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Tough, energy drinking, hard-working Aussie tradies are a huge portion of the Kennards Hire customer base. And this latest campaign to come out of the family business’ marketing department, cleverly demonstrates just how well they know their customers – which is ultimately what you’re trying to achieve with any marketing or brand campaign. You want to show your people that not only are you there for them, but you know them on multi-faceted levels. You know what they go through each day, you know what challenges they face, what problems arise; and you’re always right there, waiting in the wings with a solution. 

We recently spent some time chatting to CEO Angus Kennard, and got to understand the brand values through his eyes. These four values, ‘every customer a raving fan’, being ‘fair dinkum’, ‘one family’ and ‘taking hire higher’, show just how committed the company is to looking after both their staff and their customers. According to Angus, “the strength of their brand relies on the experience and feeling customers have, which comes back to the delivery of the Kennard brand values.” So when it came to effectively communicating this personality and these values to the people that matter most (the customers), head of marketing Lara Galvin wanted to ensure they really understood that Kennards Hire gets them better than anyone else. And this campaign does just that. 

In the world of advertising, it can be difficult to cut through all the ‘noise’ made by competing brands across the many channels of communication we all occupy. So, when a campaign works and it has impact – it’s worth breaking down the approach, in the hopes of being able to replicate the formula either for the same business (in the future), or for another. 

This campaign is a great example of expressing brand personality, brand values and connecting with customers in an authentic way.

WHY IS THIS CAMPAIGN SO EFFECTIVE?

IT’S GOT BRAND PERSONALITY AND HUMOUR

Aside from what we’ve already mentioned – that the campaign proves just how well Kennards Hire know their customers – it’s also packed full of personality.

The campaign spans across a few different mediums, there’s a comical video where different tradesmen comment on each other’s trades in a jovial but slightly competitive way (how Australian). There are ‘job ads’ that serve up a confrontingly realistic overview of what each worker should expect to experience on the job (think back-breaking labour or wading through literal human excrement). The ‘job ads’ are written in such a way that head of marketing, Lara Galvin says “It’s pretty clear to us that if you were looking through the ads, you definitely wouldn’t be applying for one of these jobs.”

Kennards Hire pokes fun at their customers with this truly ‘Aussie’ brand personality, while also resonating with them and offering support. This way, their key audience can’t help but feel understood and aligned to the brand. So when it comes to choosing a service to help get them through the day, what’s the first hire company that comes to mind? It’s got to be Kennards. Because Kennards gets them, Kennards is funny and Kennards really speaks their language – clever, right? 

IT’S INTERACTIVE

The other effective element to this campaign is that it actively involves the audience. Along with the video and written assets, the campaign invites tradies to vote in a poll that will go on to deduce which trade truly is the toughest. Playing further into that very iconically Australian attitude of harmless competition, while also benefiting from the grassroots PR approach of ‘word-of-mouth’. 

We’ll be keeping an eye out to see how this campaign plays out and which trade indeed is deemed to be ‘Australia’s toughest’. We’re sure the nation’s tradies will be doing the same… and that’s the brilliance of this campaign.

By Phoebe Carden