B&TB&TB&T
  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Technology
  • Regulars
    • Agency Scorecards
    • Best of the Best
    • Campaigns of the Month
    • CMO Power List
    • CMOs to Watch
    • Culture Bites
    • Fast 10
    • New Business Winners
    • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • Jobs
  • Awards
    • 30 Under 30
    • B&T Awards
    • Cairns Crocodiles
    • Women In Media
    • Women Leading Tech
Search
Trending topics:
  • Cairns Crocodiles
  • Nine
  • Seven
  • Cannes Lions
  • NRL
  • WPP
  • B&T Women in Media
  • AFL
  • Thinkerbell
  • Pinterest
  • State of Origin
  • imaa
  • Anthony Albanese
  • Meta
  • ARN
  • AI
  • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • TV Ratings
  • Radio Ratings
  • Sports Marketing

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.
Reading: Make Me Laugh, Make Me Cry, Be Bloody Useful: Mars CMO
Share
B&TB&T
Subscribe
Search
  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Technology
  • Regulars
    • Agency Scorecards
    • Best of the Best
    • Campaigns of the Month
    • CMO Power List
    • CMOs to Watch
    • Culture Bites
    • Fast 10
    • New Business Winners
    • Spotlight on Sponsors
  • Jobs
  • Awards
    • 30 Under 30
    • B&T Awards
    • Cairns Crocodiles
    • Women In Media
    • Women Leading Tech
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.
B&T > Advertising > Make Me Laugh, Make Me Cry, Be Bloody Useful: Mars CMO
AdvertisingMarketing

Make Me Laugh, Make Me Cry, Be Bloody Useful: Mars CMO

David Hovenden
Published on: 2nd November 2015 at 11:47 AM
David Hovenden
Share
3 Min Read
SHARE

Following on from last week’s story about how to imprison your creative agency partners, here Mars global CMO Bruce McColl shares his secrets on how to get the most out of your creative partners.

Citing The Beatles ability to transform and be dissatisfied with where they were – in 1963 they had 12 hits in the top 100 including numbers 1 through 5 – and to evolve their sound and success, McColl said brands could learn volumes.

He said there were four primary lessons to be taken from The Beatles to achieve creative excellence.

  1. Perfomers perfect their craft
  2. Let dissatisfaction drive your creative ambition
  3. Be curious and collaborative
  4. Fail spectacularly, fail cheap, just don’t fail safe and ignorant

McColl also pointed to another performer, Jerry Seinfield, who is renowned for practising his routines on small comedy club audiences again and again until he has it side-splittingly funny.

McColl reinforced the importance of being a perpetual student. He said while Mars worked with BBDO, DDB and MediaCom, the FMCG giant also partnered with academic institutions MIT and Université de Genève to make sure its staff were across the latest thinking and innovation.

Another aspect for marketers and agencies alike to come to terms with, McColl said, was that the majority of people who bought Mars products were what he termed “light buyers”.

This meant that you should not “try to convince them, but gently nudge them about what the category benefits are . . . there’s no-one out there saying I can’t wait for the next Pedigree ad . . . there is no audience,” he said.

McColl said that the key challenge for marketers in this aspect was to overcome indifference. This is  where he said a piece of marketing had to make you laugh, make you cry or be bloody useful. This is what was necessary to “stop the filter out the crap instinct”.

Here’s what McColl said was Snickers commercial that failed the brief:

Here’s another Snickers spot that nailed the brief:

So that’s for laughter, how about making you cry? This little piece ought to get your eyes going. This time out of New Zealand for Pedigree.

Join more than 30,000 advertising industry experts
Get all the latest advertising and media news direct to your inbox from B&T.

No related posts.

TAGGED: adma 30 below, Advertising Standards Bureau, Awards for Marketing Excellence, BRI Bank, Edge Custom Media, Jimmy Fallon, McCann Sydney, mini series, shoelaces, ZenithOptimedia
Share
David Hovenden
By David Hovenden
Follow:
David Hovenden is one of the co-founders of The Misfits Media Company and is B&T's editor-in-chief. He has been writing about advertising, marketing and media for more than 15 years. At the same time, he has also written for B&T's sister publication Travel Weekly on all matters travel related. Through this publication he can claim to have stepped foot on every continent in the world (now claimed to be eight, if you accept NZ is its own continent). He has also covered the business of law when he was editor-in-chief and publisher of Lawyer Weekly. Human Resources when he worked for that eponymously named title and a plethora of business and technology publications including, but not limited to PC Week, Australian Personal Computer, Web Week, Internet World, Factory Equipment News, Architecture Today and Building Product News. In his spare time David enjoys fishing, kayaking, fine dining and spending time with his family.

Latest News

Bec Judd & Jess Roberts Reveal All In New Cosmetic Treatments LiSTNR Podcast
07/07/2025
Pray.Com Resurrects Jesus In AI Surprisingly Viral Marketing Videos
07/07/2025
TV Ratings (06/07/2025): Travel Guides Hits 1.15M As San Fran’s Robots Take the Wheel
07/07/2025
Are Media’s Australian Women’s Weekly Health Summit Returns In 5 Cities
07/07/2025
//

B&T is Australia’s leading news publication magazine for the advertising, marketing, media and PR industries.

 

B&T is owned by parent company The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd.

About B&T

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise

Top Categories

  • Advertising
  • Campaigns
  • Marketing
  • Media
  • Opinion
  • Technology
  • TV Ratings

Sign Up for Our Newsletter



B&TB&T
Follow US
© 2025 B&T. The Misfits Media Company Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Register Lost your password?