Stepping outside the advertising bubble

How Berners Bowie Lee uses creativity and culture mapping to bring brands more than 15 seconds of fame

The “Buy Toronto Time” campaign for TABIA featured tombstone graphics depicting the starting year of the business with the end date left blank. Store owners put custom posters in their windows, generating significant grassroots and media attention.

“The idea was to create a sense of loss for businesses that had not yet closed, and letting customers know they have the power to keep these businesses going,” Murray says.

MUCH OF TODAY'S advertising speaks solely to fellow advertisers or to the urban, upper middle class and not to those actually buying the products and services, says Devon Williamson, partner at Toronto-based Berners Bowie Lee (BBL). That’s why the agency uses a creative research process called “culture mapping” to help it step outside the advertising bubble, she explains.

MAbove: As pandemic isolation increased, BBL proposed a conversation-based format for Toronto’s 93.5 FM Today Radio that could replace the companionship previously found at the office. Real conversations from the station were displayed on OOH so a passerby would feel they were dropping in on a conversation.

The process aims to uncover the truth about people’s lives through in-depth interviews. Doing so, she says, can uncover hidden opportunities for brands and provide the creative fuel for effective brand platforms, campaigns and even product development.

“Culture mapping is the first step in our creative process,” says Michael Murray, partner at the eightemployee shop. “We want people to trust us and tell us stuff we wouldn’t learn by social listening or traditional research. The little gems people provide in these interviews can be unexpected and lead to discoveries about long-term changes in culture that brands can tap into, and we can take advantage of creatively.”

Culture mapping paid off in a campaign for the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) that ran just before the second pandemic lockdown ended. Despite predictions of another Roaring ’20s coming, interviews with shopkeepers revealed they faced major debts and troubles. Store owners told BBL that customers would regularly say, “We’re so glad you made it,” then leave their store without buying anything.

BBL is currently working on a nurse recruitment campaign for The Ottawa Hospital. Williamson says the agency is excited to delve into a challenge every hospital is facing with nurses leaving the profession in droves. BBL’s preparation included not only speaking to nurses, but also to their patients, partners and, unexpectedly, other hospital workers such as janitors and cafeteria staff. “Talking to people who aren’t the typical bull’s-eye unearths new perspectives and helps us look at the problem in a lateral, creative way,” Murray says.

Among the research findings was that nurses don’t like being treated as heroes. They see a gap between how the public regards them and the realities of their jobs and salaries.

Elsewhere, BBL demonstrated its understanding of cultural nuance outside the US and Canada when it launched CARIB Brewery’s Rockstone tonic wine, an alcoholic energy drink containing vitamins, herbs and roots.

The agency created a brand platform “Reach for the Longtime” that was part advertising and part entertainment, working with artists Stephen Marley, Skinny Fabulous, Walshy Fire and Gold Up. The fully integrated campaign helped Rockstone claim a 20% market share in its first six months.

For the launch of Toronto Stingray station 93.5 FM Today Radio, BBL created an outdoor campaign aiming to show how radio can partially replace the water-cooler conversations people missed working from home. Real conversations heard on the station were displayed on sequential and stand-alone OOH, making people feel like they were dropping in on a chat.

“Understanding what’s happening in culture at a particular moment and layering it in makes marketing more powerful,” Williamson notes.

Since its 2020 launch, BBL has typically not entered awards shows, but it did make the 2022 Small Agency of the Year shortlist. “We’ve been concentrating on hiring the right people and building an agency culture focused on doing interesting creative work that gets seen and drives results for our clients, as opposed to awards,” Williamson says. “That said, it’s fantastic to be recognized in our first few years of business.”

Above: 1 For the Caribbean’s CARIB Brewery, BBL sought to create hype and ritual through an advertising and entertainment platform. “Reach the Longtime” frames up the key product as something money can’t buy – more time at the end of the night. 2 For plant pot company Chive, the agency rode the cultural obsession with plants to launch a plant store. To advertise, it hijacked Cameo, asked celebs to beg for an invite to the appointment-only store, shared the video and cheekily turned them down. The entire campaign cost less than $10K. 3 The “Buy Toronto Time” campaign for the Toronto Association of Business Improvement incorporated tombstone-like posters in shop windows, billboards featuring local businesses, and TV ads helping consumers understand their actions would dictate the future of businesses endangered by the pandemic. It generated 182 million impressions. 4 Outdoor and print ads established the brand platform for spendmanagement software Float Card, emphasizing how it allows everyone in the office to do their jobs better. The work also included social and display, specifically targeting finance teams. Sign-up inquiries tripled from campaign start and there was a 50% increase in signups.

CONTACT: Dominique Anthony Business lead dominique@bernersbowielee.com