Are you one of those Brand developers who pay research companies large budgets to do pre-testing on your ad agency's newest show reels or print ads? You ask them to look at recall rates, the ad's power of pursuasion, an estimate of sales potential and so on.
Now, I have worked alongside and inside consumer research agencies for over 20 years so, believe me, I have the upmost respect for much of their work. But sometimes, their methodologies get rather tired and the old solutions a wheeled out as 'new solutions' for another generation of brand managers.
If you are feeling this, it's time to look at other, possibly complementary, ways to predict your advertisings' performance.
Readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that a very productive line of attack can be found by exploiting trends' insights. You see, social trends tell us what is highly motivating to consumers at a moment in time and culture. It's only common sense, then, to say that the more an advertising campaign can clue into these hot buttons, the more it will succeed in influencing people's attitudes and consumption behaviours.
Now, I'm not talking here about fashions and fads. Clearly an ad needs to be situated in its most immediate fashion context and have all the right colours, graphics, visuals and relevant lingo to give that of-the-moment appeal.
No, what I'm talking about are the social trends that deeply root what people give importance to - but which nevertheless change over time. It's these that you, as a brand manager also want to trigger.
I'll give a short illustration. I was working with one of Britain's biggest media planners and analysing
show reels for Nissan cars. The ad was excellent and pushed all manner of social trends: Multifaceted Lives, Thrill-Pleasure, Safety Needs, Hyper-Nature, Transformism, Real-Virtual Blurring, Exotic Mobility, Safe Adventure, Cartoon Creativity etc. This advertising was going to be a winner. And it surely was.
But there is another side of the coin, of course. So you also should be looking to underplay or reject those things that antagonise current social trends.
Another example. I was doing this exercise with Alfa Romeo brand managers in Italy, alongside their ad agency. One ad reel showed a sleek Alfa, driven by an even more sleek Italian male, accelerating along an Italian street only to brake to a halt in front of a rather alarmed pregant woman on a pedestrian crossing. The agency was aiming for the message of short braking distances and road safety, but, looking at trends, this was very definitely not 'Feminisation of Society'.
I call this screening and prediction technique "Trend Decoding". It's about taking ads and isolating all the trends that will be 'supported' by the ad, and those which will be antagonised. The more posiitve your 'Trends Balance Sheet', the better the chance that your publicity will fly. And, of course, this Trend Decoding can be target specific so that we are looking at only those trends which actively motivate a defined audience.
So if you are looking for new diagnostics to improve ad screening and performance, have a look at Trend Decoding. And put the engine of trends into your advertising.
