Have you seen that new advert?

The one with the armadillo throwing water balloons at the small family car as it drives through a field of flowers; the graphic over the top says ‘Awesome’ and is whooshed away in the breeze as the car whizzes past the countryside. It’s been on all the channels… a lot!

If you haven’t seen it, does that mean it isn’t a good advert?

An over-preoccupation with conscious thought processes would almost certainly bring you to that conclusion. It seems entirely logical that, assuming you’ve been watching some commercial TV you would have been exposed to it. Therefore the only logical conclusion is that you’re not being aware of it means it has been ineffective.

But hold on a moment. Do you usually watch the adverts? I mean actively watch them: consciously engage with them? Perhaps you take notes in your little book of interesting adverts!

I strongly suspect that the vast majority of advertising (of all kinds, including sponsorship) is experienced in passing, by people who are focusing their attention on something else.
Looked at another way, are you influenced by advertising or sponsorship? Most people say an unequivocal ‘no’. And yet companies spend billions of dollars on putting their name in front of us… perhaps we all think that it’s OTHER people who are taken in by it!

When your attention is distracted by something else, such as talking about the programme you’ve been watching before the break, or watching your favourite football team play like a bunch of people who’ve never met before, does advertising influence you?

The answer appears to be a clear ‘Yes’. Whilst the research I’m about to reference is only a simulation of the process we each experience hundreds, if not thousands, of times each day, it clearly illustrates the potential mechanisms at work.

Researchers in the US conducted an experiment where they showed people pairings of brands and images (associating the two in people’s minds). These were either positive (flowers, the word ‘awesome’ or a mother and child together) or negative (people by a graveside, someone in a contamination suit or the word ‘terrifying’). The brands they chose were Coke and Pepsi.

They then distracted them by getting them to remember an eight digit number, and offered them a choice of drink to take with them as they left. Of course, what was of interest to the researchers was which drink they selected.

As you might expect, the brand association shown before the distraction task didn’t influence people who had a pre-existing brand preference. However, those who were neutral were influenced by it.

Even when people couldn’t recall which brand had been in the ‘advert’ they were still influenced by it.

There are two crucial points for brand owners to recognise from this research (and it is supported by other research on subliminal processing of adverts):

1. Conscious attention isn’t a pre-requisite for advertising impact. Indeed, I would argue that using measures like awareness and brand recall (both unprompted and prompted) are BAD ways to evaluate your advertising campaign.
2. The brain works by association: so thinking in terms of what you’re associating your brand with in your customers’ unconscious minds, doing so consistently, and choosing associations that are beneficial is absolutely crucial for successful marketing.

You will notice, I hope that both of the points I’ve made above are to the unconscious mind. As it happens there are market research approaches that can tap into the unconscious mind, but very, very few organisations currently use them. Most are still using techniques that ask the wrong part of a consumer’s brain the wrong question in a way that influences the unconscious to provide a particular answer.

Source: University of Chicago Press Journals (2008, April 21). Coke Or Pepsi? Being Distracted Can Make You More Susceptible To Ads. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 28, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/04/080421111649.htm

Image courtesy: Ed Yourdon