Episode 123 - Australian Federal Police Ad Reviewed By WeTransfer, One Green Bean and Mars
The Australian Federal Police’s Crime Interrupted ad is a clever mix of good use of audience insights and subtlety.
In this episode of Advertisers Watching Ads we review the clip chosen by Contagious to see how it performed and what our guests Ela Osterberger (VP of Data at WeTransfer), Nick Dodd (Head of Social and Content at One Green Bean (Havas)), Surya Kant Trivedi (Digital Lead at Mars) and Richard Mashiter (UK Media & Content Director at Mars) thought of it.
Tune in to see why they rated the ad a 3.4 out of 5 and tell us what you think!
Episode 123 - Australian Federal Police Ad Reviewed By WeTransfer, One Green Bean and Mars
Transcript is automatically generated, so not perfect, but you get the idea!
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads.
My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative and we're brought to you as ever by Contagious, who helped us choose the ad this week. But before we see the ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Ela Osterberger 0:36
Hi, I'm Ela, VP of Data at WeTransfer.
Nick Dodd 0:39
Hi, I'm Nick, Head of Social and Content at One Green Bean (Havas).
Surya Kant Trivedi 0:42
Hi, I'm Surya. I'm from Mars Petcare, India Team, Lead Digital Media...
Richard Mashiter 0:48
Hi, I'm Richard. I am the UK Media and Content Director at Mars Confectionery.
Tom Ollerton 2:22
What a panel! And also, what an ad! Let's have a look at it.
What marks would you give this out of 5? One, two, three...
Surya Kant Trivedi 3:00
I think three and a half.
Tom Ollerton 3:02
A three, a three, a three and a half, and a four! Ela, powerful video, can you help us understand what's going on outside of the story we were told here?
Ela Osterberger 3:12
The AFP was trying to attract more diverse talents to the workforce. And the way they did it was to run a series of true crime podcasts. And so I listened to a few. And basically it's like a real crime that they explain what happened and how they caught the bad guys. And then in the last minute, they say, "If you think you can help us solve these cases, why don't you look at a career at the AFP?"
Nick Dodd 3:37
For me, this one really struck a positive chord because I think the insight that it is trying to tap into where people have that ability to be a detective, or that ability to have an inquisitive mind was relatively untapped. So the fact that that was the kind of the way of this one, it really impressed me. I mean, how often do you sit on the sofa next to your partner, and say, "I, you figured that out. You could have figured that out." And I think, what this managed to do was to cleverly and subtly get you to the end of an episode and then push you forward into a potential career here. I was really impressed overall.
It's just a natural fit. It works really well. I don't think there's many brands that could pull off something quite like this just in terms of the natural fit between the AFP and acquiring podcasts. It's so consumer first. They've tapped into the insights around growth in podcasts, growth in audio. They knew that they had an engaged audience through that genre already being a top three genre in podcasts. They found the right people, and they delivered a message to them, which sometimes can sound quite simple, but can often be quite difficult to do.
Surya Kant Trivedi 4:47
The one thing which I like about this, that the selection of their platform, so they have selected you know, the podcast. Somewhere... If you look at their task, what they wanted to achieve, they wanted to, you know, get into the mind of the diverse set of people... Move from, you know, men to women also. And the same time they are exploring something in terms of diverse skill set. And when you were in podcast, you get into the imagination, right? You don't have anything visual to look at. So you get in the picture, you start somewhere, you know, thinking about self in some kind of role. So that is something which, I guess, a big insight, which has driven this communication, and it has merit, very impactful, I would say.
Tom Ollerton 4:48
What would you prefer to see here, Ela?
Surya Kant Trivedi 4:54
First of all, I didn't find it very clear what kind of diversity they were looking for. Suggested that they wanted more women. But then, was it also diverse skill set? I think that wasn't super clear what they were really going for. And then I thought, "Okay, so if that's your goal, to make your workforce more diverse, let's look into what you actually do to do that." I went to the official AFP website, and it says, "If you are fit and healthy, motivated, and resilient, a career at AFP can present you with opportunities." And I'm like, "Fit and healthy?" I mean, I don't know, is that... Is that very inclusive? I feel like, you know, I'm not very fit, does that mean I can't have a career at the AFP? The other thing I did is ran the job descriptions. I just took a random one, through some kind of analysis tool, and all of their job descriptions are very masculine coded. So I'm like, if you really want to be diverse, you need to follow through, you can't just say, "Oh, more women, please." And then actually, as soon as they come to the website, it's very much non-inclusive.
Tom Ollerton 6:29
Do you think there would be a positive ROI with those numbers?
Nick Dodd 6:32
I'm sure you could, you could run a 15 second ad or a 30-second ad, but you might get more hits for the website that might even generate more applications. But what this campaign I think has done quite cleverly, is over the course of those hour-long episodes, it's painted a really insightful, detailed example of what the police force working on these cases went through. That gives you a really detailed experience of what it might actually be like, to be these detectives. So therefore, I think you could argue that the 40% increase in female applications, as a result of this, they're going to be pretty highly pre-qualified in a way that you're not going to get necessarily from a broadcast ad. I think there's definitely a place for both types of those. And I saw on some of the social posts that supported this campaign, they were cut down to push people, both to the podcast, and to the AFP website itself. I think you have to be really careful when you're coming in and pitching ideas like this to a client but, yes, ROI is important. But we're trying to tell stories here with this one, literally, in this case, and the value of that is not to be underestimated.
Richard Mashiter 7:38
And I think in terms of the ROI perspective, I actually think like you have to think about this in terms of performance recruitment, and how are you being super targeted in reaching those, those right people, which, again, the layers of targeting that you'd have to put into, on social, I don't even think that you can necessarily get to as close to targeting as you're getting through the podcast.
Ela Osterberger 8:04
What I think is interesting, though, is I think that this campaign might have really helped the image of the police. And I think it can be quite tough to have a campaign that really helps the image of the police and displays it as being more diverse. And I think that could have a really interesting impact. And I think they have failed to measure that.
Tom Ollerton 8:21
Are they sensationalizing the stuff that doesn't really represent the majority of policing?
Richard Mashiter 8:26
I actually think the British Army have done a really good job in the past couple of years of showing the more down to earth jobs, the behind-the-scenes jobs, and basically trying to show that the skill set you have can be used in the army, and that you don't need to be a soldier on the front line to be part of the army. There are a load of other jobs in the army from an engineer to being a training specialist, or this probably does try to dramatize it and makes it entertainment rather than day-to-day. So it'd be interesting to see what the, what the leads are that do come through from, from this, sure.
Tom Ollerton 9:05
What would the industry learn from this execution?
Surya Kant Trivedi 9:07
One good learning, I would say because it's so highly engaging, it's a good content, I must say. It's a good way of bringing people in the journey. You know, give them a chance to experience it through audio, I would say, not a visual but audio way and try to see that, yes, at least shows that people are interested, right? Maybe they're not of quality, but they're interested in that... That momentum might continue in the future also for other segments who might be qualified to get into that one.
Tom Ollerton 9:33
So unfortunately, we're at the end of the episode. So what I'm going to do is get you to thumbs up or thumbs down on whether you would sign off this campaign in its current form. One, two, thee... Wow, okay. Well, there you have it AFP. Thank you so much to our guests, and we'll see you all next week.
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