Have you ever wondered if roads could talk to buses? Could buildings be made with tape? Can cement float?
3M hopes you have, as it’s this curiosity that forms the centre of a major new campaign launched by the brand in May.
This ‘Wonder’ campaign is the next development of its brand platform – 3M Science. Applied to life – that launched in 2015, although this is the first campaign like this the brand has run for more than 20 years.
According to 3M, the campaign aims to provide an engaging, thought-provoking experience, while highlighting the unexpected impact of 3M science in everyday lives.
Robert Brittain, communications manager, corporate marketing at 3M, says: “We have a saying here that you’re never more than three metres away from a 3M solution, and this campaign is designed to show that 3M Science is making impact in your day-to-day life – from the smartphone in your pocket, to the vehicle you are driving in, at the office and at home, 3M is there.”
Driven by relevance
For a brand best known for its consumer products such as Post-it notes and Scotch tape – even though these B2C items only account for 15% of the company’s sales – finding relevance among the audience is key.
Amy Newton, brand activation manager at 3M, told B2B Marketing: “What’s driving our marketing strategy is relevancy. We have a lot of insights that drove both the creative and go-to-market strategy behind this campaign to really understand what’s relevant for our target audience and authentic to 3M. At the heart of the relevancy in terms of what we’re communicating is humanising 3M. At the end of the day we’re people talking to people and we’re really trying to add that human layer into the communications that we’re creating.”
The messaging reflects the campaign’s target audience. Amy says 3M customers aspire to be experts in their field, change agents and are creative, passionate, problem solvers so the campaign aims to build that connection with them. Research undertaken by the firm discovered although people are optimistic about science, 40% don’t think their life would be any different without it. So the brand wanted to illustrate not only how science is meaningful, but also how 3M is improving lives with it.
“They don’t know we’re making their roadways safer. They don’t know we’re making hospitals and patient safety better. Even smartphones, we help make them brighter. There’s a lot of ways, known and unknown, where 3M is making an impact on their life, and when we communicate that to them we see a positive affinity to the brand,” she adds.
And by helping customers understand more about 3M the company, it fills the desire for people who want to know more about the companies behind the products they purchase.
The global rollout
The campaign has been in development for almost a year-and-a-half, created in the US with the goal it will be replicated globally in the second half of 2018.
“The most important thing, and one of the things we’ve tried to do is bring each of the area brand leaders along on the journey in terms of development so they have a voice and say to ensure it will resonate with their market,” says Amy. And once the campaign has launched, to test and optimise in those 11 countries – in Asia, Latin America and Europe – to understand the local nuances.
Amy adds: “One of the biggest challenges in creating a global campaign like this is to not only maintain its integrity, but keep it unique and different without it becoming vanilla because it needs to appeal so broadly. It’s a balance between keeping it intriguing, unique and different while still serving local variations.”
Another key element of the campaign has been to partner with third-parties. The brand partnered with Vox, a US news website, to develop a series of four explainer videos which show the impact of science and feature 3M technologies and scientists (see below).
In addition, there will be some internal campaign work to reinvigorate the brand among 3M employees, who Amy describes as the company’s biggest brand ambassadors.
“We’ve got thousands of products so there’s no shortage of storied to tell. It’s a matter of telling the story a little more loudly and differently than we have previously,” says Amy.
