Advertising professionals’ view of what makes a good ad is not only biased, it’s usually wrong, as their reaction to Tourism Australia’s last campaign shows.

The Saudi General Authority for Statistics is running an ad gently asking people to stop inviting census takers into their homes for coffee and meals.

Excellent contrast with Embrace Life of gain vs loss framing!

The UK regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched the country’s first official anti-fraud jingle. The aim; to protect consumers against loan fee fraud. Between November 2020 and January 2021, some one in 20 calls received by the FCA were reporting an instance of loan fee fraud. The FCA’s anti-fraud jingle is designed to be a light-hearted, engaging way to spread awareness of loan fee fraud advice to consumers over Christmas. Loan fee fraud is when consumers are asked to pay an upfront fee for a loan or credit that they then never receive. With behavioural scientists INFLUENCE AT WORK and music production company Soviet Science, the song has been produced make loan fee fraud guidance more memorable and more shareable.

Less is more As we look for ways to build memories and cement pre-disposition in consumers’ minds, coherence and clarity remain significant enablers across touchpoints and over time. Using Kantar’s Link database, we investigated the percentage of people who play back each of the key messages in ads that have 1, 2 or 3+ messages. One message in an ad has much more impact than multiple One message in an ad has much more impact than multiple Source: Kantar Link database, US TV ads The findings were a clear plea for simplicity. Too many messages can dilute communication as our brains can only really think about 3-4 things at once. So, in essence, the more messages an ad attempts to communicate, the lower the likelihood any single message will be communicated strongly. And although the results are somewhat varied by type of ad - TV or static - and by market, there was consensus that to successfully communicate a product benefit, we need to keep it simple and avoid too many messages. This is advertising 101 really, but with the rise of digital, it got lost in some places.

identity-focused campaign

If you write briefs as part of your job, read & bookmark this. So much that’s NB & useful, from truly interrogating the objective, to making sure the different sections line up, to writing your proposition as a headline, to the brief being a dynamic doc open to improvement.

Purposeful ads that are executed well are more effective than ads that do not show a company is committed to wider social benefits, according to the research, which was commissioned by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Successful purposeful ads also scored more highly both when looking at how far they improve market share and the extent to which they build brands in the long term, the study found. Meanwhile, less successful purposeful ads, which account for almost half of purposeful ads in the study, have the opposite result. They scored far lower than campaigns with no wider social message.

In 2005, he asked participants to read samples of text including graduate school applications, sociology dissertation abstracts and translations of a work of Descartes. Some participants read the original versions, written in a verbose, jargon-filled style, while others were given edited versions, with unnecessarily complex words switched for simpler alternatives. Finally, the psychologist asked the participants to rate the intelligence of the authors. Those who read the simplified versions rated the author as +10% more intelligent than those who read the more complex, original text.

Corporate Covid-19 response videos are eerily similar. *Cue somber piano music* When a company or brand releases a Coronavirus Response ad, they might tell you that we're living in “uncertain times“, but that “we're here for you“. They may say their top priority is “people“ and “families“ by bringing their services to the “comfort and safety of your home“. And don't forget: “we're all in this together!“

Often, a Facebook page with no Fans can drive greater visibility with $500 of investment than a page can achieve organically with 90 Million+ Fans. This Facebook campaign reaches 1.3 Million people and achieves 42,000 clicks through to a website for $643. Despite the declining ROI of organic content, surprisingly few brands actually promote their social posts regularly. And by ignoring this paid investment they waste time and money creating imagery and copy that will be seen by very few people.

Buy and sell advertising space in newsletter emails. We provide a secure, thoroughly vetted marketplace to connect advertisers with newsletter owners.Buy and sell advertising space in newsletter emails. We provide a secure, thoroughly vetted marketplace to connect advertisers with newsletter owners.

interactive videos give viewer a chance to take action

Basically, it’s Nudge for advertisers. Outlining ten evidence-based effective advertising strategies, each with a scientific underpinning, Adam Ferrier (psychologist and founder of Naked) is up there with fellow Antipodean Byron Sharp in terms of must-reads for marketers. Ferrier is a fan of ‘Action Advertising’ – influencing people by influencing actions rather than perceptions. Drawing on the evidence that advertising is notoriously poor at direct persuasion, Ferrier outlines 10 ways to influence actions instead. The underlying logic is that the easiest way to persuade someone is to allow them to persuade themselves – and this will happen quite naturally if you prompt (nudge, spur) people to act in a way consistent with a desired behaviour. Why? Because we tend to align our perceptions with our actions to avoid the mental discomfort of cognitive dissonance. In other words, if you influence action, you influence perception. Moreover, because perception-change is only a means to an end, the end being behaviour-change (buy, buy more, buy for more) – Action Advertising orientates advertising to what really matters, actioning behaviour change. For Ferrier, advertising is and must be about behaviour change; ultimately if no behaviour is changed as a result of advertising, advertising is valueless.

Infomercials!

To explore advertising and marketing’s capacity for empathy, we’ve turned to cutting edge moral psychology. In this white paper we are asking people working in the advertising and marketing industry to consider the deepest questions about their identity, ethics and morals.

The Redirect Method uses Adwords targeting tools and curated YouTube videos uploaded by people all around the world to confront online radicalization. It focuses on the slice of ISIS’ audience that is most susceptible to its messaging, and redirects them towards curated YouTube videos debunking ISIS recruiting themes. This open methodology was developed from interviews with ISIS defectors, respects users’ privacy and can be deployed to tackle other types of violent recruiting discourses online.

Andrex has become a great case study in modern marketing, because it represents the logical outcome of two dominant trends: the mission escalation trend and the conversation trend. Both are waves of brand thinking that have swept all before them in recent years, and it’s not exactly Andrex’s fault that they have been caught up in it. It’s just that the nature of their business means stretching both trends to breaking point. First, there’s the mission escalation trend. This is the homeopathy of marketing. It involves taking the functional purpose of any given product, diluting it to a slightly more abstract level, then diluting it again and repeating the process until you reach a level of abstraction so remote that any sense of specific purpose has been lost entirely. So if your product is a bar of chocolate, it’s not about giving people something chocolatey to eat, it’s about giving them a tasty treat. And it’s not about giving them a tasty treat, it’s about giving them a treat in a wider sense. And it’s not about the treat as such, but the enjoyment you get from that treat. And it’s not about the physical enjoyment, but the emotional enjoyment. And it’s not about the emotional enjoyment, but joy itself. And it’s not about experiencing joy, it’s about believing in joy. And now your brand purpose is more closely aligned to Buddhism than it is to chocolate.