Hasta La Creative!

Grey launched a new campaign for 3M’s Post-it brand, extolling the virtues of handwritten notes to help people remember and complete tasks, entitled “Make it Stick,” the brand’s first campaign since 2013.

In the 30-second spot “Jump,” that task is tied to physically sticking a Post-it to the wall. A girl is seen placing increasingly higher Post-it notes on her bedroom wall, which is curious until we learn the reason. The next day she appears at basketball tryouts and is the first to demonstrate her vertical leap, placing a Post-it reading “Tomorrow I’ll jump even higher” on the backboard.

Tying the brand to such a task is a bit strange, as the stronger argument in writing things down physically involves improved retention and having an actual physical reminder to complete a task. Still, something about it works as a metaphorical demonstration of how the brand can help you complete a variety of tasks.

The premise of the campaign is based around a 2007 study entitled “The impact of commitment, accountability, and written goals on goal achievement,” which found that people are 42% more likely to complete a handwritten task, Jeff Hillins, global business director for 3M’s stationery and office supplies division, told AdAge. Lest you question the applicability of a study almost a decade old, 3M also commissioned a survey of Gen Z, (those born between 1995-2012), which found that 85 percent of email respondents said they learn best from a mix of digital and traditional learning tools, with 81 percent saying they’d feel limited by sticking just with digital. 

More to the point of the study, perhaps, is the first in an online documentary series. It tells the story of Imani Davis, a young poet whose craft benefitted from daily writing sessions. The spot documents Davis’ rise from anxiety-riddled student to aspiring young poet who performed at the Apollo, and the function Post-it notes have played in her writing process.

3M, which makes lots of different kinds of random, practical objects like sandpaper and stethoscopes, has now combined a bunch of them into one highly impractical but somewhat entertaining object—a Rube Goldberg machine.

The video below makes the manufacturer the latest in a long line of brands (e.g., Honda, Red Bull, Panera) to create one of the iconic contraptions as part of its marketing. 3M’s angle? Building the machine using its own products, from welding helmets and plastic sheeting to, naturally, 25,000 Post-it notes and many rolls of tape.

Tempting as it is to groan at the reprise, cascading devices do have an intrinsically sticky appeal, at least in terms of viewer impulse control—it’s hard to peel yourself away when you’re wondering what will happen next.

In this case, the big finish comes in the form of brightly colored streamers made of Post-its. That sets up the tagline, “Science. Applied to life,” which, for all its approachable gravitas, feels ultimately anti-climactic. The most powerful emotional appeal the brand can conjure is a bunch of bits of neon paper flying through the air.

That’s probably because all the other fascinating stuff it can do requires the audience to think way too hard. And the interlocking products also risk unintentionally suggesting that 3M’s varied businesses might encumber it (a notion its CEO dismissed as recently as March, in the midst of launching this new push to rationalize and modernize its public image). A Rube Goldberg machine may be functional, but it doesn’t exactly scream efficiency.

So, maybe the company is better off adhering to more useful displays of its technology. Or it could just copy GE—another hard-to-describe conglomerate—and rely on a mishmash of esoteric art projects, pop sci-fi references and insane product demos with Jeff Goldblum.

Retargeted banner ads are the sledgehammer of the web, bashing you again and again with the same random product you looked at once, whether you like it or not.

But 3M figured it could use the retargeted banner’s weakness as a strength. If the same banner comes up again and again, the company figured, why not make it a Post-it note where you could jot down info that might be useful later—when the ad pops up again?

Proximity Russia did just that in a recent campaign. Check out the case study below. It seems like ad-blocking software, but it’s not. 3M simply used retargeting technology and gave it an interactive spin.

The agency collaborated with several banner networks to get the Post-its on top websites in Russia. Clicking on the banners led you to a Post-it page, where you could create more stickers, edit or delete them all.

CREDITS
Client: 3M
Marketing Supervisor: Sergey Smolentsev
Marketing Coordinator: Yulia Smirnova
Agency: Proximity Russia
Creative Director: Andrew Kontra
Senior Copywriters: Polina Zabrodskaya, Anna Migaleva
Senior Art Director: Fernando Muto
Business Development Director: Mikhail Vdovin
Digital Director: Alexander Makarovsky
Senior Account Manager: Polina Zvereva
Digital Production House: INDEE Interactive
Producer: Alexey Zinchenko
UI designer: Egor Bernikov
Coders: Arina Vernidub, Andrey Zakurdaev, Oleg Nikanorov

Muito provavelmente, o marido de Emma discordaria que um Post-it é a melhor forma de capturar uma ideia antes que ela escape de nossa mente. Mas é exatamente esse conceito que a agência Noise, da Suíça, resolveu defender neste comercial feito para a 3M, com produção do estúdio Trikk17.

No filme, os blocos de Post-it são transformados em flipbooks para contar a história de um personagem que deixou uma ideia escapar e agora precisa enfrentar diversos obstáculos para conseguir capturá-la.

Os criativos do estúdio Trikk17 mostraram que o produto também é capaz de estimular a imaginação, apresentando-o como uma ferramenta criativa, e não apenas um bloco de anotações. O resultado ficou bem bacana.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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