Nailing a Brand Message

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Client: Stanley Tools
Creative Agency: Mullen
Technology Vendor: United Virtualities

The campaign aimed to make Stanley the undisputed hand-tool leader with people who love tools. By advertising to the meaningful performance distinctions, the campaign called attention to Stanley's ongoing commitment to quality and innovation.

Working closely with the creative materials already developed, the creative idea for the Shoshkele unit was to bring the existing print creative materials to life. The Shoshkele platform provided us with this exact opportunity. 

The Shoshkele units produced extremely high clickthough rates ranging from .60 percent to .88 percent, significantly above average for a creative execution with no immediate call to action. 

The goal of the campaign was to capture the magic of hand tools. Power tools have seized the imagination of consumer with innovation and emotion and the same has to be done for hand tools. Innovation is simple enough -- Stanley has redesigned many of its classic hand tools and loaded them with features that make them on par with power tools in many respects, if not better in some instances.

From a strategic standpoint, the idea was to place Stanley tools where one does not typically find hand tool advertising but where the target is concentrated and where relevant links can be created with fun, edgy advertising designed to create memorable brand impressions. We contemporize the Stanley brand by making it more youthful and confident.
-- Peter Winch, VP, account director, Mullen

It was a very pleasant experience to work with Mullen's interactive team on this Shoshkele campaign for Stanley Tools. Mullen's team supplied the PDF formats and the storyboarding, and together our creative teams brought the concept to life and adapted it to the web. It was great teamwork all around.
-- Karen Murphy, sales director, east coast, United Virtualities

This piece, which includes a Shoshkele and a Shoshbanner, was specifically developed to communicate the hammer product line for Stanley Tools. The Shoshkele starts with screams of desperation while a group of nails is running away from the hammer which then follows them to nail them. When the ad ends, the sentence "PRAY YOU DON'T COME BACK AS A NAIL" appears. When the Shoshkele ends, the ad stays visible as a Shoshbanner.

The original idea came from Mullen, and our challenge was to represent the concept for the web and to engage the audience in a humorous way while taking full advantage of our technologies.

This is a very funny campaign, and it uses black humor as a way of communication, something that is not very usual within the advertising community.
-- Gaston Silberman, creative director, United Virtualities

Creative Showcase is meant to be a teaching tool and an inspiration for our readers. We comment only on creative that we really love. Our panelists discuss what makes it great, but if they feel there were missed opportunities that would have made it better, we invite them to mention those. And finally, we seek out a wide range of opinions that reflect the marketplace for the panel, in order to provide constructive, useable feedback for agencies, clients and others involved in these creative pieces.

The Stanley Shoshkele in today's Showcase succeeds in both grabbing attention and leaving an impression. Attention is the easy part -- who could miss a giant hammer slamming a path of nails across your screen? As far as leaving an impression, humor is the key for this piece. Personifying the nails with desperate cries and the tagline, "Pray you don't come back as a nail," are just the ticket.  
 
The only thing missing was a clear link with the product's unique qualities. Next time around, as a member of the creative team, I would look for ways to call out the "antivibe" handle or "larger sweet spot." Nonetheless, anyone in the market for a new hammer is sure to be impressed by today's Showcase.
-- Mario Sgambelluri, managing editor, iMedia Communications 

The Stanley Tools unit certainly grabs your attention. But it does so with jarring noise that starts on its own, without any user initiation. And I don't like the fact that it's not easy to find the "sound off" button; in this placement the button looks like part of the picture on the page, not the ad. 

Visually, the unit is very successful -- its color scheme perfectly reflects the tool category, with the yellow and black that is also used on the Stanley Tool website.

As far as interactivity, you almost wish you could play with the hammer and nail some of these nails -- a missed opportunity here to engage the viewer and get more clicks?

But overall, the campaign makes good use of placement, color and integration, driving up user interaction. A job well done -- it's not easy to make a hammer entertaining...
-- Margaret Lorentowicz, usability designer, iMedia Communications