Emotional Dynamics in Advertising, 2020 Style
Emotions are raw in 2020. So much has changed in our everyday lives, and there are so many unknowns. Successful advertisers have always found ways to tap into viewer emotions to engage and persuade, and the power of emotion-driven approaches is clearly present in this moment. However, the ways that ads tap into emotions, the specific emotions they tap into, and the results produced cannot be assumed to be the same as they were...
Super Bowl Advertising through a System 1 Lens
Super Bowl Advertising through a System 1 Lens What if the real winners of the Super Bowl advertising competition weren’t the ones that aired the most original, the funniest, most emotional, most talked about ads? What if the winners weren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest name celebrities or celebrity directors or the biggest production budgets? What if the winners were the ads that actually built the brand in ways that...
Not Again! Same ad, over and over…?
In a recent Xandr study, 75% of the 2,004 consumers surveyed said they think advertising has become more frequent lately – and a nearly equal number (73%) said that seeing an ad too many times makes them dislike it. It’s been well-documented, by Communicus and others, that when a consumer sees 2 or 3 different ads within a campaign, in-market results on key performance indicators are significantly stronger than when that consumer sees...
In Branding, Timing is Everything
‘Timing is everything’ holds true in much of life, and producing well-branded advertising is no exception. When it comes to video ads, the worst thing you can do is wait until the end to introduce your brand or its distinctive brand assets. Studies1 of brain activity have identified a phenomenon termed ‘conceptual closure’: one to two second drops in attention and long-term memory encoding at event boundaries, e.g., often the...
March Madness at Eighty – The Enduring Spring Tradition
As March Madness sets in, it’s worth a pause to recognize the NCAA for the enduring marketing savvy they displayed eighty years ago when they first created the college basketball final series. Yes, originated in 1939, March Madness is celebrating its eightieth birthday! While not drawing the audience of the much younger Super Bowl, the final weeks of the college basketball season is a phenomenon that is clearly a focus of attention...