Moody’s October Marketing Round-Up

It's been a long month and there's been WAY too much going on! From two local elections - with some particularly entertaining campaign materials - to the bananas international news, and don’t even get us started on the inevitable Taylor Swift backlash as she promotes her latest album release (and engagement). Can you believe it was less than four weeks ago we were all lining up for the rapture?!

With all that’s going on, we’re going to dive into some of the marketing items that gave us the tingles - for better or worse - this month.  

Tylenol: The Case for Doing Nothing 

It’s rare when a marketing, public relations, and even a crisis management company suggests doing nothing in the face of a public relations disaster, but in the case of Trump & RFK v. Tylenol, we think nothing was ABSOLUTELY the right choice. 

The MEMES were golden! With autistic people - who have been pathologized, rather than recognized as a group who simply think differently - making light of their own diagnoses and reminding everyone that autism has been around since long before Tylenol. People joked about their mothers taking only Tylenol PM so they’re only autistic at night and were posting idealized maps of public transit with posts suggesting that life would be easier if MORE people had autism. 

Now, this whole autism conversation is nuanced, hitting all kinds of issues including misogyny, ableism, and of course, serving as yet another distraction from the Epstein files. Luckily, though, common sense seemed to prevail and Tylenol actually benefited from shutting up. Medical establishments, academics, and international health agencies stood up for the use of acetaminophen for pain and fever in pregnant people, and as a result, Tylenol.  

If Tylenol had put out a statement, or shiny ad campaign, they would have kept the narrative going. Instead, the company let the memes and medical community speak for them. 

Consider this approach the next time you find a complaint from a customer or a messy comment that got out of hand. Doing nothing can sometimes be the best approach.

Open AI In Real Life

In absolutely hilarious, ironic, and maybe even iconic (?) marketing news, Open AI has released its first advertising campaign for ChatGPT … which didn’t use any AI!

Every day the marketing world continues to be bombarded with messages saying all our jobs will be replaced by robots, while also seeing the value of AI continually to be overestimated, both financially and practically! 

So when Open AI needs to tell you about all the benefits of its product, who does it go to? Agency Isle of Any and production studio SMUGGLER, who shot the entire campaign on 35mm film.

All this being said, when you need to promote your company or product, who will you trust with the campaign?

Find Your Audience 

This isn’t a new ad, but it’s one absolutely everyone slept on in May, when we failed to celebrate Nurses Week. 🥺Oops!

FIGS knows who it serves! It shows an honest - and funny - perspective of modern nursing. FIGS is a health care apparel company and this ad is a perfect reminder to find your audience and meet them where they are. FIGS doesn’t try to appeal to everyone with their sneakers and athleisure products, they know exactly who their customers are and they specialize in serving (and celebrating) them only. Remember FIGS the next time you say “our audience is everyone.” 

Don’t believe us? Read the comments on the YouTube link!

Duo Does it Again 

We’ve made no bones about how much we love Duolingo’s marketing strategies! This latest campaign is no different. 

As conservative football fans have a meltdown online about the announcement that Bad Bunny (a Puerto Rican pop star) will be performing at the Super Bowl, Duolingo leveraged the controversy, suggesting it’s a good time to learn Spanish. The company doubled down, offering free access to its upgraded service for free for 1,000 customers from now until Super Bowl Sunday! 

Wrapping It Up 

That’s all we have time for this month, but we’ll keep watching and telling you about the good, bad, and ugly of marketing campaigns in our next monthly round-up! Want to create a campaign worthy of being spotlighted? Get in touch and we’ll collaborate on something noteworthy!