Splitting Sides with UGC

They say laughter is good for the soul and humor is making a comeback in the advertising world right now. I mean, who can blame brands? This type of advertising works for a plethora of reasons. The Journal of Marketing found that “humor is more likely to enhance recall, evaluation, and purchase intention when the humorous message coincides with ad objectives, is well integrated with those objectives, and is viewed as appropriate for the product category.” People love humor. They remember it. 90% more to be exact, according to Oracle. They also connect with it… and they connect with user-generated content more than paid advertising. So, why not put these two together to give yourself a recipe for advertising success? Our recent agency partners at Erich & Kallman did just this with their UGC campaign for Impossible Foods. Humans are emotional beings and tapping into this is a great way to create lasting relationships with consumers. Humor and UGC both have a way of creating positive emotions toward the brand which results in customer loyalty and engagement. In the case of humor, this is possibly caused by the cognitive humor effect. This effect occurs when the viewer becomes distracted due to the humor stimulus that diverts their attention from the original focus (the brand/product). Either way, the parallels between the two are eerie. Aside from what’s noted above, they both also increase trustworthiness to further boost brand credibility. This is why we believe that combining these two methods is a great way to improve advertising your brand. Together we can work to keep advertising fun!

Fun Friday Feature 7/14

We wanted to do something fun for today and go back to our ad of the week article. Today we want to feature the ad recently done by Maybelline. They pulled a great stunt where they put eyelashes on the tube in London. When the underground got close to the platform they had a mascara brush that combed the lashes back as it came to a stop. To read more about the ad or view it visit the Evening Standard.

Expanding Creativity Through UGC

Advertising is creativity at its core. Those who think otherwise probably shouldn’t be in this business. Think about it, ads are a creation of creativity that extract an emotional response from the viewers. It’s that emotional response that makes UGC ads stand out from the rest. Their authenticity has the power to provoke stronger emotional connections to the content that real people made that is now being shown in the ad. We are here to argue that using UGC in your campaigns can actually increase your creative power. For example, we get the brief that you send for specific content you’re looking for. Your brand has an idea for a great commercial using UGC found content. We then start searching for the content that fits within the parameters. However, sometimes we come across a gem that may not fit into that box. We will pitch it to your team anyway because sometimes it’s worth a shot. Your team falls in love with the video and decides to take a new approach to the UGC ad. The organic content that someone created just shifted your creative process that you may not have otherwise thought of. Playing around with ideas is the heart of creativity. This is how original ideas come about. UGC is kind of way to collaborate different creative ideas through the creativity of those who created the content. This can expand the team’s creative juices with fresh ideas to come up with new ones for their campaigns. We’ve seen it happen and when it does, the campaigns are one of a kind.  

Advertising Audio & Sonic Branding

Did you know that it only takes 0.146 seconds for a human to hear and interpret a sound?!? (Business News Daily) When we think of advertising, the first thing that comes to mind is visual, but the sounds in an ad can make or break it. Certain sounds can connect with your audience on an emotional level. Something further, sonic branding is a sound that is associated with your brand. Think of the Netflix sound when it launches. All of you reading this can hear it in your mind right now huh? We can too. Another way to use sound is in a retail environment and is probably the most common. Let’s dive into each a little deeper.

In Store Audio

1.     What type of emotion do you want to inspire? Calm, excited, secure? This will create the emotional state of your customers while they’re shopping in your store.

2.     Do you want them to stay a while or get in and get out? Most stores want people to stay unless they’re fast food or high turnover shops. If you want consumers to stay slower music is best. They stay longer. They spend more money. If in and out is what you want then fast paced music with upbeat tempo.

3.     Are you selecting music that your target audience would listen to? You want to ensure that your audience likes what they are hearing. Dive a little into your target audience. What is their demographic? When were they born? This will give you an idea of what kind of music to play.

Sonic Branding

1.     Keep the sound simple. Just a few tones that last a few seconds. It should be a musical mnemonic pattern that is easy to remember and listen too.

2.     Make your audience feel something. Create a sound that conveys the right emotional response. Think of sounds that you often hear such as the sound when you upload something on LinkedIn. It’s oddly satisfying. There’s a reason for this.

3.     Don’t plagiarize. Stand out and be unique with your tonal voice. Not only is this copyright infringement, it’s lazy.

Sounds in Advertisements

1.     Again, know the brand audience. What is the product for? Is it fitness or a massage? This will greatly effect the sounds you want to use in your ads.

2.     Consider the platform. Looping sounds do better on social media since it tends to disrupt the user less. This will also determine which music can go on your ads. You need to have proper clearance for copyright purposes.

3.     Create with mobile in mind. Most people will watch digital ads on their phones. So, unless your ad is running on Hulu as a commercial, you want to pick tracks that don’t have a lot of heavy bass.

4.     Sound effects might be needed. Sometimes an added sound effect might be needed to emphasize a key point in your ad. Don’t forget to use these to bring attention to the points of visual interest.

5.     Get the mix right. Most ads have voice over. It’s important that the music and/or sound effects don’t overpower this. Obviously, this will be done by an editing professional but should always be checked before going live.

Sound can be a very powerful tool in advertising that is quite often overlooked. It can be used to enhance certain aspects of your ads or as a tactic to keep customers in your store longer. Our favorite though, is sonic branding and how it can be just as memorable as a visual logo if not more. Sounds tend to get stuck in our heads because it takes less attention to recognize them while visuals require us to focus our vision from whatever we may already be doing to something else. Also, if you get it right people will remember your sonic branding for years to come!

Women's Role in Advertisements Today

In 2022, 46.6% of the workforce in the United States was female (Mathew Zane of Zippia). That’s almost half of the entire workforce! So, why then are women still being portrayed in a stereotypical manner in advertisements? A recent article written by The Drum shows that stereotyping women in advertisements has actually went up in the past year by 66%. What’s going on? Are we not in the progressive 21st Century? On top of this fact, women of darker skin tones have been featured 80% less than women with lighter skin. Sometimes it seems we’re taking a step forward and then we take two steps back in terms of equality. These numbers have to change and it has to be done within the industry as a whole. The advertising industry professionals are considered the “cultural intermediaries” who develop messages. A survey done by Megan Sullivan-Jenks, Director of Marketing & Communications at Choozle, shows that 37% of respondents agreed that the ad industry has a responsibility not to use gender stereotypes. There are two schools of thought on the role of advertising to society. The first is the “mirror” role that suggests that advertisements are merely a reflection of society’s values that already exists and are dominant. The “mold” argument states that people will incorporate stereotypes presented by media into their own value and beliefs system. We think it is safe to say that both are true. The role of advertising professionals should come with responsibility to empower women, not stereotype them into roles of nonprofessionals or submissiveness. 

Friday Favorite 9/23/2022

This week’s favorite is a tribute to Serena Williams and her recent retirement. She is a role model for women and athletes all over the world! She leaves behind a legacy of a changed world because she refused to become the status quo. She remained true to herself despite all of the odds. The Nike ad coined with the tagline, “She didn’t change who she was-and that changed everything, for all of us,” was created by advertising company, Wieden+Kennedy Portland. Unfortunately, her final three set tennis matches were losses. However, those that know who she is and what she has done for women in sport will not even remember that ten years from now. What they will remember is how she represented her home city of Compton with pride, even when nay sayers talked down on it. They will remember how she held her head high with pride when people mocked her body physique as she rocked her stellar muscles and curvature. She combated racism early in her childhood career, stared it in the face and never backed down from who she was on and off the court. Her and her sister took a non-traditional path for their tennis careers and she still made it to the top. She has been listed as Forbes highest paid female athlete. She has battled injuries, her own sister on the court, had children and all the while managed to become one of the best female athletes to ever play any sport in the world!

Ad Viewability

What’s more important, CTR or your ad being viewed? We’ll wait while you think about this….

What did you decide? Was it viewability? If that was you’re answer then you got it right! Think about it, your ad being seen is far more important than click through rates especially with the rise of bot technology. You could be getting false results. So, what is ad viewability? Viewability is the “seen” impressions that a video gets where 50% of the advertisement must be in view for at least one second for display ads and two seconds for video ads (Internet Advertising Bureau). Measuring views is the best way to see what kind of reach your brand is getting with its advertising and it has a positive correlation with ROI. The higher the views, the higher the ROI. There are a few factors that will affect your ads viewability.

1.     Size. Vertical layouts are preferable to vertical and some standard sizing options are 120x240, 240x400 and 160x600.

2.     Position. Side bars do well. Top of page may be the first that comes to mind because it’s the first thing you see. However, sometimes the ad does not load before the user scrolls past. Of course, you can put the ad at the top and bottom and there are standard practices to help them perform well.

3.     Channel. Where you place the ad matters. Is it social, streaming T.V., YouTube?

4.     Publisher. Each publisher will have varying rates for placements.

5.     Loading speed. DO NOT let your ad load slowly. This is death for advertisements and anything else for that matter. Even just 1 second delay can reduce views by 11% (Publift). There are technical adjustments that can and must be made in order to avoid this. Compressing files, reduce redirects and removing unnecessary tags are some to name a few.

Ad viewability is important and compliment other data for your brand but this concept is fairly new. It will continue to develop in the following years but having a score of 70% viewability or higher perform better overall. That being said, a lot are between 30-40% and still successful, according to Amazon Ads. Being able to monitor this metric is important to tracking how many real human views you are getting for your advertisements. 

Friday Favorite 9/16/22

This week turns to women’s retirement inequality awareness for TIAA. The ongoing campaign, #retireinequality coined this powerful piece, “The Dress.” In a collaboration between The Martin Agency and fashion designer, Fe Noel, they constructed a dress made of paper bills. The dress totals up to $1.6 million dollars, which is meant to represent the amount that women will lose for their retirement over their lifetime due to the 30% wage gap. Not only do women earn less, they often have to take more time away from work for maternity leave and caring for older family members. The dress was showcased on social media for fashion week and is now on display in NYC’s SOHO neighborhoods on Broadway and Grand until the 18th of this month. TIAA hopes to raise awareness so that others will start conversations for these issues to be addressed. We’d also like to give some appreciation to our friend, and the Director of Business Affairs on this project, Angela Eddlemen. We’ve worked with TIAA before, but this is a YES to the dress, for sure.

Friday Favorite 9/9/22

 This week we turn to the fashion industry. Did you know that, “every 25 minutes, an Olympic size swimming pools worth of crude oil is used in the production of synthetic clothing?” We knew that the fashion industry was terrible for the environment but had no idea that it was this bad! The ad favorite of this week brings light to this situation by bringing that fact to life in a real-world depiction scenario. The ad was done by Woolmark, “Wear Wool, Not Fossil Fuel” ad promoting their 100% natural clothing line. It is also 100% biodegradable and renewable. At the beginning of the spot, there are people swimming in this Olympic-sized pool of fossil fuel and trying to escape the grip of its grimy substance. As they struggle, they eventually escape by pulling off the top layer covered in oil to reveal the clean outfit that lies beneath. You can really see their metaphors through the visual aesthetics of the ad. What starts off as a dark and grim beginning turns into one full of lush green spaces and light moods. The ad is expected to run in the U.S., the UK, France and Australia this month. It was created in collaboration by Park Village, Studio Birthplace and 20Something.

Friday Favorite 9/2/22

With the recent release of the prequal to Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, we felt compelled to feature one of their newest advertisements for the show. We’re not going to lie, we’re really big fans of both! This ad was featured on Official Media Samosa. This interactive ad was located in Brazil and features a black, melted bus stop billboard as part of the piece. The half rectangular, half melted transit shelter display is smoldering from beneath, as if melted by dragon fire as it sits alongside the Targaryen house emblem placed behind the local bus stop bench. We love a good interactive advertisement as one of the top creative ways to advertise. They’re truly one of the best ways to get your audience engaged and remember your name. This ad had the desired effect. It was creative, catchy, memorable and fun!  

Friday Fun Favorite 8/26/22

This week is a fun one from European Legal Group ARAG called, “Legal Needs Are in Your Future.” Featuring the infamous Sanderson sister, Mary from Hocus Pocus, Kathy Najimy, as she acts as a comedic fortune teller giving out legal warnings to her clientele. In the spot, she has three different couples at her table for a reading. Each reading is composed of legal situations that happen in everyday life instead of the typical high-profile types we usual see represented on T.V. with crime shows. Each video is only thirty seconds long. They are titled, “Red Convertible,” “The Dog” and “First House” promoting the importance of legal insurance for everyday folks. This ad was created by Barkley Agency. 

Friday Fun Favorite 8/5/22

This week we’re taking a different direction with the fun favorite going to Zippo. We’re going to talk about two different campaigns. One print and one video. One old and one new. But both creatively badass. The first talks of the amazing story of a Zippo that worked after being taken from the belly of a fish. This throwback was done in the 1960’s when a man was fishing for pike. He caught the fish that must have grabbed the lighter as it slowly floated to the bottom and when he fileted it, found the lighter within the belly. The company promoted this story as a true testament to how well the lighters work. “No matter how old it is or what its condition, if a Zippo ever fails to work, the Zippo man will fix it for free!” Now, fast forward to today. The new Zippo, “All Fire, No Smoke” campaign promotes new and interesting ways to use a lighter. In the video there is a woman doing a handstand while holding a bow and arrow. The arrow is on fire and as she flips herself upside down, she places her feet into position. Once ready, she fires the arrow off to hit a bullseye on a nearby tree. I mean, I cannot think of a cooler way to use a lighter. Not to mention how difficult it would be to do what she did. I couldn’t stop watching it! Overly impressive. This Ogilvy campaign will definitely get the audience’s attention. We wonder what they will come up with next! Dare we say it? Their new campaigns are fire…

Friday Fun Favorite 7/29/22

We thought this week we would switch it up and do a throwback favorite from 2011. The ad was named, “What Will Your Mouth Go Through Today?” This campaign was done for Listerine and depicts the different items that you put in your mouth throughout the day. There were three prints done. The first was two burger buns that sandwiched not only the burger and toppings, but also pens, mints, cheeses, paper clips, sugar packets and a coffee mug. The second print was a milkshake glass filled with the contents of the shake, various candies, pistachio shells, fries and a lemon slice to name a few. Lastly, the final print was a skewer containing an ice cream bar, candies, beef chunks and lipstick. The ad brings attention to these various things that go into your mouth. Seeing them together looks absolutely unappetizing, but when isolated alone, they are delicious. This leaves the viewers ready to grab that bottle of Listerine and clean out their dirty mouths. It was a great ad done by Wunderman Thompson, UK.

Creative Ways to Advertise

Did you know that it typically takes 5-7 brand interactions before a consumer remember the brand? (Start Up Bonsai) We’ve written articles in the past on how to make your advertisements stand out from the crowd with the use of Interactive Advertising. We’ve also talked about what contributes to the effectiveness of an advertisement. Creativity will always win in advertising campaigns so why should the way that you advertise be any different? Not only should the advertisements themselves stand out, the way that you advertise should as well. Here are some creative and not so creative, but tried and tested, ideas to get you started.

1.     Magazines. This type of advertising is one of the oldest. Ads began in newspapers so this is similar. This can cost your brand anywhere from $500-$20K depending on which publication it is as well as the placement within the magazine. Ads in the back are typically better so they are going to cost your brand more. Cost will also be affected by the size and colors you choose.

2.     Sponsor local city maps. This one is a bit old school but tested to work. This will work especially well if your brand is located in a tourist destination.

3.     Use the space creatively. Put an ad on the celling of a building. On the floor or the staircase. Use the space creatively to draw attention to the campaign.

4.     Swag. Everyone loves free stuff and it helps your brand advertise. Think pens, tee shirts, reusable water bottles, stickers, bottle openers, etc. Keep costs low by ordering early, buying in bulk, shopping around for the best deals and also negotiate pricing.

5.     Vehicle wraps. We’ve all seen the bus side ads. It’s dynamic since the vehicle is always in motion. Many people will see the ad but make sure that it legible to read in motion. This type of advertising is also a bit costly ranging anywhere from $3K-5K. That being said, this type of ad generates 2.5x’s more attention than static billboards according to Sign Post. You can easily find companies in your area that specialize in vehicle wraps with a simple Google search. 

6.     Banner Ads. Banner ads are a great way to get your brand to the eyes of those that potentially are interested in what you have to offer. These are placed on specific websites that have similar interest to your business through publishers. This can help grow your audience big time. They should be animated to get the viewers’ attention immediately. Costs of this type of advertising varies. Some do 50cents per 1,000 impressions. Meaning that it will be displayed 1,000 times. Some charge one-time fees for a specified span of time.

These are some fun ways to mix up the ways that your brand is advertising. Not only should your advertisement be creatively sound, the way that you choose to advertise that campaign should be as well. We hope this helps give you some ideas to add diversity to your advertising strategies.

Friday Favorite 7/22

Food gives us all the feels. It taps into all of our senses and invokes emotional responses. A restauranteur in Philadelphia has opened a one of a kind restaurant, Feeladelphia. Inspired by Philly cream cheese, the menu is curated by Jeramiah Stone and Fabian Von Hauske Valtierra. They want the guests to “order feelings, not food” in the first of its kind dine-out experience. The advertising campaign shows the chef creating a dish with cream cheese and finishes with text that says, “A restaurant where you don’t order food. You order feelings.” This ad was created by Gut Miami in partnership with Philadelphia Cream Cheese.

Friday Fun Fave 7/15/22

This week we turn to a print ad campaign that is nostalgic in its own way. This ad was illustrated by Aspire Doors, UK and showcases the first products of certain brands, such as Nintendo. It was shared on Media Samosa’s Instagram feed. It was surprising to see what many firsts that every day household name brands created first. Sony’s was a rice cooker created in Japan in 1946. Nokia created toilet paper in Finland in 1865. Take a quick look to see how these iconic brands began.

Friday Fun Fave 7/1/22

This week’s Friday favorite isn’t very fun but in light of recent events of the overturning of Roe vs Wade, we though it appropriate to choose one that shed some light on what this may mean for American women. Planned Parenthood did an ad predicting the “Dark Storm” of the Supreme Court decision. The ad background has the news reporting abortion rights and recent decisions of the Supreme Court as the narrator states, “we’ve all felt this storm coming. It’s been building for a long time.” After this the narrator states that, “Together we’re a force of nature!” as women take to the streets protesting. “We’re built for this. We don’t stand by, we walk into the storm and turn its raw force into something transformative!” It’s a powerful campaign that promotes action! We stand behind their “ Bans Off Our Bodies” movement! This link is where you can find resources on how to support abortion moving forward. This compelling advertisement was created by Virtue Worldwide.

Advertising Effectiveness Contributors

What makes an advertisement effective? Take a second to think about it. We’ll wait…. Now that you’ve thought about it, we’re going to give you a hint. It’s not a cut and dry answer. As we’re sure you’ve guessed, it’s not just one thing that will make an advertisement effective, it’s multiple aspects. That being said though, turns out that creativity is still the most important part of advertising effectiveness. There are 5 other important contributors to advertising effectiveness. According to a study done by Nielson Catalina Solutions, creative lands on top at 47% but the other 5 include reach at 22%, brand at 15%, targeting lists at 9%, recency at 5% and lastly, context at 2%. It’s interesting to note that creative is still the top driver of advertising effectiveness, but this does not mean that brands can neglect the other 5 contributors. Let’s take a look at recency. Recency is a theory stating that advertising will have a greater sales impact when exposure occurs close to a purchase. Determining when your audience will buy will determine when to run your ad. If they buy on the weekend, then the ad should be run on Thursday or Friday right before their purchase. This article only touches on the topics that increase advertising effectiveness and each contributor could have an article of their own. It’s crucial for brands to understand what drives their advertisement effectiveness in order to increase sales.

Friday Fun Fave 6/24/22

This week’s favorite is titles Liquid Billboard by Adidas. This amazing advertisement aims to make women feel more comfortable with their inclusive swimwear collection. “32% of women globally say they don’t feel comfortable swimming in public,” according to the ad.  We recently wrote a blog that talked about audience engagement. This is the perfect example of that! Women of all shapes and sizes jumped in for a few laps instead of the typical models that we see on these types of ads. Their swims were visible to all and streamed live online. How cool is this interactive advertising!?!? Not to mention that it promotes body positivity on so many levels.

Ethical Advertising

We’ve written about bridging the trust gap between consumers and brands previously. However, another way to strengthen trust in this way is through ethical advertising. The Institute for Advertising Ethics was established to ensure that brands are advertising in a truthful, fair and equitable way. We’re pretty certain that if you’re an advertising agency you already know this, but even though this organization exists to keep brands and agencies in check, it’s interesting to note that when creating advertisements, “most professionals are only influenced by legal considerations; ethics exerts a relatively minor role,” according to a research study. This topic has not been exhausted as many are still very skeptical of the ethics of advertising.  Now more than ever, if done correctly, can be an way to build continued trust between your brand and its audience. A few ways to practice ethical advertising is to attract your customers through transparency with accurate and honest information. Always avoid deceptive advertising and make sure that you ensure the privacy of customer data and their information. With the removal of 3rd party cookies, this last one has never been more crucial. These all fall under the eight ethical standards from the IAE. Another one to consider in today’s social climate is to practice safe production and safe use. According to Forbes, “73% of millennials are willing to pay extra for sustainable offerings.” It could be argued that a new ethical way to produce, do business and advertise is to consider the environmental impacts your brand has due to the climate crisis we are now in. Ethical advertising means always doing the right thing! Your brand needs to be honest with their audience, always, without losing sight of brand purpose. 63% of people have stopped purchasing from a brand because they lost trust and 69% would never purchase from them again for this reason” (Microsoft).