Brandalyzer

Posts Tagged ‘communication

As I mentioned in earlier blog posts, to communicate something to a recipient one has to command the recipient’s attention and then be relevant to the recipient.

Communication:  Command Attention (Clutter breaking) ->  Be Relevant

This holds true even for communication among two individuals or two groups of people or for television commercials (TVCs). For the rest of this blog we will discuss it in the context of TVCs.

Though the rules seem simple, commanding attention is itself a very daunting task in this fragmented and cluttered world of media. On top of it, the message is driven home only if you are relevant to your fragmented consumer segments. Currently, we shall focus on the first part of the problem – clutter breaking and commanding attention.

What have commercials been doing to break clutter?

Historically, entertainment has proved to be one of the most effective ways to command attention of people. Entertainment is a very pervasive element of television ads today. Research shows that creative entertainment increases the attention to view the entire ad, reduces the resistance to persuasion, and has positive effects on purchase intention.

Wikipedia defines entertainment as – “Entertainment is something that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight.”  Psychologists define entertainment as “attainment of gratification of senses”.

Though people have different personal preferences of entertainment, it has been observed that across cultures and time there are recognisable and familiar forms of entertainment such as story-telling, music, dance, drama, sex, sports, horror etc. So, most ads today have atleast one form of content used to entertain consumer such as humour, music, and creative stories, etc.

The answer to the question is – Commercials have been using entertainment as one of the effective ways to break clutter and maintain attention levels, increasing people’s interest to view the entire ad, and research shows that creative entertainment has positive effects on persuasion and purchase intentions.

If all is well, what is the problem about entertainment in commercials?

One observation that always intrigued and puzzled me is that the commercials that are very entertaining and enjoyable don’t always drive home the intended purpose. There are many commercials that are enjoyed a lot and has high ad recall, but they just become only a source of entertainment for the audience.

My observation of several ads and people made me come to the hypothesis that the entertainment provided in the ad actually fulfils the consumer and conflicts with the consumers’ process of synthesizing the brand/product message.  This negative influence of entertainment is especially seen when the brand purpose is not weaved into the story provided for entertainment. For example, in ads where the entertainment part comes first and the brand is shown very late in the ad and they are not so well connected. If entertainment is used to break clutter, then it is important that the brand is shown as a part of the entertainment at the beginning of the ad, else there is a risk that the TVC may be very entertaining but not serving the objective of the ad.

Harvard professor Thales Teixeira has conducted interesting research on this regard and wrote a paper – “Why, When, and How much to entertain consumers in advertisements?” This is based on a facial tracking study (software used to track the facial emotions) in response to the TVCs. This is a first of its kind study and is the latest (dated January 2013).

One of the key hypotheses for the study is – Does high entertainment in advertisements have detrimental effects on persuasion and purchase intent, while having beneficial effects on a person’s willingness to watch the ad?

Key Results from the Study:

1. Entertainment can overcrowd your product message.

2. Viewers tend to pay less attention to the message associated with the brand once they’re already entertained.

3. If entertainment is not brand-associated (brand comes first and then the entertainment part starts or both at once), then it works only as an attention capturing device.

4. An excessive amount of entertainment is ineffective because it reduces the ad’s persuasiveness, as the entertainment conflicts with the persuasiveness.

5. Medium level of positive entertainment leads to a higher intent to purchase the advertised brand than low or high levels.

Entertainment plays both a co-operating and a conflicting role

Prof. Teixeira found that entertainment plays both a co-operating and a conflicting role, depending on its type (i.e., location in the ad). Entertainment that is associated with the brand is co-operating, as it acts as a persuasion device both in the interest and purchase stages. Entertainment that is not associated with the brand acts predominantly as an attraction device at the interest stage, thus indirectly cooperating but also directly conflicting with the ultimate goal of the ad.

The paper talks about the role of the location of entertainment and brand in the ad and its effects on the purchase funnel. If the ad is solely intended to induce purchase from previously aware or interested consumers, early placement of the brand is recommended. This might be the case for established brands or mature products. Yet, if the purpose of the ad is to generate awareness and interest, for example for new brands or products, and other marketing tools will be used to trigger purchase, then placing the brand later in the ad will be more effective to increase its attractiveness. Lastly, for ads intended to increase interest and purchase, ad persuasiveness and attractiveness should be balanced.

The study shows that entertainment, while increasing interest, can hurt purchase intent, especially if it appears before the brand, and can help purchase intent, when it occurs after the brand. So having the brand appear later may work if the objective is more towards building awareness. But still I am not a strong supporter of entertainment coming first and then brand later. If you want to be safe, make sure that the brand has an appearance somewhere in the beginning of the ad (especially when entertainment is used for clutter-breakthrough).

Thank you.

Similar Posts on this blog:

http://brandalyzer.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/centuryplys-latest-gorilla-tvc/

http://brandalyzer.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/television-advertisements-and-relevance/

http://brandalyzer.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/flipkart-attacks-the-online-fears-with-its-new-set-of-tvcs/

References for this post:

http://brandalyzer.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/television-advertisements-and-relevance/

http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/event.aspx?num=387

http://www.affectiva.com/assets/Entertainment-effects-on-Purchase-Funnel.pdf

Segmenting consumers and understanding their behavior helps us understand the different customer interactions and touch points available for each of these consumer segments. Understanding the brand personality and the moods the brand can leverage will provide the advantage to communicate the values and be present at relevant touch points.

With the media clutter the consumers are exposed to, marketers and media professionals should continuously innovate on new touch points, optimize every rupee spent, and come up with the best consumer touch point strategy

CONSUMER SEGMENTS

Mouthwash was relatively a new category and it was primarily driven by Medical Shops channel, as the consumers generally used to use Mouthwash only when prescribed by the dentists for some medical conditions. Colgate being a pioneer of the oral category, had the challenge to create consumer pull to this category and the brand. Colgate used its communication very well to create the pull, and it gained well from the Indian Metro consumer. Following is the TV commercial of Colgate Plax, which is a similar version from that of Australia.

Colgate Plax, Australia

Colgate Plax, India

With medical shops still being a major channel for this category, where brands like Listerine, Hexidine, Betadine are more prescribed than Colgate by the doctor. Consumers may not look at brand Colgate as having that curative efficiency. Also, Colgate being a household brand might not have the equity as being a prescribed medicine, as people may not feel a Colgate product to be a medicine.

The issue here is based on two targets:
1. Colgate wants more and more ordinary consumers to pick its mouthwash from the stores. Here the brand Colgate plays a major role.
2. As the medical shop channel is very important for the category, they would want doctors to prescribe the mouthwash and ideally consumers to not have ‘non-medicine’ perceptions towards Colgate. Here the brand Colgate may not be serve the intention.

The consumers of the same product behave differently in two different channels.This is one of the examples of the complexity created by the mother brand endorsement. Possibly, the way out of this complexity is to develop a new brand without any endorsement by the mother brand Colgate. Pulling out a queue from David Aaker, J&J seems to have adopted a similar strategy where there brands are not endorsed by the mother brand.

The thoughts expressed in this blog are completely my personal views and opinions based on observation and secondary research. The blog does not represent the views and ideas of any organizations or institutions I am associated with. Thank you.

Perception may happen in many ways, communication is just one way to perceive something. The difference between perception and communication is: Perception is the subjective feeling that comes as a result of the objective communication.

Communication is objective, whereas perception is subjective. Perception depends upon various factors such as background of the individual, psyche, economic and social factors and a lot others. Though the brand communicates the same values to all the people in a target segment, the values are perceived differently based on various factors of an individual. For example, a school boy on his way to school is given a Frooti daily by his mother. This boy when he is grown up will have a biased loyalty to Frooti, though there are better brands in the market. It is not about the objective value of a drink, it is about the subjective emotion that the boy perceives in Frooti.

A great brand strategist understands the perception of their target consumers. He makes them perceive what he wants them to perceive, and he brings out an emotion in them. One of the best examples for this is the choclate Kit-Kat. Kit-Kat in Japan means good luck. The Japanese kids felt that Kit-kat brings good luck to them and it soon became a ritual to eat Kit-Kat before an exam. There are similar examples such as the number eight in China, people sitting in a Volvo car when they feel insecure, and many others.

You are a brand, people perceive you.

Suppose there are twins for one of your friends, and it is absolutely difficult to distinguish between them. To make matters worse, they have the same name and they are always dressed in the same attire. It needs some effort to understand who is who in such a case. Now, imagine that one of them has a lot of interest in Mathematics and he always wears a t-shirt that has equations printed on it. This time it is easy to distinguish among them. This is what is called creating a new category.When you create a new category, you become the first and you will have an opportunity to become a leader in that category. So, when people find difficult to perceive your brand, you need to do something to help them easily distinguish your brand. Your brand should stand for something different from the competitors. You need to find something that people associate your brand with.

As time progresses, people start associating that kid with mathematics the way Volvo is associated with safety. It doesn’t matter if Volvo is really safe or the kid has lost his interest in mathematics, people will always associate him with mathematics because that is what with which he helped them perceive better. What matters is what you make people feel and associate the brand with, creating a Brand Identity.


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