Using emotional insights to market a rational product to a highly skeptical scientific audience
ABCAM
STRATEGY | CREATIVE | PRODUCTION | B2B & SCIENCE | ADVERTISING | PERFORMANCE | DESIGN | MARKETING
Overview Antibodies are a vital part of experiments in the life sciences, and selling them to scientists is a multi-billion-dollar industry where Abcam is a leader. To fuel their next stage of growth, Abcam wanted to connect with customers in a new way: by building an emotional connection to the brand, brought to life across their biggest product line.
Challenge Abcam needed a new commercial proposition that connected both rationally and emotionally with a highly rational audience, then used as the basis for an advertising campaign for antibodies, their biggest product line. The difficulty: almost all marketing to scientists is purely rational, so the work had to differentiate Abcam in a category that rarely even tries to.
Strategy We drove a three-month research, strategy and testing process with Abcam. We learnt about the pressures that come with life as a scientist, and the passion people bring to overcome them — how frustrating it is when experiments slow down, and how good momentum feels. We concluded scientists want reliability, consistency and quality. In short, to keep research moving forward.
Campaign To bring the proposition to life, we needed an idea that showed Abcam both emotionally understood its customers and had the products and expertise to help. Checkbox lists are a mainstay of labs, so we developed the idea of a checkbox list showing what scientists put into their work, and landing on a proof point. With dozens of iterations, the idea became a platform for campaigns across two years and multiple product lines.
“Flying Object’s understanding of the scientific community and ability to translate that into practical strategy and creative ideas that resonate deeply with our customers, delivered great results quickly. The work gave us a strong foundation for building multiple campaigns over the past three years”
Senior Marketing Manager, Abcam
