Getting to an idea worth fighting for rarely begins from an obvious starting point. Inspired by former Wieden+Kennedy Creative Director Jason Bagley, this series uses provocative questions to mine the Big Ideas That Work Engines for repeatable creative tactics that can help answer them.
This time, we’re asking:
How can we turn our weakness into a benefit?
Here are seven campaigns that probably weren’t thought of by asking this question and some related follow-ups, but they could have been...
- Turn the mistake into cultural relevance
- Let the wrong customer reveal the right benefit
- Turn the mess into a useful excuse
- Make the ugly consequence prove the claim
- Turn imperfection into character and value
- Turn the inconvenience into a ritual
- Turn less product into more practical value
1. Turn the manufacturing mistake into cultural accuracy
When a defect mirrors the audience’s life perfectly, don't correct it; give it a name.
Situationships · Sweethearts · Tombras · 2024
Conversation hearts are supposed to deliver simple, legible declarations of love. Some Sweethearts candies do not. Their messages emerge blurry, misprinted and difficult to decipher, making them look like products that failed quality control.
Tombras recognised that the defect accurately described a modern relationship status. Situationships are equally blurry, hard to read and full of mixed messages. Rather than discard or disguise the imperfect candies, Sweethearts packaged them as limited-edition Situationship Boxes.
The weakness became the organising idea for a new product. What made the hearts bad at communicating traditional romance made them unusually good at expressing contemporary romantic ambiguity.
The question that could have produced it:
Where in culture would our product defect feel unexpectedly accurate?
The creative move: Product Flaws Into Features → Creative Engine
2. Let the wrong customer reveal the right benefit
Find the person who would hate your weakness for precisely the reason your audience might value it.
No Drama · Switzerland Tourism · Wirz BBDO · 2021
Switzerland’s calm, order and immaculate scenery can also make the country seem uneventful. Switzerland Tourism did not dispute that perception. It recruited Robert De Niro to confirm it.
In No Drama, Roger Federer tries to persuade De Niro to make a film in Switzerland. The actor refuses because the country is too peaceful and perfect. There is no danger, conflict or jeopardy, which means there is none of the dramatic material on which he has built his career.
His objection becomes the endorsement. Everything that makes Switzerland unsuitable for De Niro makes it appealing to travellers who want an escape from real-world drama. The campaign does more than turn boring into peaceful. It chooses a spokesperson whose apparent wrongness makes the reversal persuasive.
The question that could have produced it:
Who would dislike our weakness for precisely the reason our audience might value it?
The creative move: The Unlikeliest Ambassador → Dumb Thinking Engine
