Microsoft's new Windows 7 Phone which is billed as "a phone to save us from our phones."
What kind of company tells people to use its products less?
It's a weird tactic, and a counterintuitive one. But in an era of increasing consumer agitation, it may not be coincidental that its popularity is growing within industries that are sometimes darkened by clouds of social opprobrium.
Some years ago, Unilever famously repositioned its personal care brand Dove to be an emblem of the philosophy that women should ignore the onslaught of harmful marketing messages from the beauty industry (including some of Unilever's own brands). This month, Microsoft rolled out an ad campaign for Windows Phones, trumpeting them as "a phone to save us from our phones."
The drug company Pfizer is encouraging people to develop habits that, if adopted by the public at large, might lead to a lower incidence of disease - and, by extension, less use of Pfizer drugs. The oil company Chevron has been urging people to take a pledge to change their habits by using their cars less often: that is, to use less oil.
Pfizer's branding campaign grew out of a pitch that Crispin Porter + Bogusky Canada - then known as Zig - made in early 2007. Shelley Brown, now the agency's CEO, recalls framing the discussion in these terms: "Canadians are not naturally fond of pharmaceutical companies," she said. "They don't trust them, there is a suspicion the motivation there is profit and not my health. But what if Pfizer became the pharmaceutical company that completely dispelled that? And didn't just say we care about your health - because all pharmaceutical companies will say that - but actually took action?"
As it happens, Pfizer recognized it had some issues. Shortly before that pitch, the Canadian division of the pharmaceutical giant convened focus groups to probe people's attitudes toward the company. Participants were asked to cut out or draw pictures they felt represented the company.
"They cut out pictures of mad scientists or bankers," reports Veronica Piacek, the director of consumer communications and relations.
So over the last few years Pfizer and CP+B have created a trio of videos promoting the idea that "to be truly healthy takes more than medication." One shows a young graffiti artist who paints a colourful mural with the words "Be Brave" on the apartment building outside the bedroom window of his ill sister. Another is a skillfully edited symphony of breathing - by women doing yoga, by basketball players, by a fellow snoring on the couch, by a newborn baby - that concludes with the message, "Sometimes, we all need to take a breath."
This month Pfizer introduced a free smart phone app called Smidge that is designed to help Canadians develop healthy habits: drinking more water, breathing more deeply, eating more fruits and vegetables, getting more exercise, managing stress more smartly, and stimulating their brains more often. For 21 days - the amount of time Pfizer says it takes to develop a habit - users are guided through daily exercises, which they dutifully record on the app. If they fail to fulfill the requirements each day, Smidge - like a Tamagotchi for adults - resets back to the beginning.
Ms. Piacek says the efforts have helped clear a space for the company to engage differently with Canadians. "People were so shocked we were saying, 'Hey, you need more than our medicines,' and that made them want to listen to what we had to say, because they really believe that. And not just consumers. Even health-care professionals - from pharmacists to doctors - everyone believes that it takes more than medication, that you need to manage your stress and all that."
Pfizer, in other words, joined a conversation about health that is already taking place.
Will the same sort of counterintuitive tactic work for Microsoft? Rob Reilly, the chief creative officer of the U.S. office of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, which developed the phone campaign, says there's a growing ambivalence toward the devices that he believes his agency and Microsoft can leverage. About a year ago, he and his team were pitching a prospective client. "It was the first round, and we didn't get into the next round," he admits. "The feedback was, it didn't seem like we were interested: All our guys had their heads in their phones or their laptops." Henceforth, all such devices were banned from Crispin meetings.
The Windows Phone campaign includes two elaborate 60-second TV ads illustrating how cellphones have evidently altered the course of evolution by transforming forward-facing homo sapiens into face-down zombies. One spot sends up behaviour that unaccountably has become socially acceptable: fiddling with a phone while bicycling along the sidewalk, playing baseball with your son, performing a surgical procedure, or walking down the aisle on your way to the altar. To the tune of Greig's epic orchestral number In the Hall of the Mountain King, people hit back at the distracted thumb-twiddlers with an outraged: "Really?!" The spot concludes with the tagline: "Be here now."
A second spot, set to Donovan's Season of the Witch, delivers a beguiling, single-take slow pan of a European street populated by people apparently hypnotized by their phones: a young woman kneels in front of a fruit stand staring at her phone; a man lies in the street entangled with his bike and preoccupied by his phone; another man sits atop the hood of his just-crashed car, blithely texting.
The campaign grew, in part, out of a recognition that Microsoft needed to do something bold to differentiate itself from phones running other popular operating systems. "This is probably the most non-traditional (approach) they've ever done," notes Mr. Reilly. "So you're always waiting for the call [from the client] 'We're not doing it.' "
The call never came, but the campaign's development endured some twists on its way to market. "It's funny. We tested the notion of 'This is the first phone designed to use less,' " Mr. Reilly says. "And while people liked it, they were confused by it." To clarify matters, the company added a voiceover at the end of the Really? spot that declares the phones are, "designed to get you in, and out, and back to life."
Of course, Microsoft doesn't really want people to stop using smart phones; they just want to sell their phones by channelling a popular sentiment. And Pfizer's campaign doesn't just help people get healthier; it helps Pfizer's brand get healthier too. As Ms. Piacek notes, "Pfizer is overall in the health care business and I think with the growing older population they're always going to need our products."
In the meantime, she says, consumer attitudes toward her company seem to be changing: focus groups are no longer filling pages with drawings of bankers and mad scientists. Does that mean they're drawing, say, fluffy kittens? "No, we're not there yet," she laughs. "More like people holding hands."