Chris Hanna 0:00
Welcome to Adtempted where we attempt to create ads things that don’t need them. I’m Chris, the resident copywriter.

John Fish 0:05
I’m John and I write things.

Sam McKinney 0:07
And I’m Sam and I fight zombies.

Chris Hanna 0:16
As always, our plan for today is to share some initial ideas, choose a direction we like and then build out a campaign that answers our brief. And speaking of, Sam, what are we working on today?

Sam McKinney 0:25
Alright guys, today we’re working for the Umbrella Corporation from the Resident Rvil universe. Umbrella is a global conglomerate responsible for developing drugs and viruses, which SPOILER ALERT may turn humans into zombies. But in order to do that, they need to enlist the best and brightest scientists to develop these products in their pharmaceutical labs. And that’s where we come in.

John Fish 0:45
We are tasking ourselves to create a recruitment campaign for Umbrella’s pharma division, our idea needs to highlight the cutting edge work that’s supposed to make the world a better place — without giving away what exactly they’ll be working on.

Unknown Speaker 1:00
Another breakthrough from the Umbrella Corporation,

John Fish 1:03
I nominate Chris to go first with his insights today.

Chris Hanna 1:06
Alrighty, I’m coming in with two today. And here is the first one. The greatest work in human history is done by Hidden Figures, people who sacrificed their lives to better society, all in secret. Umbrella recognizes these heroes, we see their unseen potential, and hire them to do the life changing work for us.

And the second one, you know, to solve the toughest challenges facing our world, we need the brightest minds. And it’s nothing personal to you like middle mediocre talent. We just don’t want anything or anyone that’s not the absolute best. And we will do whatever it takes to find them.

Sam McKinney 1:45
Nice. They’re both very best and brightest. So it makes sense, even though they’re all evil.

John Fish 1:51
Evil geniuses!

Alright, guys, so I got a few today that I’ll share with you. The first one is one giant step. Take a leap, a leap into the future of humankind. Discover the potential of humans by protecting them from themselves, prevent them from spreading illness from killing each other leap into the unknown potential under the Umbrella Corp.

And then I have cure the world. With the world falling apart from pandemics, war, starvation, depressions and climate change, what the world really needs right now is a cure — a cure that will protect humankind from themselves and create a utopia free of disease. Cure the world with Umbrella.

And then I got we like brains, which I don’t know if if if the zombies in Resident Evil like brains, but we’re talking about zombies. Okay, so I had to go with a brain one. Good brains, Bad Brains, small brains, moods, brains, and especially the wrinkly ones. We like them all. We use these brains to find the cures that will rid the world of disease, both mental and physical. So do you have a wrinkled brain? Then join Umbrella.

Chris Hanna 2:58
I like this one a lot.

Sam McKinney 2:59
Yeah.

Chris Hanna 2:59
That one resonated with me.

Sam McKinney 3:01
Fun. It’s a lot of fun.

John Fish 3:03
All righty.

Sam McKinney 3:03
So my first one: some of the greatest mysteries of our time are solved by simply finding the missing puzzle piece and obscure acid that can manage pain, mold that fights bacteria, and so much more. At the Umbrella Corporation, we work on some of the biggest mysteries plaguing humanity, and mortality, world peace and the secret of life. So we are searching for the greatest puzzle solvers in the pharmacological world to find the solutions and push society forward into a new future. Are you the missing piece?

Chris Hanna 3:31
I like this one, it kind of has some vibes towards like, the missing link is immediately what I was kind of going towards here.

Sam McKinney 3:38
Yeah, this one actually stemmed out of an execution first, which Google does this a lot where they release secret puzzles that you have to solve to get the job offer, basically.

Chris Hanna 3:50
That’s what I was thinking for that only the brightest one. In my head. I was thinking of like, a Goodwill Hunting style like world’s hardest equation. You know, the answer is somehow leads you to like the job applications, something like that.

Sam McKinney 4:05
Yeah.

John Fish 4:05
How you like them apples?

Chris Hanna 4:07
Is that from the movie? It’s been so long…

Sam McKinney 4:11
Most famous line.

Chris Hanna 4:13
Clearly I wasn’t— Clearly I’m not the one up there solving the equation.

John Fish 4:17
Well, I got a number how you like them apples. There you go.

Sam McKinney 4:22
All right. My next one, wake up, go to work at a corporate job we hate, come home, rinse and repeat. This is the American dream, to drone on through life just trying to survive. That’s not us. We are free thinkers, risk takers and the shapers of a more advanced future. So if you’re tired of fighting your way through a world of corporate zombies, and dream of a better future, then we want you.

Chris Hanna 4:46
Ah zombies, we love them.

Sam McKinney 4:48
Yeah. And then my last one: when the Boots group synthesized ibuprofen for the first time they were the catalysts to a revolution in pain management. Alexander Fleming was the catalyst for turning the tide in the war against bacteria when he discovered penicillin. The umbrella company wants to revolutionize the future of humanity. But we’re looking for the catalyst who can initiate that change. Are you the catalyst of change?

John Fish 5:12
I like the catalyst of change just because it gets into science, but I think it would need to be, “be the catalyst for change.”

Sam McKinney 5:17
Yeah, probably.

John Fish 5:19
Yeah, that’s like, no, but that like, kind of like makes it really clean.

Be the catalyst of change.

??? 5:24
Commitment, honesty, integrity, these are the core values that create the foundation for Umbrella.

John Fish 5:32
I feel like this campaign is going to be very similar to the Apple’s and Amazon’s and Google’s recruiting. I kind of come to the, even though this wasn’t a recruitment campaign, but I kind of come to the tagline of, you know, the “be different.”

Sam McKinney 5:46
Yeah.

John Fish 5:47
But that’s just kind of what I’m thinking here. It’s almost like we want to make these people feel like they’re joining something special.

Sam McKinney 5:52
Yeah, I agree.

Chris Hanna 5:53
I think that’s definitely are, I can say. You know, John, it’s for that point that I am really gravitating towards, “we like brains.” It feels unexpected for something that would be like a high-end, pharmaceutical, like, only the brightest is what we’re looking for. And there’s something just kind of funny, and almost like disarming to we like brains. I don’t know if that’s the line. But I love the insight of, we want your brain, especially in a world that knows about zombies. And I’m assuming that even in the Resident Evil universe, people know the existence of zombies, too.

Sam McKinney 6:33
I think it should be we love brains personally. But I think that actually would be a good tagline. Because it’s like, whatever copy it is. It could be something really smart and like, irreverent or whatever. But then it’s like, we like brains. Join Umbrella Corp today or something like that. I think that’s a very interesting, catchy. It makes sense, it’s an easy get. And it’s fun.

John Fish 6:57
Awesome. I think it’s kind of cool. Because it also kind of like hints at zombies, but it doesn’t do it in a way where it’s like, nail you over the head with it. You know, it’s just kind of a wink to the audience.

Sam McKinney 7:07
Yeah, I agree.

Chris Hanna 7:08
And I think that’s what makes it, like to your point about like, the Amazons and the Apples of the world. That’s what makes it different than expected. When Sam was talking, one of the campaigns that popped up in my head was the Economist, if you remember those, it was the one where, like, a lot of their ads, as well as like the visual executions, and not just their copy, were very cerebral and very, like they made you think that whoever reads The Economist, like is smart, you know, and their ads like reflected that. And it wasn’t that it was pretentious, like snooty, high born sort of thing. It was: these are for, like, the thinkers, the intellects,

John Fish 7:47
yes.

Chris Hanna 7:47
type of thing.

John Fish 7:48
The famous, Be Sharp ad for anyone that’s interested, which had to be explained to me, unfortunately.

Chris Hanna 7:57
I might need to have it explained to me. I don’t know if I know that one.

John Fish 7:59
Oh, that’s the it’s the image where it has a B and it has a symbol for sharp and music.

Chris Hanna 8:06
That’s funny.

John Fish 8:07
Yeah, I’m not I’m not musically inclined.

Unknown Speaker 8:10
Umbrellas mission statement has always been preserving the health of the people. But the meet this bright statement, look the shadow of Spencer’s ambition,

Chris Hanna 8:23
Alrighty, Well, it sounds like you guys are both liking we like brains. I also like we like brands, and I do like brains, we can roll with that one for a little while. Where do we see this one showing up? What do we think that scientists are gonna see these ads?

Sam McKinney 8:38
Probably be magazines. It’d be Scientific American, or like the scientific journals that are like for peer review and stuff like that. That’s that would probably be the exclusive location.

John Fish 8:51
I think we’re missing a huge one, though, right off the bat with just LinkedIn since this is a recruitment campaign. Right?

Chris Hanna 8:58
That’s actually a question I have: are pharmaceutical scientists on LinkedIn the same way that we see marketing professionals on LinkedIn, spouting their kind of like, on their podium this thought leaders? I truly don’t know.

John Fish 9:13
I don’t know if they’re on their podium as thought leaders, but but they’re definitely on LinkedIn. So like, that is a place to go for people that are looking for a job.

Chris Hanna 9:20
I guess the thing that I wonder is, what kind of person or what kind of things do scientists gravitate towards? Because I feel like in the advertising community, it’s like really cutting edge, often controversial work that gets us all to like flock to it and talk about it like flies. And I’m curious what that would be for pharma scientists.

John Fish 9:40
Oh, it’s the same thing, Chris. I think it’s it’s revolutionary ideas. It’s like, think of how many overqualified scientists wanted to work with their analysis, even though it was a complete sham.

Sam McKinney 9:52
I think it’s based around those breakthroughs, which I think is the medical journals or whatever think LinkedIn, we could do something on LinkedIn to kind of, it translates better to our experiences. Since we don’t all read medical journals or Scientific American.

Chris Hanna 10:05
Yeah, I have a lot of questions around medical journals. I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that advertising in a medical journal is not something that is done. And here’s another question: do the people who I’m assuming are talking about these findings in medical journals, Are they reading the full article? Are they going somewhere else to get the Cliff Notes?

Sam McKinney 10:30
Well, one, I think that there would be advertising in them because there’s still a publication and they have to make money somehow, they’re not going to be funded by anything. So there’s, it’s probably just a very specific business to business, I guess, technically. And I would assume these people at the level that they’re at, they would be reading, if not skimming the whole article, but I could be completely wrong. If we have any medical doctors or people who actually read these journals, please email us let us know how wrong we are.

Chris Hanna 11:00
Do we think that I’m assuming that these ads are not placed, like literally in the middle of like a study?

Sam McKinney 11:08
I think we should stop making assumptions like that. Because literally, we, in magazines, there are ads in the middle of articles. You mean, like in the middle of a page? Or in the middle? Like,

Chris Hanna 11:19
Yeah, like, either in the middle of like a page, or in the middle of an article. Like, if I’m three quarters of the way through is, am I going to see an ad on like the right hand side? And like a page from the study on the left hand side? Are they usually like in between? And I would assume it’s the former right?

Sam McKinney 11:35
From my experience, I laid out a newspaper, and they’re just like, just make it fucking fit.

John Fish 11:40
Yeah, and I think for the purposes of this, let’s not, let’s not get too in the weeds on that.

Chris Hanna 11:46
So where I was going with that is wondering if there’s a way to like derail a medical journal study with one of our ads, and only, like, the brightest person would be able to read that and be like, “this isn’t right, I have to email the publisher!” And at the bottom, there’s some information that would then lead them to the, like the job application, that was one idea.

Another idea was to create a, like a mini journal entry that is still kinda broad in my brain, an mini journal entry that is in some way, like either so far fetched or so dense that the only person who can get through it all is the type of person that we would want to hire.

Sam McKinney 12:29
I feel like that’s a little too, too torturous. Like at least if it was like a puzzle, then at least it would be fun to solve it. But like, if it’s just really dense article, like, I don’t know if there’s like fun in that. There might be, but I’m not sure.

Chris Hanna 12:47
There might be for some people. But you’re right.

Sam McKinney 12:49
You can do like an article in the middle of a journal that’s like, it starts off explaining the project like discovering immortality, you start reading through it, and it’s sort of ends halfway through with no answer, no result, but it says, Do you think you could solve immortality join us? We like brains. Or something like that?

Chris Hanna 13:08
Oh, that’s fun. I like that idea. Sam.

Sam McKinney 13:12
There’s also a way to like, the what if, on one side is the article explaining like the future of ibuprofen. And then the other page, the ad would be like, tired of reading the same boring shit? Or did you already know this or, like you want to read you want to find something more interesting? Then come work for the Umbrella Corporation. We like brains, that kind of thing.

Chris Hanna 13:33
I like that. I can even see that being interstitial ads, like within articles that you would see in like newspapers, for example. It would be kind of funny if it was also like contextual. So as like an article is talking about like ibuprofen, the ad sort of like picks up where that leaves off. Like within the actual article column.

John Fish 13:55
I mean, this will be a lot to do. But what if it was like the article on one side, and then a quiz on the other side, and the quiz kind of ends up making like an anagram? If you choose all the right answers, it has the anagram is like, we like brains.

Chris Hanna 14:07
I’m curious about quizzes, because what would a quiz for like a pharmacist look like?

Sam McKinney 14:12
you’re kind of thinking like a chemist or a biomedical engineer, that’s going to be messing with all that stuff. So it would be like chemical compositions, molecules, scientific, like I guess it’d be mostly chemistry stuff.

Chris Hanna 14:25
Coming back to our campaign platform, we like brains, I’m wondering if they’re like, maybe we should really focus more on something that has to do specifically with brains. Whether that’s like John like the question that we’re asking to people that has to do with super intense neuro-psychology or neuro, neurology, just so that it’s like a bit more anchored than like throwing out a quiz or throwing out like a big like Goodwill Hunting-esque problem.

Sam McKinney 14:57
No matter what we come up with, if it’s like a quiz or some thing that they have to try and figure out whatever the context or whatever the subject matter is. That solution coupled with the line we like brains is basically saying, We like people who are smart, no matter what. So if you think about that, if we weren’t doing a quiz, the line would be something talking down to people who aren’t using their brains, or aren’t as smart as the smartest people in the world kind of thing. If we’re doing like a quiz, and the quiz would be like, if you can figure this out, then you’re smart. We like you kind of thing. So that’s kind of the play.

We can’t focus in on what the subject matter is, I don’t know if it needs to be a brain specifically, because that might be just beating a dead horse, it could just be far more related. But again, that’s also going to be above our pay grade or our pay grade, not, because we’re not paid, our-

Chris Hanna 15:49
Our prowess, you might say.

Sam McKinney 15:50
Prowess, yes is what is a good word. I was trying to think of a polite way to say our intelligence.

Chris Hanna 15:56
Our own intelligence!

Sam McKinney 15:57
skills.

Chris Hanna 15:58
Yeah, you were talking a little bit about like talking down to people, like people, who are not like as as intelligent as we are looking to recruit. And John, you bring up LinkedIn, kind of made me think that’s probably the right place for something like that.

John Fish 16:13
Yeah, that’s perfect, because that’s what LinkedIn is now.

Chris Hanna 16:17
This is a terrible idea. But I just wanted to speak it out because it was making me chuckle. I love the idea of like, Umbrella, creating, like a fake thought leader to post on LinkedIn, all of these like super high brow claims. And the people who like DM this person to like, prove them wrong, get referred to work for the Umbrella Corporation.

Sam McKinney 16:41
I think it’s funny, but I to be honest, in a company like Umbrella, I think that that would be viewed as a waste of time. Why waste our time doing that? If they’re going to come, they’re going to come.

Chris Hanna 16:55
Because the most passionate people are going to be the ones who prove them wrong.

Sam McKinney 16:59
True.

Chris Hanna 16:59
Anyway, but I am down for some other form of LinkedIn talking-down-to I guess my first question would then be like, what sorts is this coming from? Is it coming from Umbrella?

John Fish 17:13
Yeah. Is it an ad? Or is it like a puppet that you’re talking about? Chris, I kinda, I kind of liked that idea.

Sam McKinney 17:18
Well, I mean, companies can post as well. So we can post as the company in the same sort of vein, like, without going through the whole creating influence, we just make the company be that shitty asshole guy.

Chris Hanna 17:32
I mean, that is kind of fascinating, though. I am not sure if any brands that we mentioned at the top of the podcast would ever be willing to do something like this. But there is something fascinating and kind of buzz worthy about a brand using their LinkedIn platform to become that guy, that thought leader that talks down to you.

John Fish 17:56
I kind of like it, I think it’s kind of funny. We gotta obviously nail the voice better, but-

Chris Hanna 17:59
Sam, if we were gonna do like a puzzle on LinkedIn, do you think that there would be a visual way to accomplish that that’s not some guy like writing this super long, boring post?

Sam McKinney 18:10
To be honest, this way- It’s been so long since I’ve been in any science or chemistry or anything like that. So it’s like, I went art for a reason. But I was trying to think of like, just visually showing molecules or just posting a molecule like a really complex molecule, but it being incorrect. Like there’s one thing wrong with it. And like that is a hint to a clue. Or there’s maybe we change certain molecules to spell out something or maybe a DNA strand, maybe there’s a series of molecules that spell out something from the periodic table of elements. And there’s a couple of different ways to go about it.

John Fish 18:45
And we’re kind of wondering if we’re like overthinking it, and trying to gamify this where I know that’s kind of like our unique in. When I think of like recruitment campaigns for companies like Apple, you know, the big ones, they’re playing on the elitists, but they’re not doing it in a gamified way, typically. So I’m wondering if there’s like, if you guys think there is a way to do it within the LinkedIn ad being just kind of elitist.

Chris Hanna 19:05
I’m assuming that most of these people would recognize a compound that it took like a genius to develop something, penicillin, for example, like, let’s say that penicillin is like a compound that most pharmaceutical scientists would probably recognize.

What I was thinking about, is, it would be kind of funny if the LinkedIn post was like, “level of experience required,” and we just post some groundbreaking compound that like literally took a genius to figure out. And it’s kind of inside baseball, because the only people who would know what that is are, is our target audience. And I think by seeing that they would be like, Oh, shit, they want like penicillin level of experience and prowess.

Sam McKinney 19:48
Yeah. I mean, yeah, that would get the, that would get the point across.

John Fish 19:52
I like that. I kind of like that.

Chris Hanna 19:54
I don’t know, but it it just feels like Economist-esuqe to me, you know?

John Fish 19:59
okay, I just Gotta talk this out real quick. What if, What if it was like a picture of like, this is maybe going a little bit of a different track. But what if it was a picture of like, before, terrible accident happens? Like before a stuntman crashes his motorcycle or something. And then it’s a kind of like, not all brains are great, but we sure do like ’em, however they come to us.

Chris Hanna 20:21
Wait is the, is the brain from the motorcycle, from the person who died in a motorcycle accident?

John Fish 20:21
Yeah, exactly. So like, but we like brains, no matter how they come to us. Whether you work for us, or we’re studying your brain, you know what I mean? Like it, that’s kind of a funny, like, little like, little way to do it and kind of what it will get your attention. Like, if you’re scrolling, you see that you kind of be like, Whoa, what?

Chris Hanna 20:46
It’s visceral, I can’t deny that. I think for the purposes of trying to recruit, like the best and the brightest, I think that we might want to stick a bit more to the scientific community. Yeah, what a what an image that would be: “however, they come to us.”

Sam McKinney 21:04
It feels more consumer selling something rather than recruiting me to be honest.

Chris Hanna 21:10
I mean, I really liked the simplicity of the LinkedIn ad. But I could see how that it’s a bit too inside baseball for the average viewer who would be seeing this. So let’s figure out the med journal ad. Sam, I really did like your idea of creating like a med journal post that then like ends and says, like, figure out the rest. I do like that, would it be insane to literally only have like the beginning paragraph, or like the abstract of like a med journal? Like the amount of empty space you would see would break up the denseness of everything that you’re seeing in this med journal. And it would also be kind of on brand for them, because really, what Umbrella is coming to the scientists with is we’re gonna give you our brief, so to speak. And we want you to like figure it out.

Sam McKinney 21:59
Yeah. And I think it’s, it could be fun, because it could throw in a lot of homage as to the games and stories and stuff. I think the line wouldn’t be, I think it’d be a challenge. Like “it’s up to you to figure out the rest.”

John Fish 22:10
or would it be like “figure out the rest of with us, figure out the rest of the Umbrella.”?

Sam McKinney 22:14
it’s better if it’s an act of like, challenge, instead of invitation, because we want someone who’s hungry and wants to solve this problem, rather than like, Hey, you can solve it here. Like we’re here for you. Because really, Umbrella doesn’t care if you work there or not. They want you to want to work there.

John Fish 22:31
I see your point there. But like, I think with recruiting, it’s always going to be kind of an invitation.

Chris Hanna 22:36
I think that the invitation can maybe be like the fact that it’s like sponsored by Umbrella could maybe be the invitation in and of itself.

Sam McKinney 22:44
Maybe there’s another part to the line. “It’s up to you to figure out the rest. Work for umbrella. We like brains.”

John Fish 22:50
Let’s do that. Do that. That’s the line.

Chris Hanna 22:52
Cool.

John Fish 22:53
That’s the line baby.

Chris Hanna 22:55
What would we say? It’s like the inside of this just like plainly spoken out? Is it only the brightest brains, or the best brains work at Umbrella? Is that it?

Sam McKinney 23:03
I think it’s, “only the best and brightest need apply.”

??? 23:06
Release of a biological weapon known as the T virus. My employer, the Umbrella Corporation engineered this virus. They don’t want the world to know what they’ve done.

Chris Hanna 23:16
So our insight is the only the best and brightest need apply to the pharma division of Umbrella. And so our tagline is We Like Brains. We’ve got two executions: The first is a contextual med journal ad. We open up our abstract about immortality, and then end it abruptly saying, “it’s up to you to figure out the rest. Work for Umbrella.” We’re also taking to LinkedIn” we’re going to post an ad that simply features the visual of a compound that took a genius or geniuses to figure out, like penicillin, COVID vaccine, polycarbonate, etc. Along with a simple caption that says, “level of experience required.” Umbrella, We Like Brains!

Sam McKinney 23:56
It’s been a good one. It’s been fun.

Chris Hanna 23:58
I’m glad that we could get back to our roots of working for evil companies in the most ridiculous ways possible.

John Fish 24:05
More evil!

Sam McKinney 24:07
Thanks so much for listening to Adtempted. If you like what you heard, please give us a review on Apple podcasts. And if you want to see the final form of our campaign, it’ll be on our website or on our Instagram at Adtempted. So Chris, what’s next?

Chris Hanna 24:21
We are going to be talking to one of my favorite people about her career, her identity and some other wild stories that I’m so excited to share with everyone.

Sam McKinney 24:31
Until next time!

Chris Hanna 24:32
See you everybody!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai