Most people don’t want to sit through ads. #SorryNotSorry

It’s not that they dislike the interruption. After all, we live in a consumer society in which many people desire products. Instead, it’s that the ads don’t provide value.

Meaning everyday people are having to watch or listen to something that lacks anything new or innovative. Talk about a yawn fest.

Some adventurous advertisers, however, get beyond the marketing trap and hit home with their audiences. They find a way to bypass the usual commercial monotony and say something that encourages folks to buy. Top companies aren’t economic units of production: they’re proselytisers selling a kind of hope. 

So what are the secrets of the world’s most persuasive ads? Why do they work so well and propel brands like Apple to stratospheric heights?

Get yer scuba suit and snorkels on people, because it’s D E E P D I V E time. *Blub, blub, blub.

Find Something Repetitive, and Then Surprise

What’s the crux of humour? 

Essentially, it’s doing something that the audience didn’t expect. You lead them down the metaphorical garden path: aka a well-trodden road.

And then, B O O M when they least expect it, you hit them with something out of left-field. That surprise is what provokes the laughter response.

Brands try to do the same thing. The “jolt” consumers receive makes their adverts more memorable because it runs counter to expectation.

You could start with a folk tale, like the Three Little Pigs. But instead of the wolf eating the pigs for dinner, you could rig the circumstances so that the pigs wind up tucking into a tasty wolf.

Sorry wolfy 🙁

Love and Learn From Errors

Brands have a habit of wanting to present themselves in majestic, heavenly perfection. *bursts into Handel’s Messiah “Hallelujah” chorus

They think that if they can somehow be infallible entities, more people will buy from them: because what everyday human doesn’t warm to someone who is practically perfect in every way.

[In case the sarcasm doesn’t come through, even Mary Poppins JUST ABOUT pulled that schtick off.] 

Everyone knows that that’s not how the world works. Companies have quirks, just like everyone else. So ditch the desire to portray an image of absolute perfection.

What’s more, research shows that consumers actually prefer brands that learn from their mistakes.

So, for instance, a brand that learns from generation 1.0 will typically wind up selling more of generation 2.0 of its product or service, so long as it admits faults with its earlier offering.

Tehehe Add a Lil Decoy 

Brands often believe unconsciously in the idea of putting their best foot forward. They present their products and services, with their top offerings coming first.

But many don’t do this: instead, they put a decoy into their advertising materials to help their preferred choice seem even more remarkable.

For instance, they might send out a pamphlet with some undesirable product thrown into the mix. And then put the best product next to it to create contrast.

If you click here, you can find out how to use mail marketing in this way. Restaurants do it all the time by making their so-called “medium” drinks cups almost the same size as their large ones.

Most people think to themselves – oh well, I might as well pay a little extra to get more. And they do!

Make Your Advertising More Cryptic

Apologies in advance, but I have Peter Andre’s “Mysterious Girl” playing on a loop in my brain as I prepare to write this segment.

And now the earworm I didn’t expect is the earworm you didn’t ask for or ever really want. NO RETURNS. Anywho…back to the matter at hand.

Sometimes you’ll notice that brands make their advertising a little cryptic…

M Y S T E R I O U S if you will.

They’ll include elements that remind you of their brand, but you can’t quite put your finger on who they are or what they’re selling immediately.

To traditional marketers, this approach sounds like brand death by advertising.

You only have a few milliseconds to capture the attention of your audience. And so plastering cryptic messages all over the place is just going to confuse and waste valuable time.

*Spoiler alert* that’s not what happens. 

Instead, the cryptic nature of the message causes customers to take a second look. Their mind wants to connect the dots and find the pattern behind the image. And, often, they can’t stop thinking about it until they solve the problem. 

It’s the, ‘What Are You?! How Can I Understand You?!’ Approach

Take Carlsberg, for instance, a prominent European beer brand. It’s famous for its brand strategy, which involves taking things that people like, such as holidays, and then saying what would happen if Carlsberg provided them.

So it might say, “If Carlsberg made holidays, they’d probably be the best holidays in the world.” Or “if Carlsberg did haircuts, they’d probably be the best haircuts in the world.”

Sometimes, though, the brand doesn’t even include its name. So, for instance, it once ran a poster campaign where the poster just said:

“Probably the best poster in the world.” 

People got it, though, because they recognised Carlsberg’s approach to marketing. It forced an audience to do a double-take: all while ticking the quirky humour box since the poster was just text on a green background.

FIN

That’s all, folks!

Hopefully, you’ve learned something from this discussion. Persuasive ads are usually very counterintuitive. And that’s more often than not a good thing.

So have a little fun and get creative/disruptive with your ads.

Thank you for spending some of your precious time in my online abode today

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