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!

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. 

Gestalt Principle for Advertising Design

We know, we know. This already sounds like a very fancy, difficult to read article. Well, let us tell you that it’s not. We’re going to explain this design principle in laymen’s terms for those who may not be familiar with it. We don’t have degrees in psychology, so our understanding of it is at the surface level to be used for the ad industry. So, what is the Gestalt Principle? It deals with psychology that is a philosophy dictating that the human mind perceives a whole composition as something different than its individual elements. Basically, it means that the human brain will attempt to simplify and organize complex images/designs that consist of many elements. The brain subconsciously arranges the parts into an organized system that creates a whole rather than a series of elements. It is used in design to improve the aesthetics, functionality and user-friendliness. These are the principles associated with Gestalt: simplicity, similarity, closure, proximity, figure/ground, symmetry and order, synchrony and lastly, continuity. Let’s dive a little deeper into each principle.

1.     Simplicity. The mind will interpret ambiguous and complex images in their simplest form. When we see an object, we first seek to identify the outline to compare it to known shapes and patterns. A simple design that is well-defined will communicate the message more effectively.

2.     Similarity. Objects with similar characteristics will be grouped together as related or similar. This happens regardless of their proximity. This can be used to make certain elements of a design stand out from the rest.

3.     Closure. This one is the idea that your brain fills in the gaps for missing pieces of an illustration or image. The design need not include the entire image in order for the viewer to see the whole. Our brains are amazing!

4.     Proximity. Objects placed closely together are usually perceived as more related. They don’t even have to share the same characteristics. This can help you design by adding groups of items without definite borders.

5.     Figure/ground. Elements of a design will be seen as a focal point or in the background/foreground. This a way to use negative space in design. Our brains can distinguish the difference between objects in the foreground, background and focal point. Larger areas of the design will be seen as the focal point and smaller are the figure. Light and dark colors can also be used to influence what is viewed for each.

6.     Symmetry and order. People see objects as symmetrical shapes when possible. This can be done through harmonic color schemes or similar shapes.

7.     Synchrony. Parts of a design that move in the same direction are perceived as related objects. Therefore, objects that look to be moving in the same direction on a design will be grouped together.

8.     Continuity.  Lines are perceived as a continuous movement along the path. This can be used to guide the viewers eyes to particular parts of the design. It will follow the simplest path on the page.

The psychology behind advertising is quite fascinating. While this article just touches the surface of how it’s applied in the field, one can see how important it is. following these steps in advertising design will help your brand create successful print ads.

Friday Favorite 8/19/22

“The Monster” campaign was created from the region of Attica, Greece where the recycling rate is only 19%, and 79% of their waste ends up in landfills. So much plastic ends up in the ocean, killing sea life all over the world. Geologists are seeing plastic become part of rock formations. It’s absolutely maddening. This campaign is to raise awareness on the importance of recycling. The video goes to show a monster growing in size as it collects garbage along the sea floor. As it grows, each piece of trash is added on to the body. Everyone is afraid of the monster except a small girl. She realizes that she can defeat the monster by removing just one piece of trash from its body. The message of the campaign is this: “mastering the monster of garbage is as simple as recycling household waste,” according to ADWEEK. This topic couldn’t be more important now as the pandemic has increased the world’s waste problem with protective equipment and shopping packaging materials. The recycling problem is real and it needs to be addressed on a global scale in order to reverse the damage we have already done to this beautiful planet.   

Friday Favorite 8/12/22

 This week’s favorite should resonate with any working professional in today’s society. The print ad for the new Adsum + Timex MK1 watch takes a jab at the Apple watch stating, “Know the time without seeing you have 1,249 unanswered emails.” In the world of digital everything, this ad is spot on in the emphasis of digital detox. The sleek and simple watch design looks as though it could be a smart watch at first glance. We love this campaign and it definitely resonated with us. We hope you like it just as much as we do!

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.

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 Fave 7/8/22

We know we’ve been doing a lot of blogs lately on women. With women’s rights issues in American now how could we not? Sorry not sorry but we promise that next week we will switch it up for you. This week’s campaign favorite is on beer. The history of beer that is and how women were involved in bringing it to the United States. Without women there would be no beer! Let’s face it, without women there wouldn’t be a lot of things. These “Ale Wives” ran the beer industry in the beginning. The infamous, Mary Lisle, began running a successful brewery in Philadelphia and was the first woman to do so. According to  Miller Light, women only run 7.5% of the beer industry today. What’s going on ladies? Our hope is that this changes in the near future! But for now, let’s keep supporting the women that in the industry and thank them for bringing this delicious beverage into our lives. Shout out to  Triple Bottom Brewing. This current Philly local, female owned & operated brewery, is keeping the Mary Lisle tradition alive. This advertisement was done by DDB Chicagoalongside Alma Agency.

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.