Why brands advertise and why they need creativity
A brief introduction for students
Why do brands advertise? The answer to that question isn’t as simple as you might initially imagine.
There are a lot of reasons for a brand to advertise. It might be to:
Generate awareness.
Increase consideration.
Build traffic.
Deliver an offer.
Drive sales.
Induce loyalty.
Inspire sharing.
Get liked.
Start a conversation.
Reinforce branding.
In fact, if you think about how a customer becomes a customer, a brand’s advertising has to accomplish all of those objectives.
Consider the purchase process. A prospect customer, let’s call her Emily, first has to become aware of a brand and feel good about it. Presuming she sees some relevance to her personal wants and needs, Emily will likely do her own due diligence. She’ll go online, visit a website and check in with friends. If Emily needs your product or service right away, she’ll start the consideration process. If not, maybe she’ll stop one step short of dismissing you entirely and file you away in her memory (actual or digital) under “want it some day,” or “maybe later,” in which case your job is to stay on Emily’s radar.
Note that either way you still haven’t secured Emily as a customer since the online or in-store shopping experience can change her mind or present her with an even better option.
A friend’s opinion might raise questions. Emily’s newfound interest in the category could open her eyes to someone else’s advertising. A cat video might pop up in her feed and distract Emily from the entire process.
If you’re lucky, and Emily actually buys what you have to sell, anything from a new dress to an AirBNB booking, you’re still not done. You’ll want her to return, become loyal and ultimately recommend you to her friends.
Advertising plays a role at every point along the journey, which, by the way, is not necessarily linear. Emily might learn about you from a TV commercial, from a friend on Facebook or even from the sales clerk who has the power to convert her from one brand to another. A reminder that you’re advertising to those friends and sales clerks, too.
In some cases this journey — from awareness to consideration to purchase — might last an hour, a day, or a week. But it could also go on for years. For example, the insurance company Mass Mutual knows that you probably won’t buy life insurance until you get married or start a family, but it’s still “advertising” to you now with its initiative Society for Grownups, a series of seminars, information and advice to help you navigate your way into responsible adulthood, covering everything from budgeting to asking for a raise to buying a good bottle of win.
Some examples
Mophie generates name awareness by advertising on the Super Bowl.
But the World Wildlife Fund generates awareness on Snapchat
Samsung increases consideration for the Galaxy as an alternative to the iPhone with TV ads.
Audi strives to build traffic to its dealers with The Perfect Day with mobile advertising.
Uniqlo delivers offers with its Lucky Counter using Twitter and crowd-sourcing.
VW drives sales with its year-end sales ads.
Nike induces loyalty with Your Year, custom films sent to over 100,000 Nike + users.
Red Bull generates buzz with Stratos, a live streamed event.
Australia Metro pushes to change behavior with its Dumb Ways to Die video.
IBM delivers utility with its outdoor boards.
Mass Mutual educates and informs with Society for Grownups, an actual society.
Harvey Nichols reinforces its branding with I Spent it on Myself, a line of cheap products boasting the exclusive Harvey Nichols brand name.
The forms that advertising can take continue to proliferate
The above examples point out the many roles that advertising can play as well as the myriad media it plays in. TV and video still dominate, especially as mobile and tablets absorb more of our online and viewing time. But print, outdoor, radio, online advertising, websites, social media, experiential, branded content, native advertising, mobile (apps and ads) ambient, even product placement all play important roles.
So what determines an advertiser’s course of action? What do we make? Where does it live? That, of course, depends on a marketer’s objectives for any given brand or campaign as well as the prospective customer’s current relationship to the brand. See this on strategy.
Let’s go back to Emily. Does she already know who you are and simply need a reason or a nudge to consider or buy? Is she a regular user of a competitor but open to changing her mind? Is she an existing customer with the potential to buy even more or share her enthusiasm with friends? All of these considerations come into play as you develop your objectives and strategy.
The role of creative: we need it more than ever
Once you decide what you’re trying to do you have another challenge. Think it’s easy to get Emily’s attention? Think again. We live in an age of information and content overload. (There are 9,854 tweets, 2,504 Instagrams, and 106, 021 YouTube videos posted every second.)
From Emily’s perspective that’s a good thing. She can access and filter content by email, Twitter, Snapchat, iMessage, Facebook, Netflix, Instagram, Periscope and maybe even linear television. She can find what she wants when she wants. And she can rely on friends and trusted contacts for recommendations.
From an advertiser’s perspective, it’s not such a good thing. Emily has AdBlock plug in installed on her Chrome browser. She scrolls past paid posts in her Facebook stream. Skips pre-rolls the moment the skip button appears. And even pays for a Spotify subscription to assure there are no ads.
Most of the advertising that does worm its way into her media arrives uninvited. At best it’s intrusive; at worst it’s downright annoying.
Which is why all advertisers — despite the new tendency to worship at the altar of data — need to embrace creativity as the solution. A great creative idea — be it an ad, an app, an experience, a digital platform, or a social initiative — has the power to be noticed, watched, remembered, used and shared, leaving a positive impression and overcoming the single greatest obstacle confronting all advertisers today — indifference.
Arguably the examples above are all creative. And they share certain characteristics that make them creative.
They’re conceptual, not literal.
They’re original (or at least unexpected) in that they don’t rely on the same tried and true formulas.
They invite you into the experience.
They entertain first, sell second.
They’re visually arresting.
They allow you to participate.
They’re either fun, useful, beautiful or a combination of the three.
Coming up with creative ideas isn’t easy, but you can learn to do it. That’s what we’ll cover next.
Understanding the creative process
How to have creative ideas
Where to start
Exercises that help
As always, feel free to leave comments and suggestions to make this content more useful for students.
