Don't Frankenstein Your Brand
Posted by Jaci Russo
You can have the greatest ad with the strongest emotional appeal, yet there is no way your ad will connect with every one of your consumers. Ads are very subjective – like music or art – and certain styles and messages will be loved by some and the exact same ad will be hated by others. That is a great problem to have. If your ads are not loved by some and hated by others then your ads will not be very powerful. If they have been created with the intent to appeal to everyone then they will actually appeal to no one.
Different people prefer different things. No one is the same. And no one ad can appeal to everyone. By watering down the message, by making the ad mainstream, by writing the ad so that it doesn’t offend anyone – there is no way the ad can be strong enough to connect with anyone.
In his book Air, Water and Places, Hippocrates determined there are 4 kinds of people – Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Choleric and Melancholic. Modern psychology refers to them as Expressive, Amiable, Driver and Analytical. We like to use advertising terms to describe them – Headline, Body Copy, Illustration and Logo:
- Headline – skims the headlines, doesn’t read the details, makes rapid decisions and quickly assesses the situation, very focused and driven – no time to waste
- Body Copy – needs all the details, researches for extra information, reads the fine print, occasionally suffers from analysis paralysis
- Illustration – wants to look good, needs to know how its going to make them look, usually very focused on awards and recognition, likes the newest, best, brightest
- Logo – team buy-in is important, wants to make sure that no one’s feelings are hurt, very focused on “we”
So there is no way that one ad can appeal to each of these types of people. If you try to create an ad that will appeal equally to each one then you will most definitely connect with none of them. You can’t make a song that appeals equally to country, rock, pop and rap lovers – if you Frankenstein a song with equal parts of each it will be awful. If you make a movie to appeal to the fans of romantic comedies, cartoons, horror, action and documentaries then it will be terrible. The biggest cause of most advertising failure is trying to appeal to everyone.
You have to be very targeted with the message, style and delivery so that the spot will connect with a very specific type of audience. You will know you have succeeded when some people love the spot and others hate it. By creating a series of very different ads that connect to very different types of people, then, and only then, could you appeal to everyone.
When we talk about branding, the focus is on creating an emotional connection with the consumer. That is what will drive them to respond. If your ad doesn't connect with them then they will not respond to it. I'm sure you've heard the adage that "half of your advertising is wasted, you just don't know which half". I think that comes from creating ads that only appeal to half of your audience. Change it up. Create ads that connect with different people in different way and in different media. Then you can get a better return for your investment.
