Campaign Trail is an analysis of some of the best new creative efforts in the marketing industry. Past columns can be viewed in the archive here.
As Valentine's Day approaches, marketers like Teleflora need to be prepared. The bouquets that flower delivery services deliver to consumers are as integral to Valentine's Day as love itself. But every year, marketers who advertise around Valentine's Day must decide what to say when they talk about love, in the words of author Raymond Carver.
“When you think about love and Valentine's Day, there are only so many ways to talk about it,” says Daniel Mason, Teleflora's vice president of marketing. “What really matters, and what insights do we really want to address?”
This year, The Wonderful Agency, the in-house creative team of Teleflora and parent company The Wonderful Company, drew attention to a statistic published in an article headlined “Is Romance Really Dead?” According to data shared by CNN, since 1986, the number of Americans without a stable partner has increased by 50%, which means fewer and fewer Americans are forming romantic relationships. means.
“When we dug deep into it, we found that there is a really cynical view of love. Many people believe that love does not exist based on past experiences. They are determined I said, 'You know, I'm just going to give up on love, and I'm going to live my life the way I want to live my life,'” Mason explained.
But if so many American consumers are cynical about love, what's behind the success of reality and scripted TV shows like The Bachelor series and Netflix hit Bridgerton? The Teleflora team has come to the conclusion that Americans believe in love, but… Maybe they thought it wasn't for them.
That insight inspired “Believe in Love,” Teleflora’s latest campaign and extension of its “Love Out Loud” brand platform. At the heart of this effort are her three-minute documentary-style videos of real couples discussing their love challenges and perceptions of their relationships. In addition to long-form videos on YouTube, short cuts will also appear on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, with targeted in-stream media buys across connected TV, digital, and mobile.
“If we wanted to tell a story about the irony behind love, we had to tell a real story,” Mason said. “It wasn't something we could write a script or cast actors for. It had to be a real story of real people.”
Diversity in many ways
In this touching long-form spot, couples share intimate details about their relationships and thoughts on love. From inspiration from long-time partners Bruce and Diane to admiration between young couple Fiona and Christian, Teleflora has chosen connections as a way to reach a variety of bored romantics. , aspirations, and determination, each couple captures a different theme.
“It was important to us to find love stories that were very diverse and all very different,” Mason said. “They all had different approaches. [love]And they really learned how to truly believe in the right person once they find the right person for them. ”
The diversity is on another level, too, with the video interspersed with several conversations featuring couples of different ages, races, and sexualities. Such casting has become increasingly visible in the advertising industry in recent years, but it has also become a target for conservatives waging culture wars.
“Diversity is incredibly important to us, and that's been reflected in our advertising efforts over the years,” Mason said. “We're not thinking about backlash from our various customers or even our florist partners. It's important to us to be truly representative.”
Beyond the three-minute spots with a diverse cast, we have a variety of 15- and 30-second cuts tailored for different channels and platforms. Some ads may resonate better on TikTok than on CTV. Additionally, Teleflora can better cater to holiday audiences this way. Throughout the years, the brand's typical demographic has been mostly women. Around Valentine's Day, the ratio shifts to about 50/50 between men and women.
“We had the opportunity to really test, learn and optimize throughout the campaign with different lengths,” the executive said. “That helps us because sometimes our predictions aren't quite right, but we can adjust them throughout the campaign.”
Like “Love Out Loud,'' “Believe in Love'' was created in collaboration with Wonderful Agency, an in-house shop that works with sister brands such as Fiji Water and Wonderful Pistachio. Wonderful Agency's chief creative officer Margaret Keene said in a previous interview with Marketing Dive that the brand's close-knit team with the agency is a strength, and Mason echoed this sentiment.
“What's amazing is that they're just as familiar with the brand as the marketing team or any regular employee at Teleflora. They really understand the business, and they understand the priorities of the business.” she said. “For us, our agency is an extension of all the employees who work within Teleflora… It's a true partnership that allows us to do a better job than we expected. Masu.”
