Southpaw’s zoom panel explores why adopting the mantra of ‘keep calm & brand build’ will ensure your brand thrives in a crisis.

1. SOUTHPAW/KEEPCALMANDBRANDBUILD
KEEP CALM AND BRAND BUILD
Southpaw’s Zoom panel explores why adopting the mantra of
‘Keep Calm & Brand Build’ will ensure your brand thrives in a crisis

2. SOUTHPAW/KEEPCALMANDBRANDBUILD
WELCOME
Niki Macartney
Strategy Director
Southpaw
Imaad Ahmed
Head of Advisory, EMEA
WARC
Orlando Wood
Chief Innovation Officer
System 1

3. SOUTHPAW/KEEPCALMANDBRANDBUILD
“MARKETERS HAVE PANICKED AND PIVOTED
THROUGH THE LAST 100 DAYS, BUT OUR
MANTRA FOR A BRIGHTER FUTURE IS
‘KEEP CALM AND BRAND BUILD’.”
“WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT
STATEMENT?”

4. SOUTHPAW/KEEPCALMANDBRANDBUILD
“Hitting long term targets is the real challenge,” observes
Macartney, an insight backed up by WARC data that shows
7/10 marketers want to invest in long term brand building but
feel that short term pressures have allowed emotion to
overtake reason.
But how to build your brand in the midst of a covid-triggered
supply and demand recession? “The one nuance many
marketers will be worried about is budgets,” says Imaad
Ahmed, Chief Advisory Officer, WARC. “But look at other
levers too to maintain visibility, like customer experience, PR,
partnerships and commerce.”
As per Binet and Field, brand building spend in its many forms
will aid recovery; it’s how you build your way out of
recessionary times. But as Orlando Wood says, “As we come
out of this (COVID-19 crisis) we have an opportunity to take
stock. We need to think about how to make advertising better
at attracting attention and eliciting emotional response.”
“THE KEY TO ELICITING
THAT EMOTIONAL
RESPONSE IS CREATIVITY.
ASIDE FROM SIZE, IT’S THE
MOST IMPORTANT THING
TO BUILD YOUR BRAND IN
THE LONG TERM.”

5. SOUTHPAW/KEEPCALMANDBRANDBUILD
Wood explains that we live in a time where advertising is aimed
at appealing to the narrow, linear, goal-orientated left brain. “The
type of creative that is made today - with a few exceptions -
tends to be different to the type you got 20-30 years ago.
Advertising has become unilateral, we’re not referencing the
things that attract and sustain interest - characters, human
interaction, parody and pastiche. Creativity is there, but it’s
being deployed in the wrong way.”
There’s a case for re-engineering the right kind of creativity -
namely the kind which appeals to the open, emotional and
connected right brain. But what’s going to motivate brands to do
this in a pandemic? Out of need, argues Macartney. “It’s not just
through a love and desire to make the work better. We should
need to make this work better because the data and case
studies show a decline in effectiveness over decades.”
“ADVERTISING WAS
ALREADY IN CRISIS
BEFORE IT WAS IN A
CRISIS. WE NEED TO
THINK ABOUT HOW WE
BRAND-BUILD BETTER.”

6. SOUTHPAW/KEEPCALMANDBRANDBUILD
“Company culture is imperative to get back to brand building and
growth. Long term-ism should be hardwired, so when panic happens
you are rooted to what you know and what is good for the business,”
asserts Macartney and Ahmed agrees, “You have to see advertising in
terms of capital investment and talk in the language of a CFO. The
research shows that excess share of voice correlates with profit, and
brand growth over the long term, and those are the things
stakeholders will be receptive to.”
Wood stands by the Three F’s: Fame, Feeling and Fluency. “They are
the three emperors of advertising: mental availability, the feeling you
get about a brand, and rapidity of recognition. Establish these three
heuristic principles so your customers can make quick and easy
decisions in your favour.”
FAME
FEELING
FLUENCY

7. SOUTHPAW/KEEPCALMANDBRANDBUILD
Macartney explains the importance of understanding your
audience. “Get down to granular detail. Understand biases,
decision making, behaviour - at Southpaw we work through
what is most likely to influence behaviour so we can nudge,
steer and create better brand building advertising.”
Once you have the advertising campaign, then depth and
breadth of commitment to your creative is what will seal the
deal. But don’t be fooled, says Imaad, it’s not all about the
dollar signs. “Creative Commitment is a composite metric of
three things: how much spent, how many channels, and the
duration. Increase Creative Commitment, and you increase
effectiveness. A lot of people assume that budget is the most
important lever, but that isn’t the case: by increasing channel
and duration, some brands have been able to move up the
ladder without having deep pockets.”
“THERE IS NOTHING
MORE SOBERING
THAN A CRISIS TO
HELP US RESTORE A
SENSE OF MEANING.”

8. SOUTHPAW/KEEPCALMANDBRANDBUILD
3 LESSONS IN BRAND BUILDING
SEE ADVERTISING IN TERMS OF
CAPITAL INVESTMENT
FACTOR IN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE
TO YOUR WORK, THEN PLOT
MARKET CHANGES
CONSUMER RESPONSE TO
CREATIVE WORK HAS A
SIGNIFICANT BEARING
ON YOUR BRAND
Talk like your CFO. For example, an
excess share of voice correlates with
profit and brand growth over the long
term. Those are the things your
stakeholders will understand and be
receptive to.
This is how to show that emotional
response, as a measure, has a
bearing on market share changes.
There are many short term feedback
loops to track data, but this is how you
can plot and prove long term brand
building effects. How people connect
with the work is shown to have a
bearing on the long term outcome.
The WARC Effectiveness Ladder is a
tool that takes six types of marketing
effects that creativity can inspire, then
looks at the commercial impact. From
small ideas to enduring icons like John
Lewis and Snickers, this is a useful
way to learn and energise your own
brand building plans.

9. SOUTHPAW/KEEPCALMANDBRANDBUILD
THANK YOU
Click here to watch the full
recording of our webinar.
To find out more about Southpaw and the
services we offer, head to our website:
www.southpawagency.com
If you want to get in touch to find out how
Southpaw could support
you and your brand, email:
laura.wood@southpawagency.com