If you’re in marketing (which you probably are because you’re reading this on my marketing blog…) then you maybe saw the fallout from the Peloton ad last year.
No wait, it was actually November 2019.. that long ago… before covid-19 hit mainstream… anyway, if you missed it, their Christmas ad featured the lady in the image who received a Peloton bike as a gift then it looked like she was trapped in some sort of warped ‘big brother’ style documentary tracking her progress and well, with a face that looked like she was crying out for help…
“Critics called it “offensive” and “dumb”, pointing out that the woman was already slim at the start and the implication that her partner thinks she needs to get fitter and lose weight was patronising and damaging.”
In short, it wiped $1.5bn off the valuation of the company – ouch.
Recently, the brand deck was leaked and it makes interesting reading – especially for those that have not worked in or with or for a large brand before.
The deck itself is typical of a large brand going deep into the consumer mind to pull out the key emotional and functional messages – those on The BPM Method program will immediately see the link with our 5W Avatar process – both of which are based on 100 years+ work on building marketing campaigns from some of the top advertisers in recent history.
It’s a decent brand deck matching the brand truths and consumer needs – but it’s not entirely complete.
When building a marketing campaign, I skip over the finer details of what magazines prospects read, whether they see themselves as tech savvy or climate conscious. Brand marketers often get lost in the infinite depths of discovery and forget that platforms like Facebook allow you to test avatar/personas quicker than market research.
I want to go straight for the transformation and link that to marketing hooks that will reel them in.
For larger brands ($50M+) it may make sense to do deeper into who the consumer is as you’ve saturated the easy catch but you can achieve so much by simplifying your avatar/persona build.
Since we primarily work with small and medium sized businesses (both at SM Commerce and within The BPM Method) my goal’s always to simplify and speed up the process to shorten the time to succeed.
It’s the same process going from zero to 100k as it would be going from 1 mill to 10 mill.
Anyway, I went ahead and created a quick 5W Avatar below. Let me know what you think? Could you market this?
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Who: Men & Women 18-50
What: A $3000 exercise bike with online spin classes
Transformation: Improved fitness with accountability in the comfort of your home
Ad Angles: Guidance and motivation from a qualified instructor which pushes me to succeed; Work-outs with like-minded people from around the world; Powerful spin classes without the need to leave my home; Spin classes I can fit into my lifestyle; Making my work-outs enjoyable.
Features: Nice UX with progress tracking; convenient to set up, use and put away; large screen to view the instructor and other people’s stats against mine; immersive cardio; built-in speakers; 30-day home trial; 12-month warranty; classes to match your ability; mobile app integration.
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That took me less than 20 minutes to create by researching Peloton’s site and reviews. Everything on ‘how’ to create that is inside The BPM Method.
I could take that and build ad angles, headlines, copy and pull creative in within a few hours.
Given another 30-60 minutes I’d have some targeting set and my Facebook campaigns ready to roll out for testing.
Even if they are a billion dollar brand, imagine how fast you could actually test ideas before they hit larger reach channels like TV. (hint: I’ve run tests on Facebook before running TVC before to help guide our targeting and creative for TV).
Some of the best large businesses continue to innovate and scale because they think like a more agile, smaller business, with the execution power of a large corporate.
The BPM Method is more than just a Facebook ads training program – it’ll fundamentally change the way you see, and execute advertising campaigns, forever.
Do you see how I create successful ad campaigns (whether its Facebook or otherwise)?
Simplify everything down and it becomes so much easier.
Let me know your thoughts below.
Depesh.