Everyone Loves to Complain

Regarding strategy, some of the best advice I have received is to find the “why” rather than the “what.” Instead of focusing on what someone has done and the outcome, it is important to discover the reason behind someone’s actions. Insights expand into the real “human truth” of a person’s decisions and explain their thought process. People change their mind all of the time - however once you move beyond the small facts and look at the bigger picture, you are able to somewhat predict a consumers future actions, thoughts, and feelings.

In order to derive this insight, you need to research the people, media, products, culture, and technology involved with the brand. After the facts have been compiled, you need to create connections between all of the information. This process will illustrate the needs, attitudes, and behaviors of consumers. These three traits create a detailed audience profile that will allow you to understand a consumers purchase behavior.

Recently, I read an article about Jolly Rancher’s new campaign, “Keep on sucking!,” that illustrates the above thought-process. New York-based agency Anomaly was tasked with creating a campaign targeting 18-34 year-olds with components for social, digital, out-of-home and TV. When studying this target audience, Anomaly was drawn to the fact that life is hard and people enjoy complaining about it on social media. "And the same way you suck on the candy to enjoy that long-lasting flavor, you're going to have to get through some sucky scenarios in life,” says Anomaly creative director Johnny Dantonio.

Anomaly took this fact, that everyone’s life does indeed suck at times, a step further when creating their insight – people love to complain about how annoying they think their life is. Jolly Rancher then used this consumer truth as a way to shape their communications strategy.

Every morning, Anomaly’s strategists search social media to discover what is making everyone’s life “suck.” They then work with illustrators and animators to create personalized content that Jolly Rancher’s target audience can relate to. Instead of simply creating scenarios that they believe make life hard, Anomaly made certain the target audience knew Jolly Rancher is listening to them and understands why they're complaining.

Each ad is supposed to act as “a pleasant little break in a sometimes unpleasant world,” which creates a parallel between what the Jolly Rancher will do for the consumer and what the campaign provides the viewer. Dantonio always returns to the initial campaign concept by asking himself, “Is it rooted in the insight? Is it a good idea? And where can it live? And what we're finding is, we can apply the thoughts and ideas and executions across multiple mediums."