QUT students jolt the senses

An attention-grabbing but easy to understand road safety campaign, devised by Queensland University of Technology students, has been selected in Brisbane’s first annual Re:act behaviour change program.

The selected Brisbane campaign for Re:act 2020, ‘Where’s your sense?’, ‘jolts’ distracted vulnerable road users (VRUs), in this case pedestrians and bicycle riders, back to the present to highlight the road safety topic of distraction, a major challenge for all young road users, including drivers, pedestrians and bicycle riders.

The annual Re:act program challenges university students to create a behaviour change campaign that raises awareness among 18-25 year old road users of a critical road safety issue where they are over-represented. The Re:act 2020 topic is distraction.

An initiative of creative behaviour change agency Hard Edge, Re:act, now in its fifth year, is running for the first time in Brisbane in 2020, through QUT, and in Melbourne with Swinburne University and UTS in Sydney. The program has also expanded internationally this year into London, at University of the Arts London (UAL).

QUT students Kate Walters, Paulus Pearce, Mea Clifford and Macey Robinson-Stewart devised the selected campaign for Re:act 2020 in Brisbane, ‘Where’s your sense?’. It features mobile phone-focused pedestrians and bicycle riders in dangerous situations, such as a bicycle rider oblivious to the multiple lanes of traffic he is crossing.

Campaigns rounding out the top three in Brisbane were ‘Earn your seat’, which showed that passengers share responsibility for the safety of other vehicle occupants and road users, and ‘Shift your senses’, which created the likeable character of ‘Bill’ to personalise road safety issues for the target audience.

Re:act founder and CEO Andrew Hardwick said students’ concepts for Brisbane 2020 showed fantastic in-depth research and insights to inform their campaigns. The quality and creativity of the students’ research and ideas was also praised by Re:act industry partners, who in Brisbane included Telstra, IAG, Rio Tinto, Transurban, CARRS-Q and Transport and Main Roads, who described them as ‘impressive’, ‘creative’, ‘excellent’ and ‘quite extraordinary’.

Feedback from program partners also reinforced the importance of Re:act’s ability to give students a ‘real-world’ experience, and to increase road safety awareness among a group of road users over-represented in road trauma but hard to reach and engage with road safety messages.

With funding from the Re:act program, the students behind each selected campaign will work with the support of Hard Edge to launch their campaigns on their respective university campuses. Re:act media partner, oOh!media, is providing amazing support this year and will run the campaigns in each Australian city across hundreds of their digital assets, including its landmark billboards.

“Expanding Re:act into Brisbane this year represented several firsts for the program. It was for example the first time Re:act had been run with QUT, the first time advertising copywriting students had been involved, and the first time we had such a large group of students, with 65 second and third year students participating. It was exciting for us to take Re:act into Queensland, and the commitment and enthusiasm of the university and the industry partners was instrumental in the program expanding further in 2020 and delivering such successful outcomes. The research the students produced was impressive and their ideas and messaging revealing and insightful. Visually the selected campaign, ‘Where’s your sense?’, captures your attention immediately and its succinct and creative messaging clearly cuts through to the point, jolting the target audience out of its distracted behaviour through self awareness.”

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Andrew Hardwick
Re:act Founder and Hard Edge Managing Director

Brisbane 2020 campaigns – top three

‘Where’s your sense?’ Kate Walters, Paulus Pearce, Mea Clifford and Macey Robinson-Stewart



“From our research, we found a lot of campaigns in the past focused on the Stop. Look. Listen. Think. rule. A lot of people do stop, they do look but they don’t listen because they have earphones in and, for the target audience of 18-25 year olds, one in three are on their smartphone all the time, even when they’re walking. So from there we came up with our concept, ‘Where’s your sense?’, based on their senses becoming impaired when they’re on their smartphone or wearing earphones. The Re:act program was really good, I thoroughly enjoyed it. A lot of campaigns in the past have also drawn on the fear factor. Re:act is a breath of fresh air in that it’s trying to pave a different way for how we reach the target audience through more positive messaging. For me personally I love to listen to music, and that can be quite distracting. The research backed up what I’d already been feeling, that I am in my own bubble when I’m listening to music and that is dangerous in a public setting, so Re:act raised my own personal awareness too.”

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Paulus Pearce
Student who worked on selected campaign

‘Earn your seat’ Joshua Griffiths, Sam Melit, Dzung Le, Benjamin Roberts and Jacob Wright

‘Shift your senses’ Abbey Schutt, Alina Peintner, Emily Macgroarty, Gia Georgiou and Lucy Edwards

For more information on Re:act visit reactforchange.com

Wild animals prove “You miss a lot when you’re distracted”

Wild animals were ‘let loose’ in central Melbourne as part of a road safety campaign devised by Swinburne University students for the annual Re:act behaviour change program.

The selected Melbourne campaign for Re:act 2020, ‘You miss a lot when you’re distracted’, depicted vulnerable road users (VRUs) oblivious to the virtual presence of wild animals in the city to highlight the road safety topic of distraction, a major challenge for all young road users, including drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.

The annual Re:act program challenges university students to create a behaviour change campaign that raises awareness among 18-25 year old road users of a critical road safety issue where they are over-represented. The Re:act 2020 topic is distraction.

An initiative of creative behaviour change agency Hard Edge, Re:act, now in its fifth year, is running in 2020 in Melbourne with Swinburne University, UTS in Sydney and, for the first time, Brisbane, through QUT. The program has also expanded internationally this year into London, at University of the Arts London (UAL).

The selected campaign for Re:act 2020 in Melbourne, ‘You miss a lot when you’re distracted’, was devised by Laura Hughes, Caitlin Xavier, Stephanie Powell and Thomas Pritchard. It features inspired use of colour on wild animals and a correlating road safety danger, such as a car. The team aimed to produce a campaign that was ‘new and different’, avoiding typical cautionary messaging, and focusing on pedestrians.

Campaigns rounding out the top three in Melbourne were ‘The Distractors’, which created animated characters to represent specific distractions, and ‘You wouldn’t do this distracted’, which brought ideas of juxtaposition, such as the ‘sex sells’ adage, to the road safety space.

Selected student campaigns in other cities will be presented and decided in coming weeks.

Re:act founder and CEO Andrew Hardwick said the standard of students’ campaigns for Melbourne 2020 was outstanding. The quality and creativity of the campaigns was also praised by Re:act industry partners, including Australia Post, TAC, RACV, Telstra, Transurban, VicRoads and NRSPP, who described them as ‘sensational’, ‘phenomenal’, ‘very professional’ and ‘on par with agency work’.

Feedback from program partners also reinforced the importance of Re:act’s ability to give students a ‘real-world’ experience, and to spark road safety conversations among young road users.

With funding from the Re:act program, the students behind each selected campaign will work with the support of Hard Edge to launch their campaigns on their respective university campuses. Re:act media partner, oOh!media, is providing amazing support this year and will run the campaigns in each Australian city across hundreds of their digital assets, including its landmark billboards.

“We’re constantly amazed and reminded why we do this each year. All the students did an amazing job to work in groups and produce such fantastic work. Every campaign was on brief, and every group produced a strong campaign with great insight. Everybody was engaged with the program throughout the whole process, despite the challenges of restrictions. Industry partners, who obviously faced changed working circumstances and home schooling; the students, who were working as groups but remotely in isolation; and Swinburne University, who did a fantastic job to keep the program moving forward in its fifth year. The selected campaign displayed insightful thinking to be able to make the audience look at something that’s out of place while at the same time relate it to something that is present that they need to pay attention to. It was very clever treatment of colour to highlight the animal and vehicle, and the campaign was very Melbourne-centric in its activation.”

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Andrew Hardwick
Re:act Founder and Hard Edge Managing Director

Swinburne 2020 campaigns – top three

‘You miss a lot when you’re distracted’ Laura Hughes, Caitlin Xavier, Stephanie Powell and Thomas Pritchard



“We wanted to stay away from using overly cautionary, scary tactics and we thought something a little bit lighter – you miss a lot when you’re distracted – so we leveraged that idea out to be applied to still symbolically dangerous but less abrasive things. So we used crocodiles, cheetahs, images that are associated with danger but still have visual impact, to symbolise other things. Crossing a road on a red signal was symbolised by a coral snake, the cheetah represented a car, that sort of thing. We decided to focus on pedestrians because we didn’t find a lot in our research on pedestrians, a lot on cars and quite a bit on cyclists and motorcyclists. Pedestrians were a big road user group that wasn’t talked about as much. Re:act has been so fantastic, especially during quarantine. It’s been great to be able to get out there in industry at a time when that’s all feeling a bit impossible. It is very different to anything we have done before, and we were all excited to not just be designing things for our portfolio but to feel like we were working on something to actually make a difference.”

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Laura Hughes
Student who worked on selected campaign

‘You wouldn’t do this distracted’ Trinity Ross, Hui Shan Thoo, Georgia Emery and Mina Teh

‘The Distractors’ Caitlin Maiorana, Annabel Le, Dan Truong and Venessa Tan

For more information on Re:act visit reactforchange.com

Where is my mind?

New opportunities for road safety behaviour change. 

Our response to Covid-19 has focussed on health and economic concerns. As the conversation turns to easing restrictions, these two factors will again guide decision making. One area where the same clarity of thinking is needed, and that already carries major health and economic costs for our community, is road safety.

The way we have lived our lives in recent weeks has been very different. While we’ve been hibernating, and the Earth has been healing itself, our interactions with the roads have potentially decreased or changed. I can’t remember a time when Australians will have driven so little, and for so long. Footage of city centres around the world has shown normally congested streets bereft of traffic – something many of us may have previously wished for during peak hour frustration.

But what will happen when motorists – and pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists – return to the roads?

After being in isolation for so long, people will be desperate to get out. With domestic flights returning to normal still months away, and international even longer, Australia is set for a tourism boom; enter road trippers and grey nomads. L plate drivers will be keen to get their hours up quickly to make up for lost time, and P plate drivers will be wanting to get out and enjoy the freedom they’ve missed. Taxi and Uber drivers will have increased demand when restrictions on gatherings are eased and restaurants and bars start re-opening.  Working from home will undoubtedly continue at increased levels, but those who do go to work may be more apprehensive to take public transport, so we’re likely to see more cyclists and pedestrians, as well as cars. All this, in the face of an increased freight task working around the clock to manage unprecedented online demand. The quieter roads are set to be utilised differently and with an influx.

It is bound to be a melting pot of changed behaviours. Will the pedestrians I’ve noticed walking between parked cars and onto an empty street to avoid others on the footpath absent-mindedly continue this social-distancing habit?

And what about drivers? Sure, we’re not going to have forgotten how to drive, but many of us will be ‘rusty’. And it’s going to be a challenge to snap back into what were automatic behaviours, like checking mirrors before changing lanes or clicking in the seatbelt when we enter a vehicle. Could we expect there might be words uttered like “I totally forgot” or “I wasn’t thinking?”

Research suggests it can take as little as 18 days to form a new habit and, as we turn the calendar to May, we’re approaching 50 days since national restrictions were introduced. While loss of skill varies depending on the type of skill, not practising a skill decreases our ability to perform it. The longer the delay, the more the decline. That’s why commercial pilots require ‘recency’ before being able to fly.

Which leads me to distraction. A distracted driver has 4 times the risk of crashing, and when a driver’s eyes are off the road for 2 seconds when driving at just 50kmh, they’re travelling ‘blind’ for up to 28 metres. How might distraction play out in response to the reduction of road use in our lives? We’ve become used to working remotely, so will likely be less ‘switched on’ during the drive to the office. Or will younger people who have been connecting via their mobile phones even more than usual continue this when driving?  And what about vulnerable road users who have become used to fewer obstructions?

The ongoing effects of Covid-19 will be in how we live and work after the pandemic, with new measures emerging during the pandemic, such as working from home, that I believe will expedite many pre-existing trends. It will likely be a more dangerous time on our roads when movement restrictions are eased in coming weeks and months. As we return to the roads, the question is: how will we navigate this period, and who is we? The “we” is everyone. Like Covid-19, road safety beckons: ‘we’re all in this together’. While we may all be rejoining the road network with changed behaviours, as a different type of road user, and one that may lack recent practice, we cannot rely only on enforcement, the expectation that everyone will do the right thing, and our memories.

While it may be a dangerous time, it is also a time of opportunity in road safety. Perhaps the resilience and lateral thinking we’ve demonstrated as a community in devising simple but creative ways to connect can be replicated towards reducing road trauma, with road safety champions leveraging online communities to bring people together.

It’s a time to develop well-targeted messaging and innovative road safety awareness campaigns that build on this community spirit, the ability to band together as we’ve shown in recent weeks, and reflect our support for and acceptance of effective measures that have the best chance of achieving a safe system for everyone.

Proactive organisations – think insurance and transport in particular – can establish themselves as industry and community leaders by taking advantage of the CSR opportunities in promoting and rewarding safe driver behaviour. The trends of reducing cars in our cities can take a leap forward if government and business leaders accelerate plans to reduce interactions between vehicles and vulnerable road users, something we’ve gotten used to with the rapid move to working from home.

For meaningful and sustained behaviour change, leadership is required – luckily research released this week shows strong public support for leadership ‘for the greater good’. If we follow a methodology that includes raising education and awareness of the issue, motivating people to change, and creating a path for that change to happen, we can create changes in behaviours and the environment that will benefit our community in the long term.

Covid-19 has had a remarkable impact on how we have lived our lives in just a few short weeks. As we emerge into a post-restrictions world in the hopefully not-too-distant future, there is an opportunity to re-shape our thinking about how we approach the social challenges that remain from BC (Before Covid). We cannot take for granted that nothing’s changed. Road safety, and opportunities to reduce its health and economic costs, should feature prominently in that discussion.

Andrew Hardwick
Managing Director @ Hard Edge
CEO @ Re:act

The Re:act youth road safety campaign goes ahead despite COVID-19

Despite the coronavirus pandemic serving as a major preoccupation of young people in Australia, Melbourne-based creative agency Hard Edge this week launched its 2020 Re:act program, which aims to raise awareness of road safety issues among 18-25-year-olds. 

Highlighting the dangers and risks associated with poor road safety among this cohort, each year a new theme/issue is picked as the epicentre of the program, with distraction being this year’s focus. 

Previously run in Melbourne and Sydney, 2020 is the first year the campaign is being rolled out in Brisbane as well as being taken overseas, with London the first international destination. 

In keeping with the increasingly drastic measures being taken to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus, a class of 35 students tuned in electronically via Zoom for the first session in Melbourne on Tuesday. 

Launched in 2016, the program forms the basis of a mandatory unit for design students at Swinburne University of Technology and University of Technology Sydney, while the unit is also being offered to advertising students at Queensland University of Technology and London College of Communication. 

Students are tasked with responding to a real-world brief and pitching their solutions to real-world clients before selected campaigns are implemented in their community. 

According to Re:act founder Andrew Hardwick, the campaign has found some extra traction recently including securing government funding courtesy of the Road Safety Awareness and Enablers Fund. 

“The involvement of three Australian states and the UK is representative of the growing recognition of Re:act,” he said. 

“With further growth of the program anticipated across Australia and overseas, 2020 marks a turning point in Re:act achieving its vision of a positive global impact in the road safety awareness of 18-25-year-olds.” 

Sessions in Sydney and Brisbane will start next month, while the UK program was launched during February.

This article was originally published in GoAuto. Read the original article.

International road safety behaviour change program has UK launch

An international road safety program, proven to increase awareness and influence the behaviour of young people on our roads, was launched in London on February 11, 2020.

Collaborating with London College of Communication, UAL, the Re:act behaviour change program challenges local university students to create a road safety campaign that educates 18-25 year old road users about an issue critical to their peers.

The Re:act 2020 topic is distraction.

An initiative of behaviour change creative agency Hard Edge, Re:act is expanding internationally in 2020, with the UK the first overseas market to run the program. Re:act is expected to expand into the US and selected developing countries next year.

Re:act is being launched in the UK in collaboration with London College of Communication, and program partners FIA Foundation, Pepsi, Zurich Insurance, Transport for London and founding agency Hard Edge. Re:act partners provide professional feedback to student participants during campaign development and, in late-May, will choose the most effective final campaign, which will be activated in June.

“Re:act challenges university students to design and develop road safety campaigns that engage their peers, raise awareness of critical road safety issues and change behaviour on our roads,” Re:act founder and CEO Andrew Hardwick said.

“The program is unique in how it engages government and the private sector to collaborate with young people. This approach creates a platform for professional development, road safety awareness and for young people’s thoughts to be heard, while giving partner organisations insights into effective road safety messages for younger road users.”

FIA Foundation’s Kate Turner said young people were more likely to die or be seriously injured on the world’s roads than from any other cause.

“This is a universal tragedy, which is true across every region of the world and includes vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists as well as drivers themselves,” she said. “Our streets belong to everyone, and every death is one too many.

“It’s time to listen to young people, to give them the tools and support to be able to build a peer-led movement and enact meaningful change, which is why the FIA Foundation is delighted to partner with Re:act for this innovative program.”

London College of Communication Partnerships Manager Matt Guy said: “The London College of Communication experience is all about learning by doing. Projects with industry partners give students opportunities to test what they learn in the classroom on real challenges, while getting feedback from professionals.

“Our diverse students offer unique insights that are hugely valuable to companies and we’re really pleased to be able to use this to help promote road safety with Re:act.”

Paul Tacey, from Zurich Risk Engineering UK, said: “As a global insurer, we’re all too aware of the proven link between distracted drivers and collision frequency.

“Getting involved with this program provides us with a fantastic opportunity to engage with young people, share our expertise around road safety and, most importantly, learn from their ideas.

“Supporting this initiative is part of our ongoing commitment to influencing driver behaviour and improving road safety for all.”

Re:act’s Andrew Hardwick added the program had proven its ability to educate and change attitudes among young drivers, pedestrians and cyclists in Australia, as well as inspire partner organisations.

“With challenges like road user distraction being a universal issue, Re:act is becoming a global road safety movement making a real difference around the world.”

Visit www.reactforchage.com to learn more about Re:act program.

Women’s Aid: 'Look At Me' interactive billboard

World-first visually powered interactive billboard campaign targets domestic violence.

The thinking behind the attention-grabbing ‘Look at me’ interactive billboard in London reflects the messaging it aims to get across to the public.

As part of a Women’s Aid campaign to ‘open our eyes’ to the fact one quarter of women are affected by domestic violence, the interactive billboard uses innovative facial recognition and gaze tracking technology to detect when people stop and look at the screen.

When they do, the woman’s beaten and bruised face begins to heal. Swelling subsides, bruising disappears. The more people stop and look, the more the woman’s face returns to a healthy state.

The campaign aims to show that we can all help end domestic violence just by taking notice of the issue, rather than ‘turning a blind eye’.

The WCRS campaign has won more than 20 awards, including gold at Cannes.

Hit play and see for yourself.

Campaign Catalogue

Interactive Billboards

Credits
Advertising Agency:
WCRS

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All of us at Hard Edge have been inspired to focus our future on helping brands and organisations make the world a better place through thinking and creative that shifts behaviour and positively impacts society.

If that sounds like you, we'd love to help.  
Want to chat? Email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

Bridging the behaviour gaps on our roads

Are we failing to keep up with a fast-paced, ever changing world with disjointed, unrealistic expectations of human behaviour? The rate of progression and innovation has never been greater. With that comes education gaps in how things work, what’s expected of us, and what our behaviours should be to live in safety and harmony as members of society.

While innovation attempts to improve our lives, it can come with frustrations and risks. With great new options at our fingertips can also come distraction, annoyance and impatience. With the roads filled with driver assist technologies, and automated vehicle technology looming, it is a melting pot for driver behaviour. We are at a dangerous crossroad of handing control of the driving task to the vehicle rather than being in control ourselves. The evidence base for distracted driving has failed to keep up with technological developments, according to Future of Transport Head of Impairment Research, Dr Paul Jackson, and Head of Behavioural Science, Dr Neale Kinnear. I couldn’t agree more.

Operating on auto-pilot

As we move towards higher levels of autonomy in vehicles, there are too many assumptions about the fidelity and safety of autonomous features without education and experience in operating these vehicles. We’ve all heard the story of the driver who switched on cruise control in their motor home and went and made a cup of coffee. Yes, it drove off the road. Okay, so slightly humorous in retrospect and a little stupid perhaps, but this kind of ‘auto-pilot’ driving, in this day and age, can mean literally that. Learning a new app on our phones is very different to learning our vehicle’s operating features as the complexity of driving and the potential risks still remain.

Re:act is a student road safety initiative of our agency in collaboration with universities. The Re:act topic for last year was safety around trucks. As the students (who clearly hadn’t thought much about this topic in their daily lives) reported, there is only one question in the learner’s handbook on this topic and a 6% chance of being tested on it. According to Ben Maguire, CEO of the Australian Trucking Association, the freight task in Australia will increase by 52% by 2036. There is also billions of dollars worth of transport infrastructure occurring over the next decade. The Melbourne Metro Rail Tunnel build alone will add a truck and trailer to Melbourne’s CBD traffic every 3 minutes for 5½ years. Are we preparing our youth, the future on the roads, to be equipped for it?

A tribal or sharing mindset?

In recent years, I have noticed how complex it is to instil a “shared systems” mindset on our roads. We are all a pedestrian, often a driver, and sometimes a cyclist. As we move from one to another, an understanding of the other is often quickly forgotten and our behaviours as a driver do not fit that of the cyclist we were just moments ago. Road user groups can be tribal and when we shift modes so does our focus and allegiance. Just recently, researchers at three Australian universities examined traffic psychology and behaviour and found that around half of non-cyclists viewed cyclists as “less than fully human”, with some admitting to purposely having driven close to cyclists. Scary isn’t it? We conducted research last year with focus groups of young people who viewed truck drivers on the road as tough and scary, but when the context is changed to a social setting such as a barbecue, they are perceived very differently: as friendly, down-to-earth blokes.

So many things contribute to this thinking. While road safety education is about respect and sharing the road, what we observe from our parents, friends, and others on the roads is of great influence. Then there’s us. We have so much going on in our lives today. We must be at point B as fast as possible, not allowing that extra car to merge, being first off at the lights, and taking risks for no gain other than some ill-founded sense of progression inside. We must always be contactable and in communication with others. Our personal bubble is more pronounced than ever.

A melting pot

While I have raised two separate points in this article – innovation and education, and perceptions and shared systems – it has been to highlight that, more than ever, our roads are a melting pot of innovation, education gaps, and a tribal mentality. When you consider them all, it becomes apparent how mammoth a task instilling a shared responsibility on our roads is. There are many passionate road safety professionals doing their bit to make us safer but, at the end of the day, it’s up to us as individuals. We all have a role to play.

With this year’s Re:act topic focusing on defining a simple “shared system” message to vulnerable road users and drivers, I hope our youth can help unravel the mystery of making that message stick when behind the wheel, on a bike, or crossing the road, to help make our roads safer. Their increased awareness will have a ripple effect among their own personal networks, which is one small step towards the greater good. As Re:act grows, I hope this ripple can grow to have a tangible impact on our challenges and behaviours on a much broader scale.

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All of us at Hard Edge have been inspired to focus our future on helping brands and organisations make the world a better place through thinking and creative that shifts behaviour and positively impacts society.

Email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

‘Having an impact, without impact’: virtual billboard changes behaviour on our roads.

It’s pretty hard for a campaign to grab my attention these days. But this interactive road safety billboard from Paris really caught my eye (and certainly got the attention of the target audience).

The interactive billboard aims to make careless pedestrians realise the dangers of their behaviour. The smart billboard – equipped with a motion detector, speaker and cameras – mimics the sound of screeching tyres when a pedestrian crosses the road while the ‘little red man’ is illuminated. The frightened faces of these pedestrians are then instantly projected directly onto the billboard alongside the caption: ‘Don’t risk looking death in the face. Respect traffic lights before crossing the road.’ 

A brilliant campaign and perfect execution. Hit play and see for yourself.

Campaign Posters

Interactive Billboards

Credits
Advertising Agency:
Serviceplane France 

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All of us at Hard Edge have been inspired to focus our future on helping brands and organisations make the world a better place through thinking and creative that shifts behaviour and positively impacts society.

If that sounds like you, we'd love to help.  
Want to chat? Email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

Four steps to shifting behaviour for good (and for better)

There are many ways success is measured – and investment justified – in the marketing world. How do we know our (client’s) money has been well spent and we can all pat ourselves on the back at the end of a campaign or project? Audience reach, engagement, increased awareness, sales, share, and so on.

When it comes to behaviour change initiatives, similar measures can be relevant. But there is one measure that transcends simple campaign metrics and is the ultimate test of success in behaviour change initiatives. I’m talking about social acceptability, or unacceptability – the point when a certain behaviour change initiative reaches a tipping point and becomes largely self-policed by society. Consider driving without a seatbelt, not picking up after your dog, smoking while pregnant, littering. Once commonplace, these behaviours have since reached a point of social unacceptability through various behaviour change methods, programs, tools and campaigns. Nowadays, anyone caught in the act of any of these behaviours can expect anything ranging from serious ‘stink eye’ to a public scolding, even the wrath of law enforcement.

Effective behaviour change initiatives are no simple task and rarely, if ever, a quick win. Our behaviours are usually habitual and deeply ingrained, shaped by our family and friends, social norms and culture, among other things.

So how do we go about achieving this holy grail of behaviour change success? What are the steps involved? What can we achieve as a creative industry? And where do we need to leverage the strengths of other industries, organisations and parties?

There are many behaviour change theories and methodologies out there. We boil our recipe for behaviour change success down to four steps: Educate. Motivate. Facilitate. Sustain.
 

Educate

If we want people to change their behaviour around a particular issue, they obviously need to be aware of that issue. But more than awareness, they need an accurate understanding of the issue and the correct behaviours they should be displaying. We all know we should be recycling, and broadly the reasons why. But do we understand how to recycle correctly? Which waste goes where? What happens once it leaves our kerb? What impact it has on the environment? Education is a vital step in ensuring we are not just aware of the issue but genuinely understand what we should be doing, how we should be doing it, and the reasons why.  

Motivate

Once the audience know what they should be doing, and why and how they should be doing it, we need to motivate them to shift their behaviour accordingly. This is about building a genuine desire to address the issue and a willingness to change the way they behave that is strong enough to overcome barriers to change. Strategy and creativity play a big part here as we need to connect with the audience on an emotive level to drive them to want to take action. This requires an intimate understanding of the target audience, their drivers and their pain points; not just in relation to the particular behaviour we are trying to change, but generally.

Facilitate

Facilitating behaviour change is all about removing barriers – actual or perceived – to change and making it as easy as possible for us to change our behaviour in the moments and environments that matter. These barriers can be as simple as forgetting what you’re meant to be doing, or not doing. Think about when you’re driving on the freeway and your speed creeps up over the limit; the alert most modern cars give is a prime example of a tool to facilitate immediate behaviour change through prompting. Prompts and alerts can be found on food packaging, through health star ratings for example, to ensure we’re reminded (and in some cases educated) about whether what we are putting in the trolley is helping or hindering our dietary goals.

Cost is another potential barrier to behaviour change. People may understand why and how to change their behaviour and may have a genuine desire to do so but if it’s going to leave them financially worse off, that’s a massive barrier for most of us. I’m sure we all fully endorse the virtues of renewable energy and support an energy system that is renewable, secure and affordable. The education and motivation to switch to renewable energy is there. However, the cost of setting up and running a cost-efficient renewable energy system in our home can be a barrier to making the change. The Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme was set up for this very reason; to provide a financial incentive for individuals, families and small businesses to install renewable energy systems, helping them overcome financial barriers and facilitating greater change to clean energy.

Sustain

If it’s not sustained, achieving ‘one-off’ behaviour change is rarely a mark of success. Sustaining correct behaviours can be achieved in many ways, and is typically reliant on a number of different parties and organisations. From a campaign or program point of view, we can sustain behaviour change by continuing communication activities to motivate and facilitate behaviour change among the target audience. We can then look to industry-specific products and services relevant to particular behaviours to find ways of facilitating behaviour change (e.g. the speed limit or seatbelt alert in our cars). There’s the vital role of policy, legislation and enforcement. These have been a major driver in sustaining behaviour change in fields like road safety (speeding, drink driving and now mobile phone use) and will have an increasing role in sustaining behaviour change relating to sustainability and the natural environment as these issues become increasingly critical. And then, of course, there’s the enforcement of socially acceptable behaviours by our friends, family and communities. In most cases, this is not only the most powerful driver of behaviour change but the strongest indicator of success for behaviour change programs.

As our understanding of the world around us continues to grow, so too innovations increasingly provide new opportunities to make this understanding accessible to the masses. So while the world may at times seem like it’s a bit up the creek, we are in the best position we’ve ever been to leverage knowledge and innovation to affect behaviour change. By taking a human approach to gaining a deep understanding of the problems we need to solve, and building clear strategies that educate, motivate and facilitate sustained behaviour change, we can help make a better world and promising future.

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All of us at Hard Edge have been inspired to focus our future on helping brands and organisations make the world a better place through thinking and creative that shifts behaviour and positively impacts society.

If that sounds like you, we'd love to help.  
Want to chat? Email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

A perfect fit: ATA and Hard Edge to engage young drivers with road safety.

We're proud to announce that The Australian Trucking Association (ATA) has chosen to partner with Hard Edge to engage young drivers with the road safety messages of the Volvo ATA Safety Truck.

The Volvo ATA Safety Truck ‘experience’ will be updated with new messaging, branding and experiential ideas to ensure the travelling road safety exhibition connects with its young audience. And a targeted campaign will build awareness and a community around the truck and the road safety issues it combats.

The ATA is the peak body representing truck operators in Australia. They chose Hard Edge to work on the Safety Truck update following a selection process.

“Our current Safety Truck design has connected with the trucking industry and broader community since 2013, but it’s time for a change,” ATA CEO Ben Maguire said. 

“16 to 25 year old drivers and vulnerable road users are over-represented in the crash statistics, so we plan to target these drivers, riders and pedestrians with an attractive and evidence-based exhibition and campaign.

“The ATA was a partner on the 2018 Re:act road safety behaviour change program founded and run by Hard Edge. Re:act was a chance for us to gain insights into possible future directions for the Safety Truck and ensure this great resource is as effective as possible in educating young people about how to share the road safely with trucks.

“We went through a rigorous process in selecting the creative agency best-suited to complete the redesign. We were particularly inspired by Hard Edge’s road safety skills and understanding of how to inspire our target public.”

Hard Edge Managing Director Andrew Hardwick said the Volvo ATA Safety Truck campaign and re-design was a perfect fit for the independent agency, reflecting its passion for making a positive social contribution and expertise in behaviour change.

“Our purpose at Hard Edge is to help brands and organisations make the world a better place through thinking and creative that changes behaviour and positively impacts society,” he said. “The Safety Truck project aligns perfectly.”

The Volvo ATA Safety Truck, sponsored by Volvo, BP and NTI, educates the public on how to share the road safely with trucks and has been delivering safety exhibitions in the custom-built trailer since 2008, travelling 60,000km and reaching 33,000 people annually via truck shows, festivals and school visits.

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Follow the links for more information on the Volvo ATA Safety Truck, Hard Edge or the Re:act behaviour change program.

For more information please contact Andrew Hardwick on 0417 334 399 or ahardwick@hardedge.com.au.

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All of us at Hard Edge have been inspired to focus our future on helping brands and organisations make the world a better place through thinking and creative that shifts behaviour and positively impacts society.

If that sounds like you, we'd love to help.  
Want to chat? Email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

Design students inspire at Hard Edge with trucking fantastic road safety concepts.

April is always an exciting month on the Hard Edge calendar as another throng of Swinburne University of Technology communication design students descend on the agency to pitch their responses to the annual Re:act brief.

For the uninitiated, Re:act is a project where we give a real world campaign brief around a social issue to third year design students and challenge them to raise awareness and change behaviour among the 18-25 year old audience.

We’ve been running Re:act for three years in collaboration with Swinburne and with the support of a great group of industry partners who share our passion for road safety:  the TAC, RACV, Melbourne Metro Rail Authority, Transurban, the Australian Trucking Association, the National Road Safety Partnership Program and ARRB Group.

Every year we’re mightily impressed by the strategic thinking, creativity and professionalism of the students’ pitches. And what we saw earlier this week was no different – maybe even the best yet.    

This year’s Re:act brief focused on the safe interaction of 18-25 year old road users with trucks. With the number of trucks on our roads growing and major infrastructure projects like the Melbourne Metro Tunnel increasingly bringing heavy vehicles into our cities, we’ll all be interacting with trucks a lot more – whether in the car, on foot or on bike. The brief asked students to develop a campaign to educate the target audience on the risks of sharing the road with trucks and to positively influence their behaviour to reduce crashes and ‘near misses’ with trucks.  

After an initial briefing and Q&A, 10 groups of students developed and then pitched their campaigns to us at Hard Edge and our industry partners.

With an impressive range of concepts from all groups, choosing our finalists was no easy task.

“Size Matters” (Runners-up)
 

Meg Danaher, Ken Smith and Karl Rombauts highlighted the power of humour in achieving cut through and engagement with the target audience with their “Size Matters” campaign. Aside from presenting a great cheeky concept, the standard of design work, strategic thinking and the breadth and quality of activation ideas the team produced was seriously impressive. Remember their names – Meg, Ken and Karl – these guys are going places.   

 

“Don’t Truck Around” (Winners)
 

This year’s winning pitch drew on audience insights to deliver a hard-hitting call to action to 18-25 year old road users. Caitlin Preyser, Charlotte Hicks and Grace Kirby created a bold typographic visual concept, with a range of creative executions to communicate the risks of sharing the road with trucks and provide clear advice on how to stay safe around them. It was pretty trucking good. Congratulations Caitlin, Charlotte and Grace.

These are just two examples of the 10 great campaigns that were presented at Re:act 2018. Hats off and big props to all the students involved. It’s safe to say the future of our creative industry is in safe and very talented hands.

Want to know more? Check out our development of the Re:act branding.

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Hard Edge is a tight team of strategic thinkers, creatives and doers. We help brands discover their value and find their voice. Want to chat? Email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

Bistro Morgan — Doughnut prince, social media king

He has been dubbed the ‘Doughnut Prince of Melbourne’, and at the age of 16 has already been in business for two years.

Morgan Hipworth started his business, Bistro Morgan, at the age of 14, balancing school books with doughnut cooks. The business name derived from when Morgan, from the age of seven, would cook his parents a 3-course meal — they would call it Bistro Morgan.

Morgan began supplying cafes around Melbourne before opening a pop-up store that sold 10,000 doughnuts and then, in 2015, Morgan opened up ‘bricks and mortar’ in Windsor — all while juggling full-time school work.

This amazing young person is filled with ambition and passion for what he does, not to mention sheer commitment to achieving his dreams. A key element of his success is social media, with apps like Instagram making a significant contribution to his achievements (and reputation).

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Authentic sharing

These delicious doughnuts are perfect eye-candy to be shared and spoken about. It’s a social media gold mine with Bistro Morgan’s Instagram page having 54.5K followers, and growing. This hype has taken young Morgan on a media journey, appearing in everything from Broadsheet and Vice to the widely-read Herald Sun, just to name a few. The technical term for this is earned media; the result is thousands of dollars’ worth of free advertising.

Morgan’s doughnuts have the power to cause serious ‘FOMO’, with thousands of posts being shared across Instagram and other social platforms. If brands can crack into this platform by posting sharable content, it can only be beneficial. This communal Instagram experience is a key strategy in creating hype behind a brand, particularly one centred around food. People will go out of their way to experience something they have seen their friends and followers doing.

Smart phones have made it incredibly easy to document our every move on social media. We are part of an ever-open and always-connected society where we share who we meet, the food we eat and the things we do on the weekend.

This has become common practice and Bistro Morgan’s doughnuts are a prime example, creating the perfect ‘Instagram-able moment’. This is something just about every businesses strives for — genuine recognition from genuine customers. Having authentic brand communication generated by the customer is the new way to be recognised.

Anyone fancy joining me for a Salted Caramel Tim Tam Syringe Doughnut? I’ll meet you there.

Images from: 
https://www.bistromorgan.com.au/
https://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/shops/bistro-morgan

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Hard Edge is a strategic marketing and creative agency for disruptive brands. 
To learn more email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

Three essential design tips to build your brand

It’s no secret that carefully considered creative can elevate your brand.

Whether you’re a disruptive start-up or have been in business for 20+ years, design will always play an important role in ensuring your brand is seen, heard and even loved.

However there’s often a lot of jargon in this creative sphere — different file types, typographic terms, and can someone please explain the difference between a logotype and brandmark?

With all this confusion, we’ve pulled together our design team to give you three top tips for understanding your brand and taking it in the right direction.

Chloë's tip: Take a holistic approach

A common mistake I see small businesses make is thinking that creating a logo is where the design process ends.

Your brand is so much more than just a logo: it’s a set of values, an experience and a feeling that are all connected. Some of the most successful companies have created lovable brands by staying authentic, relevant and consistent through all their communication, internally and externally.

One way to break down your brand is to think of it as a person. Your brand’s identity (logo, typeface, colour palette) is the person’s outfit — is it loud, feminine, dark, minimal? Beyond looks, there’s a personality and set of values that they live by and your brand should have this too.

Amy's tip: File (and keep track of) your assets

So an agency has put together the perfect identity for your business and supplied you with several logo files and a brand book. These are your brand assets and you’re going to need them for everything you produce.

Having your assets up-to-date and easily accessible really helps with organisation and timings for projects. If you can give the designer everything they need, you’ll save time and money. If you need a little help, we recommend a program called Frontify.

Damo's Tip: Remain consistent

Now you’ve got your perfect identity and know exactly where that logo is filed, it’s time to put it all into practice. If there are multiple designers or agencies working on your brand, be sure it’s all consistent.

Consistency is key. If everything looks and feels coherent then your brand will resonate with your audience. When brand communications don’t align, you risk losing credibility.

Right from the start, design plays an important role in each stage of your brand’s evolution. Follow these three design tips and you’ll be well on your way to building a brand that stands the test of time.

Images: Optus Rebrand by Re. Illustration by Resolution.

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Hard Edge is a strategic marketing and creative agency for disruptive brands. 
To learn more email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

Strategic influence: The potential and the pitfalls of influencer marketing

Brands of all shapes and sizes are coming to terms with how powerful influencer marketing can be. Tune into your Snapchat story or take a scroll through Instagram and you’ll soon see a list of celebrities and local identities promoting product after product. 

To give you an idea of the power and the price some brands are willing to pay to be endorsed, some key influencers have reportedly received six-figure sums for promoting a product just once on their social media platforms.   

Influencer marketing plays on the relationships a public figure has with their followers to help engage new markets and make new connections to people with similar interests and motivations. It works as part of an overarching marketing strategy and allows brands to tap into markets previously thought to be too challenging or out of reach.

It also builds a perceived one-on-one conversation about the product with a person they trust and whose opinion they value, via the social media platform the reader has volunteered to be part of and agreed to be contacted on.

This kind of disruptive marketing provides great opportunities, but there are some critical things to remember if you’re considering using a key influencer as part of your marketing strategy.

Who You Work With

The most important decision is selecting the right person. The person you work with will become the voice and the face people associate with your brand. They should project the type of brand experience the consumer will expect to have if they decide to purchase the product. And remember, it’s not just your image on the line — the key influencer cares about their followers and their own personal brand as well.

Metrics

To achieve results, any product endorsement must be part of a wider strategic marketing campaign. You should have a marketing strategy in place to measure ROI; this could be click-through rate or the rate at which sales increase over a certain time. The amount of followers a key influencer has does not necessarily reflect the amount they should be paid for their endorsements.

Relevance

It’s crucial that any content promoted by an influencer is relevant and is ‘in-context’ from the consumer's perspective (for example, the timing and location). By targeting only a few key influencers, you have the power to connect with vast numbers of people all over the world.

So who would be on your radar as a potential influencer? Think carefully.

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Hard Edge is a strategic marketing and creative agency for disruptive brands. 
To learn more email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

Gelato Messina – the nightclub of ice-cream

Pumping music, staff dancing behind the counter and the Messina experience we all live for. When it comes to major players disrupting the ‘cool food brand’ category, Gelato Messina hasn’t just flaunted the rules, it’s rewritten them.

Declan Lee, co-founder of the infamous Gelato Messina, recently revealed that the business is based around one value, ‘honesty’. Not only is the superb ice-cream honest – it’s made from scratch, yep all 40 flavours – but the simple value of honesty plays a big role in staff culture, which is reinforced by the Messina customer experience.

Since 2006, the franchise has grown to 17 stores across the east coast and in Vegas, baby. Way back in 2008 it had the opportunity to use social media, before others were doing it with food. This is one example of how being disruptive in the early days helped build the business to where it is today. Gelato Messina had an early opportunity to build communities through social media, and did just that. But what is it about Messina that keeps us wanting more?

How Gelato Messina changed the game

The Messina Experience

It didn’t run with the traditional bright light-based ice-cream store fitout. Instead, Gelato Messina was bold and believed if the lighting was right and the mood was right, the business would attract everyone. The (house) music was inspired by Declan’s DJ background. The owners wanted Messina to feel a bit like a party, not over the top but fun. Basically, an ice-cream nightclub.

Quality Product

Gelato Messina claims to make its ice-cream like no other in the world and goes to great lengths to make its product. It has 40 flavours and everything is made from scratch except two biscuits, which the company says it can't make better. Honesty at its best.

Social

Messina Snapchat takeover. Say what? I guess when your core value is honesty, anything and everything is a possibility. Each store manager takes it in turns to document their weekend outside of work. It also shows off their personalities and is a great way to share with their audience. They are free to post what they want, just don’t be offensive or silly.

Messina doesn’t believe in made-up content. Back to honesty. It’s also employed a photographer and videographer to document the Messina Gelato process to create empathetic storytelling about the brand.

Tim Tams x Messina

Some may say doing slightly odd things like collaborating with a commercial brand such as Tim Tams was a risk, but producing four limited edition biscuit flavours was nothing if not disruptive. Did Messina sell out? Marketing genius if you ask me. Although Messina already had the street cred, the collab definitely helped Messina’s brand awareness and a commercial giant was able to play with the cool cats for once, so a win-win for both.

Uber x Messina

In 2015, Uber partnered with Messina to deliver free ice-cream as an incentive to sign up an Uber account. This was a very clever approach from both brands. Who says ‘no’ to free ice-cream?

Cash or App

In the past, the fastest way to transact in an ice-cream shop was with old fashioned cash. Yes cash money. But as technology is developing at a rapid rate, Gelato Messina has created a super easy smartphone app that allows customers to pay with their phone, earn points and redeem exclusive member deals. 

Messina Creative Department

Garlic and vanilla gelato anyone? This concept is where eight customers are invited to a Sydney or Melbourne store to try a seven course degustation menu. This is how Gelato Messina challenges itself to make sure it’s continuing to push the boundaries on how certain products fit together. This is a true indication of what passion looks like in the cool food industry.

Would Messina be where it is today without its disruptive marketing approach? If you haven’t yet had the Messina Gelato experience, stop what you are doing right now and head down to your nearest store. And let us know what you thought (and which flavour you had).

Imagery sources: http://www.gelatomessina.com/au

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Hard Edge is a strategic marketing and creative agency for disruptive brands. 
To learn more email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

No ifs, just putts — a brand experience with a difference

Standing out from the crowd is difficult in such a competitive business landscape. Holy Moley Mini Golf Bar has scored a ‘hole in one’ with its creative Melbourne bar experience.

This isn’t just a regular Melbourne hang-out. It’s a bar showcasing colourful pop culture references through a cleverly designed 27-hole mini golf course. It takes going out to ‘par-tee’ to a ‘hole’ new level (no more puns — well, we’ll try anyway).
 

The level of detail and thought that has gone into the course is incredible, including the ability to change and rotate holes to keep the experience fresh and add an element of surprise and delight for patrons.

“One hole begins by navigating your ball through a refurbished pinball table,” say the folks at Broadsheet. “From there the ball drops onto a foosball table, and it becomes a two-player game: whoever scores gets a bonus point. Then there’s a Game of Thrones hole, with a throne made from putters.”
 

It’s all about experience

This experience seems truly engaging, taking the user through a memorable experience and leaving them wanting more. The concept is all about creating a brand experience that evokes a behavioural response. Something this clever creates its own hype, which in turn makes the experience appealing to others and ‘shareable’ through social media and word of mouth.

This memorable experience sets this brand apart from others. And isn’t that the goal – creating something customers love and want to share with their inner circle?

It’s a great example of being disruptive in a saturated market (there’s not many pubs to choose from in Melbourne) and creating something fun and inspiring that sets you apart from everyone else.
 

You know where we’ll be ‘teeing up’ (sorry, couldn’t resist one more) Friday night work drinks from now on.

Image and content sources: Broadsheet, Holey Moley.

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Hard Edge is a strategic marketing and creative agency for disruptive brands. 
To learn more email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

Thumbs up or thumbs down to emojis?

At 84 per cent, Australia has one of the highest rates of smartphone ownership and, in recent years, we've seen the rapid increase in popularity of the beloved emoji.

Once a cute but unnecessary extra in teenage conversation, emojis are now a given in most online brand communications. Although still mostly used to engage Millennials, and sometimes met with an apathetic eye roll, they are a new visual language in which we all speak at times. What makes them so risky is that unlike traditional communication, there are no rules. Let’s take a look at a brand that nailed the integration of emojis into its campaign — and one that possibly didn’t.

Domino's Pizza Tweet and Emoji Ordering

What is it?

In 2015, Domino’s Pizza, with the help of its agency CPB Group, developed disruptive technology allowing customers to place an order through Twitter. Frequent customers needed to only use a single pizza emoji. They extended this to a texting service and on the first day more than 500 people signed up to order using the emoji.

Why does it work?

Simplicity and innovation is key on this one. Domino’s took a risk by potentially isolating a segment of its audience who didn’t have a smartphone or Twitter account. However, in doing so, Domino’s allowed for an exclusive interaction between the company and its most loyal customers. Emo-genius.

Chevrolet Cruze Press Release

What is it?

How far did you get decoding that one? We’ll let Chevrolet explain: “Words alone can’t describe the new 2016 Chevrolet Cruze, so to celebrate its upcoming reveal, the media advisory is being issued in emoji, the small emotionally expressive digital images and icons in electronic communication.” The press release was distributed a day later in plain English for those of us unwilling to decode the original, along with the hashtag #ChevyGoesEmoji.

Why doesn’t it work?

The giveaway is that if you have to explain what an emoji is, there’s a good chance your audience won’t be decoding an emoji-laden press release, much less hashtagging about it. Cue that Millennial eye roll.

In saying this, Chevrolet’s marketing team may have used this as a strategy to entice the press and create a bit of controversy around the new car, which it certainly did. I’m still not sure whether the event was seen as novel or just a bit ‘try hard’.

Emojis are clearly more than a fleeting trend and whether we love, hate, or fear them, they’re here to stay. Marketers and brands may be fumbling their way through new territory for now (we’re looking at you ESPN) but soon enough emojis will be so integrated, we won’t be able to imagine a world without them.

Imagery: https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/emoji-movie-still-sony-1476125868.jpg

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Hard Edge is a strategic marketing and creative agency for disruptive brands. 
To learn more email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

Are you sitting on a marketing gold mine?

Databases are marketing gold. That’s if they are collected, maintained and utilised properly.

Database marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses databases of customers or clients – existing, potential or lapsed – to generate targeted lists for direct marketing communications. Database marketing is key to any successful marketing strategy so here’s some helpful tips.

Organise/categorise your database

Use your database wisely. It is essential to sort your contacts into segments so that different people can be targeted with different messaging. Having the right information about your clients, communicating the right message at the right time – when they are ready to make a decision – is vital to the success of your marketing.

Keep in touch

You invest time and money in networking, good customer service, advertising and website development to get prospective customers to your door. Don’t let that effort go to waste. Establishing a communication stream to keep your company and brand top of mind, until they are ready to make a buying decision or referral, is key.

Don’t forget existing customers

Existing customers are a great source of repeat business and referrals. Keep track of these customers and be sure to reach out from time to time to show your appreciation for their business.

So what are you waiting for? Join the gold rush and add database marketing to your strategic marketing plan.

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Hard Edge is a strategic marketing and creative agency for disruptive brands. 
To learn more email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

It takes courage to become a disruptive brand

Disruptive brands feel different for a reason. They break rules, they demand attention and, sometimes, change the way we live our lives. Here are three characteristics of some of the most successful disruptive brands.

Disruptive brands are risk takers

Disruptive brands are brave enough to be different and, in many ways, that’s why we love them. While there’s a very real risk of getting things wrong, when a disruptive brand is marketed successfully it can have extraordinary results.

One example is Scottish beer brewery BrewDog, the self-described “post-punk, apocalyptic, motherfucker of a craft brewery” that is breaking conventional rules and performing audacious marketing stunts along the way. Starting with a bank loan of just £30,000, BrewDog is entering the US market with a valuation of US$350m – and a story well worth the read.

Disruptive brands are good for customers and competition

Most industries are dominated by a few bigger brands and beneath them are tiers of increasingly smaller (but more numerous) competitors. The hierarchy is established over years and most changes occur when existing companies merge or acquire competitors.

Disruptive brands blow this balance out of the water. They upset the order of things and force long-established brands to adapt or die. The famous example is of course Uber, which challenged the taxi industry and completely disrupted what was long considered ‘normal’. Its technology, business model, UX and customer service broke the mould (and were scalable). Uber has forced the taxi industry to try to improve its competitiveness with better technology and an improved level of customer experience. While it seems unlikely to succeed, the traditional players have been forced to try. Disruption can be a powerful catalyst for change in any industry.

Disruptive brands have to work hard to stay on top

Successfully disrupting an industry can lead to huge success, but with that success comes an increase in logistics, administration and bureaucracy. More customers means more staff, more investment, bigger offices, increased procurement needs and more complicated reporting for shareholders.

Together, these responsibilities act as a natural dampener on innovation. Shareholders don’t like risk, and how can you disrupt a market when you’ve become the dominant player?

Yahoo was once the king of the internet and grew to become a US$140b Goliath in just five years. However a combination of factors, such the dot com crash, lack of innovation and poor internal decision making, meant Yahoo regressed. This opened the door for a superior disruptor – Google – to deliver a better solution, steal market share and, ultimately, dominate the world of search.

Improvement is inevitable in every industry sector. There will always be a company that finds a faster, more attractive, more efficient way of delivering an experience or outcome. The question is whether your brand is a disruptor or whether it’s sitting, waiting to be disrupted.

Header image source: http://littlegreatideas.com/photo/smashing/large-7.html

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Hard Edge is a strategic marketing and creative agency for disruptive brands. 
To learn more email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.

Look who’s moved in next door

Ghostbusters got it right: “Who you gonna call…?” The power of relevance and recognition in the immediacy of the moment between the brain and the hand on the phone is why people should already know your brand’s name.

Brands that achieve the ultimate goal of people referring to their product by name rather than the generic term, such as Esky, Coke and Hoover, have spent decades and millions to weave their brand into the fabric of culture. The power these brands have is almost an unfathomable mountain for the brand that has its hand up in a crowd of thousands.

These days, companies know they must be memorable, dependable, have a great customer experience and be easily recognisable across the plethora of channels they need to be present in. But is that enough? Is it enough to just be good, or even great? No, not when a disruptive brand enters the ring or sets up camp next door, on the previously unoccupied vacant block that no one knew what to do with.

So what’s it take to get noticed in this noisy environment of brands? For a company to stand out and scale to being a large player, they have no choice but to be disruptive. Not just in the way they do things, such as Uber and Purple Bricks, but in the way they present themselves to the market. Disruptive marketing is destined to be the next over-used marketing term, like ‘guerilla marketing’ back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but that just confirms it’s a recognised fact that it works. To be a serious player, the status quo needs to be challenged. ‘That’s the way we’ve always done it though?’ will never be muttered by a winner.

Disruptive brands make something better, simpler and different. That poses a particular set of challenges for a creative agency. They have to communicate a message that aligns to the brand but also changes behaviour. In 2003, a Melbourne-based entrepreneur devised a better way to do business-to-business payments in the travel industry. It revolutionised the industry, but that education piece of doing things differently and better didn’t happen overnight. Their marketing constantly strives to simplify their message to reflect the simplicity and benefits of their virtual card payments system. Today that company, eNett, processes tens of billions of dollars in payment flows. Uber had to bring people around to a new way of thinking and, at the same time, gain their trust to pre-enter their credit card details into their app. Because they achieved simple and direct messaging, word of mouth did Uber’s marketing for them. From nothing to US$60b in seven years.

The innovation behind disruptive brands is thought leadership material and contains endless numbers and coding, but the marketing they require is the direct opposite. It has to be human to be relatable, simple to make changing behaviour accessible, cool so it will be popular, and have the clearest of BVPs to guide every output.

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Hard Edge is a strategic marketing and creative agency for disruptive brands. 
To learn more email or call us on +61 3 9245 9245.