Consumers Don’t Avoid Ads. They Avoid Bad Ads.
Posted on April 30, 2010 by Bill Hansen
Ad avoidance is a major problem for anyone in the marketing field. We buy, schedule, and target our media under the assumption that it’s going to get noticed. But often it does not. 60-70% of television ads can now be bypassed by DVR. Only 1/2% to 2% of direct mail is opened. According to scientific studies, over 80% of internet ad units are purposefully avoided.
Radio, on the other hand, is only ignored about 8% of the time*, but that’s not what this is about. This post is about making simple changes to your advertising or marketing approach to vastly increase the likelihood that your audience actually pays attention to your message.
Yes, consumers will pay attention to ads. Many do today, even with the tools that they have to easily avoid them. But only the ads that speak to them, and that’s the key – the ad actually has to make the consumer think that it’s about them, not just the company that’s advertising. Here are four basic things (and one advanced technique) that you can use immediately to improve your connection with, and therefore your engagement to, your target audience.
Here are five ways to up the engagement of your advertising:
1) Make your ad – at least the first half (if its broadcast), or major layout area (if it’s print or online) – directly about your consumer.
When your ad begins with, or is headlined about, your product or name, we will tune out, turn away, or fast-forward. We don’t want to hear about more products! Go away! It doesn’t get any simpler than that. But if you make your ad about me, I may pay attention to it. So start it off about me, and you can jump in at the end and I’ll actually want to know more about you if what you’ve said to me makes sense. Here’s what you need to say…
2) Make that ad about solving a real problem. Ads that don’t solve a problem don’t need to exist.
Do you save me time or money? Can you make something that I already do easier or more fun? Can you make me smarter or cooler? Will your widget make the ladies notice me a little more often? OK, talk to me. If not, I won’t let you waste my time. We all have problems that need solving, and we buy a lot of stuff that doesn’t bring as much utility, value, or joy to our lives, as we’d like. If you’ve got a better mousetrap, tell us about it in very clear terms and use specifics – we hear a lot of empty slogans and boastful claims every day.
3) Make your problem, and its solution, an emotional idea.
Logic or rationality has a place in advertising – where it pertains to truth, specificity, and evidence – but don’t make logic the main reason why you’re talking to us. Emotion is many times more powerful than logic when it comes to persuading us. So when you’re talking about me, and demonstrating your solution for me, make me feel it. Tap into the emotion that makes me want or need what you do. Don’t just pay lip service to this. Don’t make me the target of your ad. Make me its subject, with my emotional need at the core of the idea. Where are you in all this? You should obviously be the solution to whatever need I’m feeling. But please tell me exactly what you do, and focus on one thing that I can believe.
4) Ask the creatives to leave the room – have the sales expert take their place.
I say that in partial jest. But only partial. One of the biggest problems with most advertising is the emphasis on communicating ‘creatively’ to get our attention. This is an artifact of the advertising industry career ladder. It’s often subconscious, but people on the creative side are working to prove their ability and more often than not this agenda gets in the way of selling product. Focus on what sells.
Creativity should never be a goal. It should be ONE means to the end of selling more products. The same applies to humor. It has its place, but don’t set out to do ‘funny’ to get people’s attention. Set out to sell and use the means – straightforward dialog, creating a mental ‘test drive’ or example of the product/solution, instruction, etc – that best suits the emotion you’re working with.
Oh, and since you want me to believe you, be careful using the “Mr. Announcer Guy” voice, shouting or raising the volume of your ad, or making your graphic wiggle all over the place. We associate those things with ads that we already know we want to ignore.
5) Make the outcome visible. (This is the more advanced technique)
In performance-oriented situations – athletics, fighter piloting, and the arts – one of the strongest tools used to improve results is visualization. Coaches and trainers ask their pupils to see the results in their own mind. This includes the body mechanics, the environment and competitors, navigating problems/risks, and solving expected problems. Why do they ask pupils to close their eyes and visualize, instead of just showing them pictures? Visualization is the only way to make the pupil see him/herself in the situation. The mind allows its user to ‘own’ the situation, as opposed to a picture, which is typically about someone else.
Visualization in advertising allows us to understand the cause and effect of what you’re pitching in the most memorable way. We’re all exposed to a lot of marketing, but we only tend to remember the things that engage us (i.e. we think about) in personalized terms. That memory is what influences our behavior when it’s time to purchase. But here’s where it gets a little complex. When an ad includes a picture of a dog, that picture is about someone else’s dog. If it’s a cute dog, I might pay attention. But I’ve seen a lot of cute dogs so it probably won’t be memorable. If your ad makes me think about a dog, instead of showing me one, odds are better that I’ll see my dog. I’ll care a lot more and remember what you’re telling me (including who you are).
One Good Example
Here’s an example of an ad campaign that is not creative. The voice work even has a couple of mistakes. In fact, it’s kind of boring, unless you happen to be one of the people that it’s targeting. If that’s the case, the ad is clearly about you, it raises a real problem you face and presents a rational solution. The emotional nature/tone and the picture that it evokes get right to the heart of why you should use this product. It’s not sexy but this ad sold A LOT of tickets. You can do the same.
*Coleman Research/Arbitron 2006: 92% of US adults do not purposefully tune away, turn off, or focus attention elsewhere to avoid radio commercial sets.
