Nobody Wants To See Your Annoying Marketing Messages
You click on a YouTube video that you want to watch, and an ad begins to play. Within seconds you realize that there won’t be a Skip ads button for you to click, and you’ll have to suffer through 15 agonizing seconds of advertising. You think, “Crap, this is so annoying.”
The simple truth is, nobody engages with anything online with the hope of seeing advertising. Yet marketers spend billions of dollars each year trying to capture unwilling eyeballs.
I’m going to share some basic yet essential principles you can start using today to reduce that unwillingness and increase ROI.
First, a little history.
Decades ago, when people watched broadcast television as their primary source of entertainment, advertisers would hire ad agencies to create attention-getting, creatively engaging commercials. Everybody knew that creativity could evoke some sort of emotion that would make the best ad messages more memorable. And the brands that consistently presented consumers with these engaging messages would grow stronger by building affinity and loyalty. Even then, nobody turned on the TV wanting to see commercials, so ad agencies had to hire talented people to develop the commercials that consumers would maybe remember.
The same thing was true with magazines. Remember those? When a person was flipping through a magazine, your ad had better be entertaining or interesting enough for them to stop flipping and spend a few seconds reading your headline and perhaps even your body copy. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Fast forward to the current dilemma.
Today, the “acceptance” of advertising by readers and viewers of digitally delivered mediums is far less than it was when broadcast television and magazines were primary mediums. To compound the problem, the creativity of the messaging today seems to have diminished to a prosaic level that barely registers in the minds, much less the hearts and funny bones, of consumers. And the problem gets worse.
According to Emilia Kirk in Forbes, “On average, people are exposed to between 6,000 and 10,000 advertisements a day. The average human brain is simply incapable of processing such a bombardment of content, which means the vast majority of ads seen are only ignored or forgotten about within seconds.”
It doesn’t have to be this way, if you master the craft as much as you obsess over the analytics.
The same simple methods to develop creative messaging used in the heyday of advertising can and should be applied to the current digital spaces. Keep in mind that in many cases our measure of success is to hold the attention of the viewer/reader for only 3–5 seconds. To use an old-world advertising example, you’re creating a highway billboard that a driver needs to be able to read across four lanes of traffic and actually understand what you’re selling.
Principle One: what you say and how you say it
It took about 5 years of studying the best advertising in the world in magazines and creative annuals, while I was working as a junior copywriter, before I could somewhat master the science of conceptual advertising. And I have some good news and some bad news about that.
The bad news is, if you’re not innately conceptual, you may not be able to become conceptual. You can be a talented writer of brochures, articles, books, poetry and other inspiring forms of verbal communication, but if you aren’t conceptual and haven’t spent years mastering that aspect of the craft, it may be a struggle to craft something “quick-witted” that engages your audience in a few seconds. Conceptual copywriters and art directors are natural idea people. They’re able to communicate in clever, concise ways. Creating a conceptual ad is a lot like writing a joke; think one-liner or setup and payoff. The message doesn’t have to be funny. It might be poignant or thought provoking, but it will likely have a conceptual twist or combine words and visuals to create something almost instantly meaningful to the viewer/reader.
The good news is, if you are conceptual, you can transform your online marketing overnight by following some important guidelines:
It’s the customer’s journey. Too many advertisers talk primarily about their features and benefits. This is a mistake. Instead of claiming to solve the customer’s problem with your wonderful product, craft your messaging in the context of the customer’s life. Make it about the customer solving their problem or improving their life with the help of your product. They are the hero, not you. You can have your product front and center; just make sure you’re talking about the customer. It’s a subtle yet enormous difference.
Keep it simple. Like with great jokes, the audience should get it immediately. The kind of ideas that worked in old-world magazine ads still do in digital ads and social media posts today.
Make it true. Any time you can connect your brand with a simple truth about some aspect of life, you have a better chance of delivering a marketing message that resonates with your audience. If they can nod their heads, you’re off to a good start. This is another reason for centering your messages on the customer’s experience instead of your product benefits. If you say something the customer believes about life, then you will have “permission” to introduce your product benefits.
Make it emotional. As I’ve stated, the first step in effective messaging is to get the attention of your audience. Creating a conceptual, clever message simply gets them to recognize that your message exists and may deserve 3–5 seconds of their time. You are making them “mindful” of your message. Now, if you want your message to also be memorable, it should evoke some sort of emotion. This could be as simple as making them smile or nod their head in agreement at the same time as getting their attention. Or, as they go beyond the 5 seconds by either watching or reading or clicking through to a product page, make sure you are trying to connect with their feelings as much as their thoughts.
Principle Two: where you say it
Contextual advertising is a tactic where an advertiser places ads on websites that relate to the product or service. Car ads on car sites. Food ads on food sites. Hotel ads on travel sites. This sounds like common sense, right? No wonder simply doing this can boost memorability of your ads by nearly 25%. So if you’re in the creative department, politely suggest to the media department to follow this principle, if they aren’t already.
Principle Three: why you say it
Simon Sinek said, “People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.”
Why does your business or organization exist? What are your core beliefs? So often, consumers have multiple purchasing choices. When all things are equal, they will likely choose the brand they connect with on an emotional or identity level. In fact, if you’re a company like Apple, you can sell more expensive products because people fall in love with the brand and what it stands for — challenging the status quo, thinking differently. While you may not be able to communicate this fully in 5 seconds, when a prospective customer clicks through to learn more about your brand, please make sure they don’t have to work too hard to figure out who you are and what you stand for. And be brave enough to stand for something, even if it means you won’t appeal to everyone on the planet.
The purpose of any brand is to make lives better.
We think about ourselves most of the time. No matter how good things are, we subconsciously want our lives to be better. If a brand through its products or services can help us make our lives better, we will want to associate with that brand and incorporate it into our lives.
Whenever you produce a digital ad, write copy for your website, post to Instagram or TikTok, ask yourself or your marketing team, “Is this communicating to our audience that they can make their lives better with the help of our brand?” If not, rethink, reword, redesign.
Conclusion: twisting is better than shouting
Don’t ever forget that nobody turns on their computer or looks at their phone hoping to see one of your marketing messages. Just because you buy ad space or time, it doesn’t mean people will pay attention. And turning up the volume by spending more money does not provide the best or most sustainable ROI. Implementing conceptual messages that have clever twists, connecting with people emotionally and placing your messages where they make logical sense are principles that can make people more receptive to your marketing. Over time, they may decide to ignore the Skip ads button or stop scrolling for a few seconds, when they see your messages. And since you’re fighting for attention against thousands of other messages every day, I’d call that a major achievement.
This article is written to make that precise point, but there is a lot more to understand about the nuances of different online platforms. Hopefully, I can address that in the future.
Jim Stadler is a writer/creative director/brand strategist who works with a diverse spectrum of brands and organizations— from global corporations to his beloved local library. He’s currently on a public service mission to help people make the most of their communication efforts.