ABOUT

Challenge

How does an agency get noticed and chosen at the world’s biggest festival of creativity?

Insight

For 25 years, jkr has partnered with clients big, medium and small to create what we call ‘brand charisma’ – the indefinable magic that gives one brand a magnetic pull over another. It’s a philosophy that our agency has been built on, and that we believe makes us unique.

Brief

Amplify and celebrate what has made jkr distinctive as an agency for 25 years: Charisma by Design.

Creative idea

We studied some of the world’s most successful brands to find out what makes one brand charismatic and another lackluster, collaborated with specialists (a zoologist, an adman, a casting agent, a semiotician, a leadership advisor and a youth specialist) to get under the skin of charisma, and partnered with a data house to evaluate past IPA effectiveness winners and positively correlate brand charisma with brand growth.

The outcome was a proven methodology showing that charisma drives distinctiveness, distinctiveness drives growth, and growth drives profit.

Our challenge was to bring this message to life in an engaging and thought provoking way.

Impact

We launched Charisma by Design at the Cannes Lions International Festival Creativity 2015 through our #fansofcannes social media activation campaign and guerilla marketing at the event itself.

During a 6-week run-up to the festival, we built anticipation and awareness. We blogged about the past Cannes Lions winners, analysing the brand’s charisma and creative delivery, and we commissioned a bespoke promotional fan featuring our proprietary visual metaphor for brand charisma: a peacock resplendent amongst a flock of grey, anonymous pigeons. We sent fans out across the world, encouraging all of our studios, agency partners and friends to take #fansofcannes tagged selfies in front of the world’s most famous landmarks.

During the festival, an exclusive partnership with The Drum saw 4,500 fans distributed within the Cannes special edition of The Drum magazine, whilst Strategy Director Lee Rolston live blogged from the awards events themselves, tying charisma to creativity at every step of the journey.