It’s only been a bit more than a year since two advertising greats — VML and Y&R — decided to merge and form a new agency, but already the group has garnered recognition along with numerous accolades for the work they have done, proving that their approach to brand-customer connection is a worthwhile venture.
VMLY&R has already begun building a noteworthy track record, and adobo magazine was able to catch up with its Co-CEO for Asia, Tripti Lochan during her visit her in Manila, to get a grasp of how the agency has been since its merger from an insider’s perspective.
“It’s been over a year since we created a new agency called VMLY&R, and it was really, really interesting because we had VML, which you know from its past history, has had a very strong DNA. And then we had Y&R which was one of the agencies everyone wanted to work with, very strong in creating brands and love for brands. The merger of these two is an entity that has got so much power as a connected brands company, as we happen to call it. We managed to create all the capabilities that surround creating experiences that provide value to the customers of brands,” she says.
Authentic Connections
The secret to the group’s campaigns as Lochan explains, is its capability to translate brand messaging into experiences for their consumers that connect with them in an emotional level; something they have achieved because of how the two agencies worked before they joined together.
VMLY&R became an agency greater than the sum of its parts. The creative minds working behind the company are able to come up with strategies that are definitely out of the box, brazen, and of course effective. One example of this is their award-winning campaign “RIP Simon” for New Zealand insurance company LifeDirect where they killed off the client’s longstanding mascot, Simon the Sloth, as a demonstration of how important life insurance is in a person’s life.
Another example is their very popular and viral work for Wendy’s called “Keeping Fortnite Fresh” where players from the agency logged on the game Fortnite after a food fight update was introduced. The game placed players either as Team Pizza or Team Burger, and after realizing that Team Burger used freezers for their patties, players from the agency would thrash the freezers while recording the game because Wendy’s doesn’t do frozen beef. The campaign gained not just viral status, but numerous awards in different festivals as well.
Lochan adds that this is all part of the agency’s attempt at redefining advertising as an industry — that the job isn’t to pull people’s attention into buying something that they don’t need, but rather find ways to help build businesses up, and new ways for people to consume content.
Content to be Consumed, Not Skipped
Conventional advertising, as Lochan puts it, has turned into something skippable for most consumers. Advertising has become somewhat synonymous to ads that get in the way for people to consume content. But as she explains, it doesn’t have to be this way. The industry doesn’t need to be limited to pulling gazes into a brand’s product. Instead, the industry can also produce work that people actively consume. The aforementioned Fortnite campaign for Wendy’s, for example, became an enjoyable activity, and a trend players outside the agency joined. Lochan also believes that advertising has become a tool that can educate people as evidenced by one of their so far most famous works — “The Last Ever Issue.”
The campaign, in partnership with Gazeta.pl, Mastercard, and BNP Paribas, bought off porn magazine “Your Weekend” as it was closing down. For its last issue, instead of printing the same kind of content, they filled its pages with stories about women empowerment and gender equality as an attempt to educate readers in Poland.
“I think when we are defining our clients’ business in the future. When we become the most important partner to their growth, that’s the most exciting space. And that doesn’t have to be one thing. It’s like us trying to help redefine their products and services completely. Or the fact that we could get gamers to connect with Wendy’s through a game avatar that we recently did. Or provide the kind of education we did in Poland to men about women by closing down a porno magazine. These are all exciting ways of helping new product definitions and future-proofing our clients’ businesses,” Lochan shares.
Just like “The Last Ever Issue”, the job can also be a part of something much bigger like sustainability, an advocacy close to Lochan’s heart.
“I actually think sustainability is one of the key things that all of us are working towards. It started for me personally about I think ten years ago when my daughter was 14, and she came home one day from school, and she was like, ‘Mom, you guys, do you ever think about what you’re leaving behind for us?’ and it was very personal. It wasn’t you know [about the] UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals that we were talking about. We were talking about her children, at the age of 14, that she was thinking about. And I started getting really, really interested in figuring out how we could make a difference ourselves.”
Lochan was willing to explore small actions from the outset, but believes this is also a space that clients eventually needs to get into. “Currently, you’ll find sustainability officers or corporate teams who are responsible for sustainability in different brands’ offices. I’m very sure that structure is going to change and it’s going to become mainstream marketing. It’s going to become mainstream news, product development. [We have a client] in Indonesia, one of their key goals by 2020 is to be the first company that completely has a sustainable bottle that they use for water. And now you’re talking about product development, and you’re talking about marketing of that product across your channels. So it’s not a separate division or team anymore, it’s going to become advertising and marketing that we do.”
This is but one of the many opportunities that Lochan says companies can explore, but she explains that for agencies to come up with effective work, they need to address a challenge (which she also sees as an opportunity) to the industry — getting the young ones interested.
Building Up Talent, Listening to New Ideas
Lochan believes that the old guard of advertising, or work that simply aims to attract attention and sales, isn’t an environment that the younger generations are necessarily interested in. In fact, numerous surveys have shown that younger generations value purpose-driven work and long to be in an environment that aspires for change.
“I’ve often thought about that because I think the education of the youngsters, getting them to really understand what we do — not to see the end product of the ad or the skippable YouTube advertising that they’re exposed to, but to actually help them to understand what our role can be if done right is one of the big things. I think we all have to have a culture that they want to be part of. I think we can’t sell ourselves in a deceitful way. We first have to embody that culture that they’ll want to be part of. And once they embody that culture and really stand for something that’s valuable, it’s the same equation. We need to create value that they want to share with us,” Lochan explains.
New blood isn’t also simply about succession or finding new members to do the work, but keeping the company up to date with trends and new strategies as well. In fact, Lochan also values the importance of having interns, not as assistants or runners who get coffee, but as sources of animated zest and fresh ideas.
“I love interns. You know, when interns are in our office, there’s so much energy. But we need to think about not making them the lowest in the chain of, you know, you’ll get the coffee. But making them understand what they can potentially be. And I think the younger generation is dying to be inspired. They are waiting for us to really open our hearts and our minds.”
A little more than a year since the two agencies reopened as one entity, and the world is already seeing unconventional yet effective work come out of its doors. Both agencies hold rich track records, but a clean slate after its merge perhaps gave its creatives an opportunity to be more future-forward. Without a doubt, we’ll be hearing more of VMLY&R as they refine the foundation of their business and along with it help redefine the core of the industry as a whole.
