No images? Click here WHAT MAKES AN AD MEMORABLE? The great Mark Ritson had an interesting piece in UK-based Marketing Week this week about the elements in video spots that make them memorable. Study after study indicate that the vast majority of ads are either not remembered or incorrectly attributed. In the study Ritson quotes, done by Ipsos in the US, 84% of spots are either not remembered or not attributed to the advertiser. Before we get to the conclusions, let's play a little game and test your insight. Rate the following "distinctive brand assets" in terms of their ability to make an ad more memorable: As you will see in the next chart, the above chart demonstrates that most advertisers don't know shit. If you are like most advertisers, you believe that two of the most important elements in making the ad memorable are the brand logo and the slogan (which probably accounts for the ubiquitous cry "make the logo bigger.") According to the study, these are the two least effective elements. Here are the results of the research. According to the study, the most effective "brand assets" in making the spots more memorable are audio cues ("sonic brand cues") and characters. In both cases, these elements are utilized by a tiny minority of advertisers. Before we put too much credence in this study and start producing spots with cartoon monkeys who fart out a melody, let's remember a few things. 2. The most important element of an ad's success is not covered in this research. It is the power of the story the spot tells. This is difficult to quantify and rarely shows up in studies like this. Darwin Award For Marketing According to an article in The New York Times this week, after the first reported death in the US from corona virus, prospective disease profiteer Noah Colvin "took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes..." For a while Colvin made a handy profit selling the stuff online to frightened consumers. He was selling "pandemic packs" at 10 times what he had paid for them. But soon Amazon and eBay got hip to the price-gouging and banned creeps like Colvin. Now he is stuck with 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer and nowhere to sell them. Poor Colvin had this to say, “From being in a situation where what I’ve got ...could potentially put my family in a really good place financially to ‘What the heck am I going to do with all of this?’” How about greasing 'em up and stuffing 'em firmly where the sun don't shine? Stay Grumpy My Friend Don't worry, be grumpy. Apparently, in the modern world being cheerful and optimistic is too darn dangerous. "Good moods...come with substantial risks – sapping your drive, dimming attention to detail and making you simultaneously gullible and selfish. Positivity is also known to encourage binge drinking, overeating and unsafe sex." Dear Every Company In The World That Has My Email Address, You don't have to send me an email "update" on Covid-19. I know it's not good for me and you're doing everything you can. Thank you, BH Nude Pics Of Your Friend's Girlfriend You gotta say one thing for online creeps -- they're clever bastards. The latest scam to spread online malware goes like this. A guy gets an email saying that his friend has been hacked and that nude pictures of his friend's girlfriend are in the attachment. What idiot-man can resist the idea of nude pics of his friend's girlfriend? So he clicks the attachment and his device gets infected with information-stealing malware. Women, one brief glance at your friends' boyfriends and you'll know why this scam could never work on you. Is "Advertising For Skeptics" Really Available As An eBook Now? Why yes it is! The eBook was published earlier this week and as I write this it is the...ahem...#1 selling book in the "commercial advertising" category in the Kindle Store (just curious, Amazon, is there a non-commercial kind of advertising?) Just think, you can click here and in just minutes you can begin frittering the day away reading about how delusional the whole marketing industry is. Or you can click here and get nude pics of the author. |