“The Beko Inheritance” allows people to leave their domestic appliances to their loved ones. Simona Suman of VML Germany tells us how the brand’s "fame brief" paid off.
One night not so long ago, we were in the kitchen while an electrical storm raged outside. Thunder, heavy rain. Our son was cooking gnocchi on the induction hob. Suddenly he jumped back and yelped as there was a crackle from the hob, a flicker of blue, and all the lights went out. Once I’d checked the fuse box and switched the lights back on, we decided to steer clear of the hob for a while.
When the electrician came the next day, he told us there’d been an electrical short circuit, probably caused by the storm. The hob worked fine – and indeed it has done ever since. It’s made by Beko, a Turkish brand. As fate would have it, I’d end up chatting about its indestructible qualities with Simona Suman (pictured), Chief Creative Officer of VML in Germany, only a few weeks later.
Simona describes it as “a fame brief” – when a brand wants to get into the spotlight in a big way. Beko’s pitch was simple: it wanted to communicate the reliability of its domestic appliances, and challenged VML to come up with the ultimate idea. The brief was global and open to the entire network.
“We initially came up with I think 12 ideas, including a zombie apocalypse where only Beko products survive,” Simona laughs. “But within the network we have a scoring system where we evaluate the work – and this one scored really well. So we presented it as such.”
The resulting campaign was a collaboration between VML in Germany and the UK. The winning idea and the creative came out of Germany, and the agency in the UK steered the strategy, production and account management, as the client was there and VML had been working with Beko out of the London office for the past year.
Conflict, but not with the client
The Europe-wide campaign had two main ingredients. The first was the idea of a will – which for legal reasons turned into an “addendum” – in which people could leave their Beko appliances to their loved ones after they passed on. (A physical paper version was available in Spain, Egypt and Poland, while customers in other markets could download it.)
The second element is a film inspired by what might be called “the inheritance genre”: family members gather in a sombre wood-panelled room to hear a lawyer reading a will – always with dramatic consequences: conflict, recriminations, the occasional murder.
“We were thinking about how we could tell the story and generate more awareness around the addendum. That’s when we had the idea of the film, because we thought it would generate conversation around the campaign.”
Inspired by a genre
Simona admits that with series like Succession causing a buzz, the concept of legacy was in the air. “We’re always drawn to ideas rooted in popular culture,” she says, “and generational drama films were resurging.”
VML’s idea was almost too topical. “I think a week before we launched the film, The Gentlemen was also launched on Netflix. We had absolutely no idea, there was no relation. But we were like, ‘Oh my God, this first episode is exactly the same!’ The topic was different, but the will-reading scene was right there. For a second we thought, ‘Is this going to be a problem?’ But nobody sued us. Our film was inspired by the whole genre, not one example in particular.”
As for Beko, the client was on board from the start. “There’s a push and pull with some clients, where you really know what’s best for the idea, but you have to fight a lot of battles to get the final product out as you originally intended it. But here it wasn’t the case at all.”
"Disruptive and out of category"
In fact, the agency was sometimes more conservative than the client.
“When we looked at the treatment for the film, for example, it was so disruptive and out of category we thought, ‘Would they even approve this dark, wooden living room, which you never see in white goods advertising?’ But they were fully committed to the idea of the campaign and trusted the process.”
They were right to. The campaign attracted masses of coverage across trade, social and consumer media, more than satisfying Beko’s “fame brief”. Figures included a 528 million reach on social, 340 million total views of the film and an 88% rise in positive sentiment for the brand. For consumer media, Beko and the agency boosted interest with a study about “the quirky, interesting things people actually pass on to their loved ones,” Simona adds.
Picture: a scene from the shoot
A live tortoise and body fluid
These things included a live giant tortoise, an overcoat worn on a U-Boat, a 12-foot giraffe, and a small glass bottle of an unknown bodily fluid from an obscure 1970s celebrity.More pertinently, 17% of those surveyed said they had inherited “white goods”, like washing machines or fridges, and 18% said they planned to pass such items on. Millennials are particular keen to inherit appliances, according to the study.
By the way, the addendum itself is totally genuine – drafted after consultation with the legal teams at WPP and Beko – and would stand up in court. So the big question is: has anybody actually gone ahead and left a Beko appliance to one of their nearest and dearest?
Simona says: “I haven’t heard of anyone so far. But I guess that’s good news, as it means everyone is still alive and well.”