By: Dr. David Bridwell, People Scientist and Jake McKenzie, Chief Executive Officer
There are a lot of important considerations marketers need to keep in mind to ensure that their advertisements are effective at shaping perception and creating sales. These considerations generally vary in their effectiveness, so we’ve pinpointed five key consideration for making great effective ads:
1. Share of Voice (SOV) is becoming a less effective tool. SOV is a great benchmark for ensuring that your advertisements reach an appropriate number of people. But SOV by itself has some important limitations. The biggest limitation is that it often focuses on paid media and it might not necessarily track the amount of attention paid to advertisements.
As marketers, we know that more than just paid ads contribute to shaping the mind of the consumer, and we also know that earned media can have a disproportionate impact on consumer sentiment that might not be captured by SOV. As a result, we’re starting to think of more careful ways to look at the amount of attention people pay to advertisements, including looking at the type of mediums the ad appears in and the amount of attention people pay to the ad.
2. Mental availability is a much stronger metric. The issues with SOV have been addressed in part by focusing on mental availability. Mental availability specifically gets at how and when the consumer thinks about your brand when they’re in a buying situation. So if you’re in the business of selling a post-workout drink, you’ll want to make sure your customers think of you when they’re sweaty and heading home from the gym. Carefully placed advertisements containing the right message will help your brand become mentally available in the right situations at the right time.
3. Video is a powerful medium. Video is a particularly powerful medium for reaching audiences, whether it’s a social media advertisement, YouTube pre-roll ad, or TV commercial. Psychologically, we find video content very engaging, giving marketers the ability to hold attention and get the marketing message across.
4. Multiple mediums are more effective. In addition to video, you’re going to want to make sure that you reach customers in a few other mediums in order to really drive that final sale.This might include point of sale advertisements, billboards, or radio advertisements, for example. The powerful impact of using multiple mediums (with multiple objectives) has been shown by a number of studies, including Mark Ritson’s study of thousands of Effie award winners. In the study, Ritson showed a 100% increase in effectiveness going from 1 to 10 channels. Notably, effectiveness increased from 0.21 to 0.39 going from 1 to 4 channels. Analytic partners also conducted a study using thousands of marketing cases and found similar results.
5. Creativity has a multiplying impact on effectiveness. Often, doubling down on a marketing tactic will result in a doubling of results. Creativity, on the other hand, often has a multiplicative effect with a little more creativity having a big impact on effectiveness. Don’t forget to take the time to mix your smart media with some smart creative.
At Intermark Group, we’re often advising clients to incorporate all these key considerations in their advertising campaigns. We work with you at all levels of the campaign, from strategy, creative, production, and media, and more. Feel free to give us a call at 833-578-1314 or email us at [email protected] to discuss how we can help with your marketing challenges.
