Jehle Account Directors Marion Schwager, Stefan Schmid Account Executive Julia Neugebauer Account Supervisor Digital Adrian Huwyler Account Director Digital Sasha Djabbari Account Executive Digital Aline Herzog Executive Strategy Director Gordon Nemitz
Date
May 2016
Background
Migros is Switzerland's largest retailer. Its electronics division, melectronics, wanted to use digital media to reposition itself in the very competitive Swiss home-electronics market as problem solvers, there to help their customers.
Idea
Within the framework of a larger online promotion, customers were asked to describe their most pressing difficulties.
Then tongue-in-cheek solutions suggesting how melectroncs products might help were fired back at them in social media.
Question: Hey, melectronics, how do I get 10 years younger?
Answer: Dear Kurt, no electronic device can turn back time. But with our Medisana Face Sauna the years will at least disappear visually.
By answering every post individually in as entertaining a manner as possible, customers' creativity was sparked and a real buzz was created.
Several copywriters were kept on standby to respond immediately to posts. Within a week they had provided several thousand solutions to melectronics customers problems, all humorous and often irreverent.
Results
Direct interaction with 9,000 customers and a flood of vastly entertaining customer posts from all parts of Switzerland made this the most successful digital promotion ever for melectronics. 1.2 million users were reached and while direct sales had never been a goal, the campaign had a 3.5% raise in brand recognition.
Our Thoughts
Personalisation works. When it looks as if a great big brand is having a one-to-one conversation with you, it is immensely beguiling. As I've said elsewhere, the whole idea of the brand is that it should be anthropomorphic and behave as if it is human too. But because we have become accustomed to brands behaving in inhuman ways, it is surprising when they suddenly start involving their customers in real exchanges.
Programmatic advertising is technology's attempt to automate this exchange. I'm interested to see that the agency preferred to use actual copywriters rather than bots to do the work. This time.
melectronics has repositioned itself as a home electronics store that had the perfect solution for whatever problem you had. It was "'the best for me'.
Customers were invited to tell Melectronics about their problems. Every post got a witty reply within 30 minutes.