Most Creative Marketers: Michael Flatt

Last year when Cannes Lions named Microsoft its Creative Marketer of the Year, having won 11 Lions in 2019, it was thanks largely to Xbox - a creative marketing powerhouse for more than a decade, with more than its fair share of memorable marketing moments. This comprised a body of work that can be seen to either reflect or reshape culture.

We sat down with Michael Flatt, director global integrated marketing at Xbox, to understand how he harnesses creativity to boost fan love in a category that continues to change and morph.

After all, he was the marketer who convinced eight people to climb atop a London billboard in 2015 to brave heat, wind and snow in the spirit of Tomb Raider heroine Lara Croft. That Xbox stunt, "Survival billboard" swept Cannes Lions and became one of the most awarded campaigns that year. And a moment of pride and joy for Michael, too. Always in search for new audiences, he’s also the man responsible for Xbox’s brand partnerships, collaborating with brands such as Pringles, LG and Gucci.

The thrill of being a marketer

“As a marketer I feel extremely fortunate that I work for a company whose mantra is about earning fans, driving conversation, making positive connections, and creating joy. I find myself in quite a unique position to be doing that at a time when there’s this preoccupation among marketers with everything performance,” he says.

But as much as the obsession around metrics, he says, might be sometimes killing off the “art of producing a creative product” he continues to believe in the power of marketing and creativity and its contribution to business and society. From Nike to arch-rival Sony, Michael points out, there are brands that are doing fantastic work and which makes it “thrilling” to be a marketer today.

A former adman, who started his career at Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper and then went on to Leo Burnett, Michael clearly belongs to the legion of marketers who are fiercely proud of their profession. When I ask him what’s been feeding his imagination recently, I expect him to pick out one of his most recent works. Instead he enthusiastically applauds rival Sony Playstation’s "Play Has No Limits" campaign from last year by adam&eveDDB. A reimagined journey through one of history's oldest and most revered games, the short film was created by art director Xander Hart and copywriter Edward Usher, and directed by Francois Rousselet - and a campaign he so wished he had done.

“I envy it, and that should be the acid test for every marketer. It’s an astonishing piece of work and the soundtrack is like an orchestral version of Blue Monday. It’s this big clever piece of work that makes the hair stand on the back of your neck. And I sometimes play that track in the car for my seven-year-old Alfie. I just find it enjoyable to think about that piece of work.”

Another "glorious" piece of work he points to is Apple "Photos Every Day" commercial that centres around people taking photos with an iPhone throughout daily life activities. "Such an elegant and simple idea, but you connect with it instantly," he adds.

Culture-shifting creativity

Michael keeps on coming back to the idea of connecting with people, with fans, in order for a brand to grow in the real world. "It's all about reaching out to new audiences, and new groups of people that ordinarily we wouldn't get to speak to every day and trying to create a positive connection between ourselves and our brand by doing something creative."

Not that commercial objectives are not critical or that Xbox has not invested in performance marketing, but Michael is talking about using a "whole collection of levers" in the marketing armoury that can help deliver "culture-shifting creativity" and ideas that have a positive impact on the world.

But that should be an easy task for an entertainment brand owned by the tech behemoth Microsoft- that just spent $80 billion buying Activision Blizzard. "We still need to make our marketing dollars work as hard as possible and also want to produce something that's so striking that it creates its own media effect," he says. Latest figures suggest that rival PlayStation reigns supreme for gaming industry TV spend globally, beating Xbox.

But if striking is what Michael wanted - it was a feat he and his team achieved in spades with the "Survival Billboard" campaign. An idea that took one of the oldest advertising media and turned it into an entertainment channel. "We were this little UK outpost at the time and I remember thinking - God, if we could only just prove ourselves. The process was exhausting and exciting, and there'll be never another moment in my career like that."

Michael credits McCann London for helping put Xbox on the map, and adds: "Nothing like that had ever been done before, so we weren't really sure what the consequences were going to be. And I remember at the time just feeling really nervous about it. But together we were trying to do the right thing as a brand, while wanting to making a positive change. Following that experience, taking a leap of faith together became easier and easier. Before you knew it there develops this wonderful thing called trust [between the client and the agency]." He also name-checks his colleague Amanda Farr for helping him do the "right thing" for Xbox fans.

Gaming: a space for everyone

Gamers have known for a long time something that everyone else is starting to figure out: there’s community connection on the other side of a screen. Michael says: "We genuinely believe that gaming can connect people in really powerful and meaningful ways."

The "Beyond Generations" campaign for instance addresses loneliness, something that was exacerbated by global lockdowns. "Jamie [Mietz, ECD] and Sanjiv [Mistry, ECD] and Rob [Doubal, CCO] and Lolly [Thomson, CCO] - these guys just pulled off miracles to film it at the height of the pandemic."

The campaign filmed an experiment that reconnected a grandfather and his grandson through the power of video games. "But it was never just a pandemic story at all. It was released at a point when this sense of disconnection and isolation was just so much more intense. But the starting point was the insight about how families grow apart," he explains. With this campaign, Xbox aimed to position gaming as the connector for long-distance social interaction that could benefit the two million older people in the UK who were expected to experience loneliness during the 2020 holiday period.

"It's just a beautiful connection story" says Michael.

Most recently, Xbox and McCann London connected hospitalised kids to loved ones to help speed up recovery for children who spend a long time in hospital - reinforcing Xbox's inclusive messaging. As Xbox continues to figure out an authentic role for itself in people's lives, Michael will continue to champion marketing as a force for good and the tool that makes him "do the right thing."

The Way I See It

Who's your creative hero?

Jim Bolton [who created the multi-award-winning "St George" Blackcurrant Tango TV campaign while at HHCL] "For me he was an absolute genius."

Richard Brim [Adam & EveDDB's chief creative officer] and Daniel Fisher [global executive creative director for Unilever at Ogilvy] - "I was fortunate enough to work with both of them at Leo Burnett. I've learnt more about the creative process watching those two work together, than from anyone else. Watching them together was just glorious."

What excites you about the industry?

"There's a lot of good in this industry. And together we're all working so hard to try to do the right thing. Yes, it's not a perfect industry by any means. But I see young people and feel they will correct some of our mistakes from the past, so I'm very hopeful about the future of our industry. That's gotta be exciting."