“Passionate” is one of those words brands often use when they have run out of evidence. Most Passionate takes the opposite approach. It finds the person prepared to go further, care harder, refuse the substitute or put their obsession to work—and lets their behaviour make the argument.
Here are seven tactics that turn exceptional devotion into visible proof.
- Prove It Through Extremity
- Expose The Unseen Devotion
- Invent The Ultimate Fan
- Reward The One True Believer
- Turn Fans Into Field Agents
- Match Shared Obsessions
- Borrow A Fan’s Icon Status
1. Prove It Through Extremity
Dramatise someone going to extraordinary lengths for quality, care or craft.
Taste The Effort — Ginsters · TBWA\London · 2023
Lots of brands talk about how much care goes into their ingredients. Ginsters introduced Merryn, a vegetable grower who cared enough to monitor her crops with baby monitors, stand scarecrow duty herself and generally behave as if every vegetable were a member of the family.
Her eccentric devotion made an otherwise invisible sourcing story visible. You did not have to take Ginsters’ word for the quality of its locally grown vegetables. You could see the slightly unreasonable effort going into them.
Bear vs. Fisherman — John West · Leo Burnett · 2001
John West took the same thought somewhere much less sensible. A fisherman encounters a bear guarding the freshest salmon and fights it for the catch.
The behaviour is patently absurd. But the point is immediately clear: John West will go further than anyone else to secure the best fish. Rather than merely claiming a passion for quality, the campaign stages an unreasonable act of commitment that makes the familiar promise difficult to forget.
2. Expose The Unseen Devotion
Reveal the practical or emotional effort normally hidden behind a service.
Whatever It Takes — Macmillan Cancer Support · AMV BBDO · 2021
Cancer support can sound abstract until you see the people providing it. Macmillan showed its staff doing whatever the moment demanded: offering practical help, absorbing fear, finding humour and bringing a little light into extremely difficult situations.
The campaign made the emotional labour behind the organisation visible. Macmillan did not need to tell people its nurses and support workers cared. Their repeated acts of commitment provided the evidence—and made the case for public support much harder to ignore.
