Can a BT campaign line via M&C Saatchi London be the same as a CommBank campaign line via M&C Saatchi Sydney 13 years later? Yes it can…
Can-do theme for BT business drive
BT will unleash its biggest marketing assault on the UK business market this week, with its first advertising campaign through M&C Saatchi.
The outdoor, press and radio drive introduces a new BT catchphrase, ‘You Can’, aimed at senior businessmen and decision-makers.
This is the first work for BT from M&C Saatchi since it was appointed to its roster in February this year, with a brief to build the company’s profile as a business communications provider.
Focusing on the idea that chief executives hate the word ‘can’t’, poster sites on major routes into London will initially carry a teaser campaign reading simply ‘Can’t’.
After a few days, the teaser will be transformed into ‘Can’ with paint, eggs and graffiti, above the line, ‘BT. You Can.’
Press and radio advertising, set to break later this autumn, will promote the benefits of flexible working, focusing on how telecommunications can help staff motivation.
Media, planned by New PHD and bought by Zenith, will include press and business titles, such as The Economist, and upmarket radio stations such as Classic FM.
Tim Evans, head of marketing and communications at BT, said: ‘The campaign is born out of the insight that businesses want solutions. We want to show that we are moving from being a telecoms supplier into a provider of communication solutions.’
Nick Hurrell, joint chief executive of M&C Saatchi, said: ‘The campaign is about the breadth and depth that BT can offer to large businesses and organisations.’
The business campaign is the second strand of BT’s new advertising to break, following its agency shake-up earlier this year.
The main consumer advertising, the ET-themed ‘Stay in Touch’ campaign from Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, launched in April and the youth-targeted campaign from St Luke’s will break by the end of the year.
While BT would not disclose its spend, Evans said the M&C Saatchi ads represent its largest business campaign. ‘It is a major campaign and I would anticipate it to continue for three to four years.’
In addition to the main campaign, BT will promote its business benefits on the internet with banner advertising and a ‘You Can’ themed section to its web site.
Direct marketing support will consist of newsletters and leaflets published by Redwood Publishing. These will be mailed both to a technical audience and to senior executives.
38 Comments
WOMP WOMP
Advertising used to be a good job.
Woah! And fuckin heeeeeeeere we go!
Who cares whether it’s been used before by M&C, or not? Ten years after George Lois wrote ‘I want my Maypo’ he wrote ‘I want my MTV’. From all reports both Maypo and MTV were very happy.
Ooops.
The very definition of the real becomes: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. The hyper real.
There’s a four-lettered word
As offensive as any
It holds back the few
Puts a stop to the many
You copy that concept
You copy that line
You copy the campaign and hope that it’s fine
It isn’t.
Hilarious.
Especially after reading all that wonderful back slapping that has been going on, praising M&C for the kind of job that only a grown-up agency could do.
Oh and of course there is the Dr. Seuss poem too. Genius. Done in a flash.
Anyway, perhaps CBA know the score.
And are more than happy to pay for another financial institution’s campaign line.
Just as M&C are delighted to charge them a fortune for a re-cycled network idea.
It really is a funny old business.
bring on the poll lynchy
The real issue is that travesty of a poem.
How many campaigns between these two have been based on ‘Can’?
A fair few.
I really doubt this is plagarism.
Who cares?
A nearly 13 year old campaign from the other side of the globe? Ok, sure, same agency but how often do you know what another Publicis or WPP or Omnicon agency (if you’re in these networks for example) did over a decade ago?
Get over it. The average person in Australia has no idea who MC Saatchi are and no idea at all about some campaign their London agency did while we were all freaking out about Y2K. All they really know about Commonwealth is ‘Which Bank?’
It’s just advertising, after all. Ink on paper.
Ohhhh yeahhhhhhh.
Here we go!
EAT IT!
@Yeah, but
Before you can “doubt this is plagiarism”, you have to be able to spell plagiarism.
13 years, ago, other side of the world, different category, different context, c’mon, get a life
I love advertising.
Seriously?
‘Can’ is a common word.
Are all taglines with ‘The’ in them copying each other?
Grow up. It’s about how ‘Can’ is executed, specifically, in each campaign, to that market. Which will no doubt be totally different.
Dr Seuss? I thought I recognised the rhyme and meter.
Because… well, just because…
Of greater relevance in that in the 90’s WMO then created a campaign for the Westpac bank featuring the line ‘Westpac Can’ . It was widely seen.
An identical line in an identical category.
can loose the business, can be fired, can be the laughing stock, and heads can roll
Of greater concern and relevance is that in the 90’s WMO created a campaign for Westpac featuring the line ‘Westpac Can’.
An identical line in an identical category.
Many of us work hard to come up with, write, sell and make original ideas.
It’s pretty annoying when we see lauded, highly-paid names looking through annuals and reproducing stuff. NOT SAYING THIS HAPPENED HERE, BUT IT HAPPENS.
The first thing you do when you have an idea is do a Google Search to see if it’s been done before – not the other way around.
Being in Australia is not an excuse, someone should have checked.
Either way, it’s lazy.
can’t spell ‘lose’.
LOL
I recently presented an idea to a big client not knowing that the very same idea had just been done on the other side of the world – a fact that was discovered (to my dismay) by the client.
The client loved the idea, thanked US for ‘thinking of it’ and decided to have it made.
We even got paid for it.
Good to see Monty chipping in about his Wespac ad that nobody remembers.
Alright Monty?
this thread amuses me.
people with nothing better to do than crap on about a single. common word being used in taglines before.
a word is not an idea.
especially a word like ‘CAN’.
it’s a territory that can spawn multiple ideas.
the ideas are no doubt still coming.
be patient, my anal friends.
It’s a non story.
A thirteen-year-old campaign from the other side of the planet?
Most of the bloggers on here were in school when it ran.
I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. People nick other agency’s work. Nobody nicks their own.
Only I can…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9B_6PH4dhU
who cares? it’s a shit campaign no matter where it originated from.
we all can
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47MKGOPP4Zo
Old British campaign. Ex-British creative living in secluded Australia, where I hasten to add, ‘ripping off’ is an acceptable pastime. Stranger things have happened.
That agency has the biggest of them all.
Agree with Clients Aren’t Like Us”…and neither are consumers. Think they’ve seen the UK creative before? Think they care? It may have been an honest mistake, maybe someone should’ve checked, maybe someone did…I bet the only thing that really matters is wether its going to work it’s ass off. The rest is just ad industry wank.
really?
people get a life.
no real people give a shit about this.
its a solid campaign, well executed. leave it at that
..It is pretty funny though isn’t it? For the advertising industry’s purposes only I agree…
but lets not forget some of the creatives were in London (maybe even working at M&C) at the time of the BT campaign….
I doubt Andy Lark is feeling too great about this. After all his statements on the originality and positivity of the campaign he looks a bit silly.
This industry needs to grow up. It’s sad and tragic. That’s why I left it. And I am so proud of what M&C have created….it will go down in history. It’s brilliant and for anyone who understands business and worked outside the industry they would know this as well. Great job. That is what sets this agency apart they get it.
M&C openly admit that this was the idea that won the pitch. I wonder whether they relaxed the originality criteria a bit in order to pick up the business with a bit of tried and tested corporate wank from their international archives, assuming they could quietly kill it off in research? Hilarious if the client then demanded that they ran it as is.