Received a well-deserved punch in the face: Feedback on our campaign

We received feedback on our recruiting campaign for our esteemed client MeckCura. And this feedback ranged from “Is this for real?” to “Terrible… absolutely cringe.” to “Typical creative brainstorming idea in the early stages. One person throws out a phrase, and everyone laughs as if they were in 7th grade. Instead of taking that funny energy with them and seriously continuing to search, these infantile advertisers have rested on it. Silly and completely off the mark.”

As an agency that has been working with MeckCura Pflegedienst GmbH since 2015, we have taken a bit of a hit from our dear colleagues in the creative industry. We don’t take this criticism personally; instead, we see it as an opportunity to take a closer look at our “Gepflegt” campaign. Specifically, it concerns the campaign motif “Gepflegt einen fahren lassen,” which has also been used for the advertising on buses in Wismar and Rostock.

Recently, our campaign was evaluated by Oliver Voss. Our work did not pass, his judgment was unfavorable, just like many other advertising campaigns he discusses.

We take it sportingly and thank him for his words, as we believe that MeckCura truly deserves the attention. We love our customers and are pleased when visibility multiplies through influential multipliers.

Oliver Voss says in his video – here in his own words: “Take a look at this advertisement, please. ‘Let it flow in style,’ it says. Seriously? The only person who thinks that line is good is the one who wrote it. (…) Only advertisers like this line. It is completely inappropriate for this product. It doesn’t have to please the person who writes it, like the copywriter here, but rather the one who is meant to be addressed. And the person who is supposed to be addressed will at best say, ‘I don’t understand what they mean.’ And at worst: ‘Are you kidding me?’ That’s what I would say, too.”

Many comments on his review on LinkedIn – primarily from actors in the creative industry – showed agreement with Oliver Voss and were correspondingly critical.

However, there were also some voices that contradicted Voss or expanded his viewpoint, for example, with the perspective that seniors are not actually the target group. Someone from the sales department wrote:

With that, Thomas, we are indeed getting closer to the issue. Apparently, Oliver has never worked with a care service as a client. Otherwise, he would know that for most care services, acquiring new clients is not a problem (keyword: demographic shift). The target group is not the senior themselves, but rather the relatives who decide whether someone should receive care – primarily the children. However, where the real issue lies in the care sector is in meeting their own staffing needs. Care services and nursing homes require care assistants, qualified nursing staff, and good nursing management. The marketing measures for MeckCura aim at achieving a noticeable, even distinctive positioning as an attractive employer. And why does nothing on the bus say “We are looking,” “We are hiring,” or “Apply now”? In this case, it is a long-term campaign, and the target group should develop a desire to work in a company that has a more relaxed approach. We prefer to buy something rather than be sold something, right?

Furthermore, everyone knows by now: employees often join because of the company’s reputation and leave because of their supervisors. When the boss personally poses for the motivation, it becomes particularly identifiable from our perspective.

I came across Voss’ feedback because our client MeckCura featured this post in their Facebook reel in their coolness.

Who is this Oliver Voss? He was once a big deal, a board member of Jung von Matt, and according to LinkedIn and TikTok, he is many other things as well.

In the morning, I discussed our “fan mail” with a colleague during a call, and we also googled who Oliver Voss is and what he does – after all, his JVM days were a long time ago. He regularly discusses advertising campaigns on social media and video platforms as a top advertiser. Here’s a screenshot from YouTube. It’s a pretty cool series because he addresses important points. Here is a screenshot of his YouTube channel – the image was not chosen because of the low number of views (his other channels perform many times better), but because of the Kinski-like versatility of Voss’s facial expressions ;-):

How did the Well-Groomed campaign come about?

In September 2022, we began working on the advertising campaign for our valued client MeckCura Pflegedienst GmbH, which operates locations in Wismar, Rostock, and Güstrow. The briefing was as follows: “We have been looking for some time for a ‘strange’ sentence/slogan that grabs attention in job postings. It can be polarizing and provocative.” Our client wanted more than just to traditionally post job advertisements.

The goal was to generate attention. The briefing did not come directly from the client, but from a consultant who specializes in the healthcare industry and has been advising our shared client for years. At that time, a copywriter was working for us twelve hours a week alongside his main job at another well-known agency. He developed nine concepts; we conceived another five concepts with another copywriter from our team. The client received our presentation, and after a few weeks, the feedback came that “we warmed to the slightly ‘provocative’ ideas.”

In addition to “Letting one out in a classy way,” there were four other sayings, including “Getting one up in a classy way.” No joke.

A photographer was commissioned to bring the motifs to life. These were then used in various ways, such as small animated ads, as flyer eye-catchers, and so on. Here is an excerpt from an animated ad that ran during the Christmas season until the turn of the year 2023.

Yes, dear Robin, it actually stands out. Who would have thought? We then launched the first designs on social media in animated job ads.

Later, layouts for the bus stickers in Rostock and Wismar followed. When the first buses started running, the care consultant called and told me about the positive feedback she had received. Even an employee from Mandarin, the largest agency in M-V, praised us. Well then, a toast to these infantile advertisers…

Our recruiting campaign for MeckCura is now making digital waves as well. The first major boost in attention came from the TikTok channel dat_kannst_nich_machen, when the creator drove by the bus and pointed out the motif. In terms of reach, it was the third most successful video on the channel. He has pinned the post on his profile to this day.

We were reinforced by over 1,600 likes and dozens of comments under the video that positively assessed the campaign.

The next major visibility boost came a month ago through the post by Oliver Voss, which was published on various channels. On LinkedIn, the campaign was mostly criticized. See some comments here:

This acknowledgment of our creative work reminds me a bit of the impression I got from the Facebook page “Da kotzt das Texterherz,” where I was briefly a fan many, many years ago. Within just a few months, it became too much for me. In a blockwart mentality, every pun was criticized. If you set your radar to critical outrage, you will always find something to complain about. Yes, I agree, not every headline is good. Some are sexist, some are simply stupid. But much that was humorous or ambiguous was mercilessly disparaged. I quickly unliked the page. The people there were too earnest, too moralizing, too self-satisfied for me. A bit like some of the criticism now in the comments from Oliver Voss or from him in some of his videos. (I just checked in again at “Da kotzt das Texterherz” for this post. Now the fan page seems to have degenerated into a pure entertainment site… well, different topic.)

Now comes the irony of the whole story: Oliver Voss was not only wrong in understanding the target audience, but also in another point. He said, “The only one who likes this line is the one who wrote it.”

Just before Voss’s critique went online, the copywriter himself presented his slogan as an example of a total fail. Here is the screenshot from August 13th.

I wrote to him a few minutes after it was published via LinkedIn. My chat message is attached to the screenshot.

The post went offline, my phone rang. We laughed heartily about it. The copywriter had simply forgotten that the approach came from him. And then such an offensive wordplay is of course scrutinized particularly closely.

In the end, it can be said: The bait does not have to please the fisherman, but the fish. While the criticism primarily came from within the industry, the campaign was very well received by the target audience, and even competitors from the nursing sector congratulated it – both online and offline.

On Instagram, Oliver Voss’ post for MeckCura has generated attention: nearly 2,000 likes and dozens of comments celebrating it.

Exactly the same picture on TikTok – almost 20,000 views and 100 comments.

The only thing that really went wrong is the work of the sticker applicator. He received the work files for the application, but in the end made unnecessary adjustments that worsened readability by, for example, removing text spacing. I can actually be annoyed about that. However, it does not diminish the success of the campaign.

Our client is very satisfied anyway and continues to have us design new things with the Careful approach. Soon, a Fight Night will take place in Güstrow, which he will sponsor with T-shirts. The T-shirt motif reads: Careful distribution … with the MeckCura Care Service in Güstrow.

In this sense: Many greetings to Oliver Voss and a heartfelt thank you for his critical evaluation, which has brought our client free exposure and much applause. The next wrapping is already designed and commissioned. Soon, the life-phase vehicle will be on the road in Rostock.