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ING Your Number

Now that your mortgage is worth bupkis, America's banks have shifted their acquisition strategy. Sure, it would be nice to have your checking account, but what they really want is the big dog: your retirement account. (Even if you haven't started one yet.) It's guaranteed growth income for them (and you), locked up for a couple of decades. Ideal.

I'm a fan of AIG's + campaign for its incredibly repeatable, conversation-starting voice and copy. And, of course, who doesn't get a kick out of the latest Nationwide Life Comes at You Fast episodic jaunt into rather clever and sunny nightmares. But, there's also something really engaging about this fundamentally simple campaign recently rolled out by ING and BBDO...

The spots feature people buzzing along in their daily lives - boarding planes, taking elevators, having lunch - all while toting a giant orange number. Most of the people are aspirational white collar professionals, but there's also a chef, a granddad, a car full of carefree young people. The numbers vary from several hundred thousand to a couple million and represent how much the person needs to save for retirement.

These are big numbers. And, frankly, all things equal, they would be reminiscent of that sick feeling you have in early April when you've been putting off your tax return because you don't know if you owe money, but fear that you might, and a lot, and just are not ready to face it... BUT, these ING spots overcome the fear factor with fun and friendly music and lots of positive motion. In the end, you get: I wonder what my number is. Not: Holy shit, I cannot do this.

The campaign drives to INGYourNumber.com. Which is a great example of why competitive audits work. ING took the best the competitive field had to offer, merged and elevated it, and added their own spin. The result is a site that has clearly learned from its neighbors.

Take a look. I think you'll see the simplicity of Fidelity's retirement planning tool; the personal delivery of Nationwide's; and a little twist on the call-to-action that is all ING.

In the end, the tool isn't a great fit for me. It rewards a customer who likes a high touch experience. And, I'm about as impatient as you would expect of someone for whom even Twittering is too much information. But, it's light and short and there are lots of helpful tricks for people just wading in - like a smart use of (looks like) Ajax to show help tips when a puzzled planner hovers on a question. All-in-all, probably a big win with the target.

Web strategy for your best copy line

Cautionary SEO tale for agencies:

Perhaps Citi's most memorable line in the last few years has been 'dividends are a girl's best friend.' It's the foundation of a particularly savvy advertising strategy that seamlessly blends media planning and creative. (See my further pontification)

The challenge is twofold: (1) The headline is infinitely more memorable than the brand. And, (2) Google.

Searchers enter the headline and net a list of blogs, news articles and sundry non-brand content that may or may not even be about the campaign.

When a line is that memorable, it deserves a Web plan that targets the way pre-shoppers and ambient thinkers search, buy and share online.

Ripped from Women's Magazines: Smart niche advertising

Forgive the crinkling. These ads literally came from my bedside table where one of them may have served briefly as a coaster.

AIG's 'How to pick a puppy that's right for you'
Challenge: Couples are waiting longer to have children and a still-small but economically-influential niche is choosing not to have them at all. For this audience, the typical guilt and responsibility ploys that have delivered in retirement and financial planning for the last several decades may be a little less potent.

Strategy: Find a niche and talk to it. Pet parents, maybe? Yeah, why not. Hugely passionate group of humans who are as happy to invest time and attention to advice as a nervous new real mom.

Result: Bare minimum?  Pet parents spent some time with this brand. AIG stopped the page flip and may have given them something to talk about at work the next day.

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Citi 'Dividends are a girl's best friend'

Challenge: Being impactful in their own media buy. Finding eyes for a message about the serious work of being a successful grown-up in the most escapist medium of them all -> women's magazines. Great recipes, cool clothes, fun room makeovers,  workouts I'll never do ... that makes me think about a bubble bath, not my theoretical portfolio.

Strategy: First, borrow equity from the medium - take the ad you'd expect (diamonds) and make it about the product we want to talk about. Second, play into the ambivalence a lot of women feel about even spending time reading this fuzzy stuff by delivering a message of empowerment in an unlikely source.

Result: Increasingly, women in their 20s and 30s are making more money than their partners. They're the responsibility and income hub of the household. Often, they are the household. I can't imagine this ad doesn't connect with them...

Great ads -

Kudos for Farmers Insurance approach

Tornados, fires, flying leisure boats ... yeah, you know - it's a prime time insurance ad. If there's no lizard in sight, they're selling one thing: the category. Insurance = peace of mind and there's some pretty scary stuff out there, buddy. Get thee to our web site before it's too late.

So, a quick nod to Campbell-Ewald and Farmers for a nice innovation -

The spots are stopping and fun, but the tagline really steps up the creative from selling the category to placing their brand in opposition of the category:

Sanity makes a come back

Post-Katrina, we all get it: It's one thing to have insurance; it's another thing to not have to fight about whether water damage is actually an insurable weather claim...

As much as I love the campaign, I've got to wonder if the writer has been given a bit toooo much rope. As the campaign goes on, it's starting to morph from stopping and fun to ... well, almost scary.

Huntington Bank, the Indianapolis Colts, and a little copywriter named Scott...

Update: New Web site for Colts Banking: www.coltsbanking.com

Today SBC Advertising's Scott Mylin joins the ranks of truly goofy ad guys before him:

• First there was DDB Chicago copywriter Jeb Quaid playing his own creation - Bud Light's Ted Ferguson.
• Then little 29-year-old copywriter Griffin Creech played the bewildered office guy in Careerbuilder's "Office Monkeys" commercials.
• Followed by the Martin Agency's CD Andy Azula drawing happy little trees on the UPS "Whiteboard" commercials.

Only to be outdone by SBC's own SCOTT MYLIN - not just the star, but, heck, practically the singer-songwriter for Huntington's Indianapolis Colts affiliate marketing program.

Watch, love, share the spot created by Scott and Creative Director Lance Dooley:

Creative team: Lance Dooley, Scott Mylin, Ben Harben, Dave Oberst, Katie Dirksen 

Bank of New Zealand: Piggy Bank

Sometimes it's ok to be derivative if you're this flat out delightful.
Agency: Y&R Auckland

Which trend will win - measureless marketing or scented checkbooks?

BtoB reports a "renewed investment in intellectual capital and less of an obsession with return on investment" as a major marketing trend in 2006.

The emerging trend was uncovered at the Business Marketing Association’s What to Expect in 2006 event Wednesday in New York. Panelists indicted the rear-view mirror approach of ROI and demanded a refocus on creativity and big ideas.

Needless to say no clients nor their business-minded bosses were present.

In other news, a UK agency called Brand Sense is out to build banking one sniff at a time.

Their approach relies on Mr. Science statistics - 83% of all commercial communications are visual when 75% of our emotions are influenced by what we smell, and there’s a 65% chance our mood will change when we hear a new sound.

Big fans of the Singapore Airlines patented flight attendant smell (er, perfume), their current project will use smell to calm consumer nerves. At an unnamed bank, Brand Sense will alter the environment of long waiting lines by creating a positive fragrance that will emphasize the bank's brand positioning of "personable, proper, fresh and new".

The scary part - the scent will be sprayed in the banks and on the stationery - including checkbooks! Nothing like having your plumber think you squirted a little perfume before you slipped him a check for unclogging the commode.

Nationwide: Life comes at you fast ... still.

I've never been much for squealing women or Nationwide's genuinely unsettling "life comes at you fast" campaign (no one needs that much of a sense of mortality from an ad on the side of a bus), but, kudos to the hard-minded realist who delivered this little swipe at the real world of marriage -

Elsewhere in the campaign - how a simple "grrr" can save a spot. And, the real impacts of childhood obesity.

Avoid Tongue Papercuts. Pay Bills Online Free.

Agency: <unknown>
Client: Bank of America