Ogilvy’s James Whatley: 'You don't chase the platform, you chase the story'
In the past, before tech came and muddled everything, a brand's objective was simple: create engaging stories to capture the public's imagination and endear them to the brand. But has the advent of technology and new platforms ruined the narrative-building process and taken the focus away from what is truly important – creating unique and captivating storytelling experiences?
James Whatley, planning partner of innovation at Ogilvy & Mather
James Whatley, planning partner of innovation at Ogilvy & Mather has some strong views on this subject. Since taking on his new position at Ogilvy, Whatley has been tasked with “taking all the brilliant new stuff” and showing how it “can be made useful” for clients and brands. This can cover anything from emerging technology to audience trends and platforms.
Speaking ahead of The Drum’s upcoming webinar on Experiments in Storytelling on January 16, Whatley gives his thoughts on storytelling laziness and why more effort should be put into uncovering real audience insight.
Have you seen any good examples of storytelling by brands recently? What has stood out for you?
We've got an amazing case study that we did just over the summer for Kronenbourg. Kronenbourg is one of our clients who we do consistent storytelling across multiple channels for. There is normally a beautiful two-minute ad and usually lots of supporting pieces that appear cross-channel to tell the story.
We had this challenge where [former French footballer] Eric Cantona, the face of Kronenbourg, asked people to vote on whether or not Kronenbourg tasted supreme and if they did, he would swim the English Channel. And there's different parts of the story teased out over a course of three or four months.
What should brands be doing to create better storytelling experiences?
Create good stories. It's kind of obvious. There's a lot of stuff around, 'Oh it should be on this platform or that platform' but that's all obvious stuff. Actually having a good story to tell is kind of the key part. A lot of people are saying 'Oh let's do something on Snapchat!' but you're looking at it down the wrong end of the telescope. You don't chase the platform, you chase the storyteller. So we never recommend the platform without knowing, the idea, the audience, and the objective.
What challenges are brands facing in this space?
Brands are facing a whole bunch of challenges at the moment. First they are faced with lazy planners who tell them that millennials are the only audience that exists. And then there's lazy media agencies who tell them the only way to reach millennials is through Facebook and Twitter advertising and on YouTube. There's no real effort put into uncovering real audience insight. And brand marketers don't push back on it.
Do you think data and analytics play a key role in brand storytelling?
Any good campaign worth its soul uses data all the way through. Whether that's research upfront during the strategy and planning phase or testing an idea during the creative phase. Why would anyone not be using data throughout an entire campaign from start to finish?
How do you see the future evolving in this storytelling space?
It's going to become apparent very soon that people are getting very lazy with the audience that they're identifying. Right now the biggest problem in the industry is the laziness around planning it all and uncovering insight around their real audience. We are trying to ban the word 'millennial' because it's just a lazy catch phrase for an audience that doesn't exist.
Whatley will be speaking at The Drum’s webinar with Spredfast: Experiments in Storytelling on 16 January. A panel of experts from LinkedIn, the British Olympic Association and Spredfast will share insights on their own experiences in storytelling and what makes audiences engage with certain content and stories over others.
This will be a fully interactive webinar, giving you the chance to put your questions to all our expert speakers. If you want to make sure your question gets answered, send it to justin.pearse@thedrum.com.