How Brands Win the Gold
Every two years, the entire world tunes in to watch their favorite athletes compete for the gold. But months before the games begin, marketers are already competing to be the most buzzed about brand of the Olympics.
The Olympics provides a rare but massive opportunity for brands to reach consumers of all genders, races and ages. And with such an opportunity comes the need to make big decisions about how to structure the right communications strategy — one that will not only get people to stop and view an ad, but maybe even get them to buy something as well.
Taking a look at some of the most viewed videos from this year’s Olympics, a clear theme can be seen — they all tend to elicit some sort of emotion rather than trying to get the viewer to take any sort of action. By doing so, these brands aim to create an association with a feeling, helping them build long term brand equity.
We’ve learned from the studies of Lee Binet and Peter Field that despite not including specific product information or calls to action, emotional advertising can help drive positive long term growth for a brand’s overall perception and profit year over year. So it’s no surprise that the brands that continue to “win” the games every two years find success in demonstrating this practice.
BrainJuicer, a research company who also believes there is a correlation between emotion and sales, identified similar findings when conducting research to identify the most impactful Olympic ads of this year. Unsurprisingly, each video included within their top 10 list evoked a very strong positive emotion, and didn’t include any sort of product mention or claim. Additionally, a number of the ads on this list also were also some of the most watched Olympic videos.
It’s critical that marketers keep in mind how pertinent the use of emotion can be in advertising, especially as we enter two more cultural stages of the year — NFL and Back to School. Marketers must ensure that their campaigns include the right mix of emotional and rational content to help them achieve both short and long term goals.
If you enjoyed this brief rendezvous, why not recommend it? And check out other articles myself and my colleagues have written around the ever changing media landscape on our Communications Planning Blog.
