By Anuka Roy
Video by Santosh Jangid
On Monday evening, Jon Cook, Global CEO VML and Debbi Vandeven, Global CCO VML took the audience at a tony lounge in South Central Mumbai through the interesting and eventful journey of VML. The company was founded in 1992 and headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri and nine years later, it joined WPP. VML has more than 2,300 employees with principal offices in 26 locations across six continents.
Cook and Vandeven made a presentation on ‘Creative Storytelling- Brand Engagement and Business Results’. According to Cook, today brands are very careful about the purpose and have started giving more importance to storytelling about them. He explained how they used to be just an ad agency and how slowly and steadily they have now become a full service digital agency. They used the four important elements from the iconic movie ‘Wizard of Oz’ – Heart, Wisdom, Bravery and Home to explain about the brands they worked and their respective success stories.
Vandeven explained three very important brand rules. She said, “Firstly, brands should put themselves in the consumer’s shoes. Secondly, they should be disciplined and decisive. Finally, what a brand does matter as much as what a brand says.†Following this, each of them explained the four elements one by one. “Storytelling should be done in a smart way using technology,†said Cook.
Cook, explained ‘Wisdom’ through rational creativity. He showed the audience the example of Wendy’s Pretzel burger and how they used the various tweets from consumers to turn them in to a series of love songs. The songs were an instant hit, thus increasing the brand value as well as profit of Wendy’s overnight.
Emotions are something that connects everyone instantly. So, the explanation of ‘Heart’ was about the human connection that brands should possess. To explain this, the example of Gatorade- the sports drink was used. They showed how talented athletes despite thetough situations can stay positive and strive to achieve the thing that he is most passionate about.
Brands have to take calculated risks in order to succeed, and that is how ‘Bravery’ can be explained. Cook gave the example of car manufacturer ‘Ford’ in this case. The company has a good understanding of the market and its target audience. And, finally, the global Olympic campaign was used as an example to explain ‘Home’. This was more of a public service announcement and the objective was to bring all the cultures together through sports.