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Matthew Burns:
Okay, so I’ve been just going through our messages, notes, little comments that go onto videos. And I’ve made a little bit of a pen pal with the Whiskey Smith – don’t know his real name. I don’t know if it’s a guy or a girl actually. But she was commenting on one of our videos and then brought up a very weird and interesting and awesome campaign that was done in the UK for Nescafé Gold.

Nescafé Gold is an elevated brand of instant coffee. I mean it’s instant coffee. So they got to find a way to sell something that’s convenient but yet still think that it’s going to taste really awesome like real coffee out of a French press. And so they did this really awesome thing. I’m going to play the the first of the videos so you can watch it and then we can talk about Nescafé Gold.

 

Woman 1: Hello. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m having a dinner party and I’ve run out of coffee.
Man: Come in.
Woman 1: Thank you.
Man: Will go blend be too good for your guests?
Woman 1: Oh, I think they could get used to it.
Man: It’s a very sophisticated coffee.
Woman 1: They have very sophisticated taste.
Man: Do they?
Woman 1: Yes. Well, I must be getting back now.
Announcer: Golden roasted. Richer, smoother Nescafé Gold blend.
Woman 2: Have you met your new neighbor yet?
Woman 1: Oh, I’ve popped in for coffee.

Matthew Burns:
So very soap opera. Very Young and the Restless going on there, actually you have a better connection to it. When we talked about this before we got on, what was the show that you said that this is kind of fastened after?

Stephen Semple:
First of all, you shared the ad with me and I watched it and I said, I fricking hated it.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, this is true. You were like “I don’t know if I wanna do this one.” 

Stephen Semple:
This is terrible. And then I looked into it and they had a lot of success with it. I watched a bunch of the other ads and they did this great job of this big long story arc, but I was still like, man, I don’t get it. And then I suddenly realized why I disliked it, why it worked, and why I would run the ads even though I disliked them.

Matthew Burns:
Perfect. Go ahead. Talk to me.

Stephen Semple:
I disliked them because if you really took a look at it very closely, the style of shot and dialogue and everything completely is Coronation Street.

Matthew Burns:
See I never watched Coronation Street. 

Stephen Semple:
You think about it, Coronation Street is the most successful – they broke the Guinness Book of World Records 11 years ago when they went 50 years. 

Matthew Burns:
Yeah it’s been on forever.

Stephen Semple:
Tens of thousands of episodes. On television it’s one of the most successful of all time. 

Matthew Burns:
Right.

Stephen Semple:
So it’s successful and clearly there’s a lot of people who like it. I watch Coronation Street and I want to poke my eyes out with a sharp stick. I can’t stand the pacing, I don’t like it at all, but…

Matthew Burns:
Oh man. But you know what, Steve,  I know you have a “but” there, but wait a second. It moves you. It moves you to the negative, but it moves you. It takes you from middle to not, “I don’t like this at all.”

Stephen Semple:
But here’s the other thing. When you look at something and it’s modeling something that’s been really super successful, and I don’t like it, then screw me. I’m one person. There is a whole hell lot of people who love this.

Matthew Burns:
Exactly.

Stephen Semple:
So therefore, you know what? Do it. And this is the thing you’ve got to sometimes recognize as a marketer, you look at something and go, I don’t like this. And way too often people go, I don’t like it. Don’t run it. I would’ve said, I don’t like it, don’t run it. But if you had said to me, but we’re modeling this off of Coronation Street. I would’ve looked at it and said, yeah, it is. So therefore, run it.

Matthew Burns:
Here’s the thing. So when I watched it and, guys, I’m going to say it. I thought it was dull. It was a little bit drab. The actors are awesome in it. Anthony Head is a male actor and he’s actually Mr. Manion from Ted Lasso. So he’s had a pretty good career. He is a pretty good actor in his own.

But when I watched it, I was just like, yeah, this is a really cool story. I like writing story arcs. Listen, I write for clients that you brought on board to the Wizard of Ads, and I like to write a story arc. I like to have this continuing journey of what the client’s going through, what they’re doing or if it’s character, how we write them. And so I thought just for that specific reason, but it also ran for eight years. I mean, it’s a campaign that ran for a long time. 

Stephen Semple:
They have got a fantastic story arc and they stayed true to the pacing and they stayed true to the angle and they stayed true to that whole Coronation Street style of telling a story. And look, that’s the reason why it worked. But sometimes what we have to do is we have to be really careful when we look at something and say, I don’t like this. We have to be really careful at “am I dismissing it for the right reasons?”

Matthew Burns:
Perfect. I love that.

Stephen Semple:
So sometimes it is the right reasons. It’s striking the wrong emotional chord. It’s making me feel this way when you need me to feel this way. Sometimes I don’t like it. I didn’t like how it was shot. But if it’s a style that you could look at and say, but you know what? There’s a whole big chunk of the world that loves that style, then you got to go, you know what? Just not for me. What I know is there’s a whole pile of people who love that stuff. 

Matthew Burns:
Exactly. Well, I think too, when you think about this, it’s like coffee drinkers. I mean, they way outweigh non-coffee drinkers. I think that’s an easy thing that we can talk about. In the world that these ads played – the whole idea of this shared experience, which is over and over again, this shared experience and then a cliffhanger at the end of every episode. Are they going to continue this story or not? What is the next thing?

We talked about this a lot of times. So if you’re going to put together a campaign, mystery is one of the best ways to get people to engage and to connect to the story. Again, I thought the stories were drab, but I think actually it wasn’t the stories themselves, but if you noticed inside the ad, I’m going to play one more in a second, but if you notice, I think they were a little too heavy handed with the selling of the coffee. 

Stephen Semple:
Yes. I’m going to agree with that. Consumers are not dumb. They get it. You don’t have to beat them over the head. The odds would’ve been even a little bit better if they made that a little bit softer and people would’ve still got it. Like they get it. 

Matthew Burns:
Well, and again, it’s owning the heart so that when the decision needs to be made that I need to get some coffee. I can get the regular Nescafé or get the Nescafé Gold. Well, there’s this one, it’s a really good one and I love that it talks about that they come from different places and so they both share coffee, which I really like. So watch this one. 

 

Woman: I don’t think this is going to work.
Man: You may be right.
Woman: We don’t seem to have much in common.
Man: I know. I hate opera. You hate jazz
Woman: And I loathe modern art.
Man: It’s my job.
Woman: So about the only thing we do have in common is
Man: Our taste in coffee.
Announcer: Golden roasted, richer, smoother Nescafé gold blend.
*phone rings*
Man: Hello.
Woman: I want to see you. Now. 

Matthew Burns:
Okay, so she doesn’t like modern art, he doesn’t like the ballet, but yet they had this affinity for the coffee and they had this blooming affection for each other. And so they did such a good job. That’s the thing you were like, this wouldn’t have moved me. But wait a second. It really brought the idea that this coffee is for everybody and it’s elevated. And they were able to do that over the course of time, right?

Stephen Semple:
Absolutely.

Matthew Burns:
They did a really good job.

Stephen Semple:
And create that emotional bond and create that connection and all that other stuff. Absolutely well done. And look, a cheat you can always use, and we use it all the time. We as Wizard of Ads partners cheat, we cheat. And one of the cheats is if there’s something out there that’s popular, whether it’s a genre or a type of character or a trope or something along that lines, and if we can copy it and not copy it in a manner where everybody sees it, copy the feel of it. What we know is it’ll work. The moment I realized it was in the style of Coronation Street, I knew it would work.

Matthew Burns:
Right. Well, you did. Steve was like, Matt, I don’t think we should do this one. You can’t convince me. And I’m like, dude, and the only thing I said to you was that it ran this long. You should watch it. And then it was when you put together why you knew it was successful, that was your ability then to jump into it. For me, the fact that it was successful was good enough. The fact that it had mystery, I’ve said this lots of times. I love writing mystery into things. I love that. The fact that we use mystery so much. All of those things made it right.

And listen, my mom used to watch, I can’t remember which one it was, As The World Turns, a soap opera, and that’s my connection to it, it felt very much like that. I remember having to sit through an episode or two and try to find out if it was his baby or not… come back next week. I thought they did a really good job. And Whiskey Smith, thank you for putting that out. Here’s a little connection. Whiskey Smith, I figured out by going to his website, I was really curious about who this person was. They have taken the Whiskey Sommelier course at the Wizard Academy.

Stephen Semple:
Oh, nice. As have I. As have you. 

Matthew Burns:
Exactly. But what I liked about it was that all of the comments that came in were very marketing savvy and the Whiskey Sommelier course is a whiskey marketing course. So I said, man, talk to me anytime about anything you want. And then he brought this up. So this is really cool. So thank you.

Stephen Semple:
Awesome.

Matthew Burns:
Thank you Whiskey Smith, I appreciate you. I’m sorry Steve doesn’t like your ad references. We can’t win ’em all, but great job. And Steve, listen, I’m glad that you got past the, I don’t like it, but I guess it works. So I have to talk about it. Awesome. Listen everybody, thank you so much. I appreciate it. And we will talk to you next time.

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