Category: Uncategorized

The power of unity is often ignored in advertising, revealing another myth of the advertising world. Some marketers assume that simultaneously doing several different brand campaigns to a broad audience would work better. They think it will be more effective to talk about various product benefits in each campaign, thus reaching a wider audience. In truth, the number of ads communicating different messages does matter. It is negatively correlated with the overall success of the advertising campaign: the more simultaneous campaigns with distinct messages, the lower probability that either of these campaigns will be successful. If aired separately during spaced-out time frames, the campaigns are more likely to perform better.

While personalization through multiple marketing channels is welcome, it also opens a Pandora’s box of audience overlap. The two problems emerge:

Resources are limited.

Daily, people don’t use just one single channel for entertainment, socialization or education. An audience overlap exists between different media, and the more considerable the overlap, the more likely it is that the audience stays the same. It increases the advertising costs meaning resources and money are wasted to target the same consumers for the same product. That’s the least of the problems, though.

Message Memorability

The main issue of using several different campaigns is that it reduces ad memorability and effectiveness. According to Behavioural Science and Adult Learning Theory telling as much information as possible to an adult brain doesn’t work. Achieve success requires consistency and repetition. Hence, the consumers cannot retain what the brand stands for when the key messages of each ad are distinct. As a result, they either don’t remember the communication or create incompatible thoughts on the product. 

Undoubtedly, it is always good to engage customers in different ways to increase your brand awareness. These multi-channel marketing campaigns are the most effective way of staying relevant with a broader audience and increasing campaign ROI. However, the core brand message still needs to be the same to maintain consistency across all communications. This way, even if the overlap occurs, the overall campaign effectiveness will not be impacted.

One of the best marketing strategies is to use the same ad campaign on several channels and adjusting it according to the needs and desires of the target population residing on these platforms. This approach keeps the brand relevant, increases the memorability of the ads, and there is a clear understanding of what the brand stands for. For example, to launch CLA models, Mercedes-Benz took advantage of cross-channel marketing and tailor-made targeting in their 2013 Take The Wheel campaign.  The message was clear and focused throughout all social media platforms, and it appealed to the younger audience. As a result, the brand had the best product launch in 20 years.

To achieve maximum results, advertisers and brand managers should focus on creating unity within all advertising campaigns. Instead of spending the budget to create different campaigns, play it smart. Simply use multi-channel marketing with only one focused ad campaign. It will save you money, time and make your brand more successful.

If you are not sure what message to focus on in your latest campaign, contact us and we’ll quickly run it through our idea screening tool.

The advertising market is vast. Many myths of success exist that are not fact-based. Let’s bust another one today. One other belief in the industry is that focus needs to be on ad creativity and emotional engagement rather than its relevance to the consumer. Let’s see if it is enough to connect with the consumer and increase your brand’s success.

As we discussed before, emotional engagement increases recognition of the advertising. The challenge is that by itself it might not have any effect on the brand. Or even worse, as it happened with Chase Bank in 2019 with their #MondayMotivation tweet. The thought of using social media to engage people might have been effective if marketers considered the importance of the relevance of the message itself. When they expressed a stereotypic notion that people can’t save money because they spent too much, it sent a wrong message by shaming those who don’t have a good balance on their accounts. Also, most people found the ad irrelevant because only people with low balances or bad saving habits considered the target audience. In the end, the campaign was rated as one of the worst brand failures of the year.

So how do you stay relevant to the potential consumers?

To summarize, we came up with 4M: 4 pillars of relevance that will enhance your ad success. 

• Market or targeting to the right consumers. Your consumer demographics must always suit your campaign, tailor-made, and research is your best friend in the process. 

• Message or information being communicated to the consumer. It should perfectly serve your purpose and market, without any room for misdirection. 

• Messenger or who and via what channels are you communicating to your consumer. Unlike PepsiCo’s “Live for Now – Moments” ad, the main character must be appropriate to your brand and the message. The environment and presentation style might also cause consumers to think differently about the brand. 38% of consumers tend to lose trust in a brand if an ad is placed next to objectionable content. Ensuring the relevance of the messenger is appropriate is a critical step to prevent people from assigning different meanings to your ad. 

• Moment or the time when the customer is open to receiving your message and product: We are not only referring to the targeting of the consumers when they are looking for it. One should consider the timing and socio-economic conditions consumers are in to prevent incidents like “Floating World” ad Airbnb did in 2017 after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas and Louisiana.

One famous campaign that genuinely ticked all four pillars of relevancy is Always #LikeAGirl of 2015. It is a very inspirational demonstration of relevance that had a significant effect on brand recognition and reputation. The brand knew their market well, and they used an appropriate message that many women can relate to. The time was most relevant to target consumer tendencies, and the content, sources, and characters of the advertisement were very well thought out. All these elements were immensely relevant to the end-consumer. Coupled with a very emotional presentation made it a great success for the brand.

There have been many marketing campaigns with limited relevance, and you probably don’t remember them because, oh well, they were not relatable to you. So, while viewer engagement is critical for the breakthrough, one of the first steps to branded ad success should be keeping 4M in mind. Marketers must become an expert of the target consumers, their values, emotions, and behaviours. We cannot always predict the future, as it happened with Airbnb, but we have the power to adapt and change the direction of your ad campaign. 

Contact us if you’d like to learn more about our innovative approach to predict your ad success and track its performance.

When it comes to advertising, many myths are waiting to be debunked to create successful campaigns in the 21st century. One of the most dangerous myths for the industry is the notion of failing to evaluate advertising by its engagement with consumers. Some marketers might consider engaging qualities as secondary factors of success, but they are the ones that create the difference and connect to the consumers for a long time. We have been testing a lot of different ad strategies lately, and we noticed one continuous trend. Although the ads appear to be communicating relevant information to the audience, far from all become successful once they are on air.

Why is that, you might ask? And what is the reason that people start noticing some ads more than others? The answer is straightforward: Engagement creates the difference. One should not overlook the power of different engaging elements. The use of music, jokes, stories, and characters to develop bonds with consumers is a great way to increase ads’ engagement rate. Otherwise, ads are bound to be forgotten easily. And no company would want to see all the marketing budget going to waste due to an ineffective campaign.

Close your eyes and try to capture advertising of any kind.

Did you manage to remember one? Let’s see. Some cognitive tools are helping you to recall. The most powerful one is remembering a feeling that the ad evoked inside you, regardless of the time you saw it. Those are stored in your brain’s limbic system, which deals with our memories and emotions, helps us create consolidated memories through multiple sensory inputs. To enhance memorability, we need as many stimulants as possible. When people see an ad, they subconsciously process video elements and internal physiological states such as thoughts and feelings. Emotionally arousing advertising leaves a stronger imprint than a purely functional one.

Even though many people state that they are not affected by any advertising, they subconsciously rely on their neuroscientific and social psychological systems. There is an experiment done by Derren Brown in 2012, showing how we pick up communicated emotions daily without even noticing them consciously. In this experiment, Derren Brown demonstrates the power of subconscious messages even on advertising experts, who are reputed as masters of persuasion.

Remember Nike’s ‘You Can’t Stop Us’ ad from 2020? It took the top spot among many in the best ads lists and is an excellent example of the effect of engagement. The creators established an emotional appeal through the music, effects, narration, and familiar historical comebacks. People loved to see an ad evoking their emotions and the feelings of inclusiveness and perseverance at high levels. The advertisement managed to enact many feelings together, strengthen those collective memories and make this campaign a success.

Marketing studies show that the multidimensionality of engagement is one of the particularly important denominators of success. Rather than only attempting to persuade, successful ads should arouse curiosity in consumers while establishing an emotional, psychological, and physical connection with your brand. Thus, consumers are driven to feel loyalty and affection towards a brand, and that is how you maximize your advertising ROI.

Contact us if you’d like to learn more about our approach to predict your ad success.

Over the past 15 years, our media consumption habits have changed dramatically. Since the first video, “Me at the zoo” was uploaded to YouTube, people started turning away from traditional pay-TV services to online video-on-demand platforms. 15 years later, and 1 billion hours of YouTube are watched every day by 30 million users. It opened the door for new business models, channels of engagement and ways to understand what truly matters to the consumers.

YouTube users are incredibly engaged. 

The breadth of content available on YouTube is vast. It touches every consumer, their hobbies, interests, and skills that they are willing to learn. All of this is available to anyone across the globe with just a click of a button. Using endless ways to consume the content, viewers can entertain themselves, see different perspectives on life, or get inspiration. Searching for topics of interest is easy, and once they click on a first video in their browser, all of their attention goes straight to watching the content for nearly 22 minutes on average.

It’s not a secret that YouTube became an imperative channel for advertising. It gave brands opportunities to access customers across the globe with just a few clicks of the button. YouTube targeting capabilities allow brands to reach the right audience at the right time. But is it enough to have a successful advertising campaign?

The new challenge for Advertisers and Market Researchers is here.

With such an increase in the amount of content came new challenges for brand managers and advertisers. In this era, we are facing a content overload. As a result, we, as consumers, are easily distracted, have a harder time making decisions, and turning to heuristic cues to analyze information.  In the past 20 years, our attention span has dropped 30% and is now less than a goldfish.

These days, to reach the consumers, brands need to stand out in the pool of the advertising clutter and online information content. The advertisers need to continuously increase the bar and develop new creative ways of getting viewers’ attention. Pretesting of the advertising campaigns becomes increasingly essential to increase ROI. It guides decision-makers to choose the most successful campaign and saves time, money, and brand reputation. 

The market research industry has a long history of helping brands achieve the success of their advertising campaigns. There are a variety of approaches to predict future ad performance. Focus groups, predictive modelling, eye tracking devices are among the most popular tools. However, they all have one major flaw when it comes to testing digital advertising. They all involve a forced exposure to advertising, which is unnatural to how consumers behave in real life.  For this reason, the predictions often contradict the actual market performance.   

We have a solution.

Snap is a cutting-edge approach for testing digital advertising. With this solution, we don’t model and predict truths about human behaviour. Instead, we observe and analyze how consumers will behave in real life. Snap gives decision-makers realistic insights on how the new digital campaign resonates with the audience and how likely it would succeed in the marketplace.

Snap is powered with 3 key elements that determine ad success:

1. Simulation of the real-life experience reveals the actual viewer engagement levels and advertisings’ potential to make a branded impression.
2. Additional questions yield deep insights on ads’ potential to leave a strong positive impression on the consumer.
3. Linking your results to our normative database reveals opportunities for strengthening the ad potential. These normative metrics are collected among the same target consumer as your brand for an accurate comparison.

With our cost-effective and agile Snap solution, you can get the insights right in time to make a final decision with confidence. 

Contact us to learn more about Snap.