Creating a powerful advertising message for a global leader.

Challenge

Cushman & Wakefield’s (C&W) global advertising campaign presented a unique challenge. C&W is the world’s largest privately-held commercial real estate firm and, as such, their communication efforts stretch across geographic boundaries, cultures and languages. As C&W was expanding into new markets, it was facing increased competition and difficulty communicating the full complement of the firm’s offerings to diverse audiences. Maintaining consistency of advertising and messaging across offices and around the globe was paramount, as was protecting the C&W brand.  The assignment was clear. First, the advertising campaign needed to convey the full scope of C&W's service offerings and its vast international presence. Second, the campaign had to translate across multiple international platforms. Third, the messaging, although uniform in overall theme, needed to provide flexibility in content and expression. Finally, the campaign had to be modular in design in order to be incorporated into C&W’s new web-based advertising portal.

My Approach/Role
When my creative partner and I were called in to pitch this assignment, we were facing stiff competition from firms from around the world.  However, our campaign proved to be most responsive to the needs and requirements outlined by C&W.  During the creative/brainstorming process, my creative partner and I crafted two fully-developed campaigns, which were presented to C&W for consideration. Each campaign consisted of six ad treatments, including identity and transactional versions. I also drafted the creative brief that was used by the head of Marketing to achieve executive buy-in for the campaign. Upon assignment, I was the sole copy writer, composing custom advertising copy for myriad uses, and responsible for crafting a new corporate tagline for the campaign.  I ensured that the tone and messaging of the ads was consistent with C&W’s existing marketing materials, reflecting a brand voice that was true to the company’s way of doing business. My original content was never edited by the client and ran ‘as presented’.   

Solution
The 2007 global advertising campaign, entitled “We’re There”, contained customized copy for numerous corporate messages and service line descriptions.  The success of the campaign rested in these well-crafted messages which conveyed C&W’s value proposition and expanded awareness of the firm’s geographic reach, service lines, target clients, industries of expertise, and corporate attributes. A flexible campaign was created for localized, yet consistent, application on a global scale. The modular design enabled individual C&W offices across the world to select the most salient messaging, imagery and format relevant to their target audience. The ads also provided subliminal brand identification by cleverly imbedding C&W’s logo within each image.

Outcome
In all, 31 individual ads were produced for C&W. No matter the application – whether featuring a service line, highlighting a geographic business area, identifying a real estate issue, or addressing a targeted industry – the “We’re There” campaign effectively conveyed C&W’s expertise to diverse audiences. The ease of implementation by C&W’s global offices, along with the powerful messaging that resonates across borders and cultures, has made this one of C&W's most successful campaigns ever.

Design Partner: CS Designworks