B2B is an area that’s often overlooked, leading to quite straight work and even straighter messaging. But it’s a place that huge gains and stand-out can be made with work that pushes the norms. Over a number of years we’ve done that for BASF, on their farming business. The work here ran in titles in which every ad was about ‘extra profits’ and featured quite bland stock shots. The work we created was used as best in class examples in other markets around the world.
Our long-term campaign was ‘Real Results’. The strategy took the brave step to say we’re not going to quote lab results anymore, but to use results from real farms and real farmers. Every ad was as genuine as it could be, featuring the real farms and farmers that the results were being taken from. Shot as they went about their many daily jobs, each farmers featured in interviews, films, and even hosted open-days on their farms.
The results were hard to argue with, although one competitor did try complaining about the numbers. We checked and discovered they were right, the actual figures were better than the ones we’d used. So we re-ran the campaign with the higher numbers. Not quite the outcome they were hoping for. The campaign results were very successful too, and led to a live data-tracking website so farmers could see what was happening for real.
The latest work for BASF Revystar deliberately taps into the heritage of the brand. With creative that nods to classic 70s & 80s advertising, drawing on the constants of farming. One of which is, of course, the quality of BASF products.
