The theme of this year’s Earth month is “Invest in Our Planet.” This directive is targeting everyone from individuals at home to business at the workplace. We’re going to focus on the latter for the purpose of this article. We want to participate in Earth month this year through raising awareness of ways to be greener in business practices. Here is a short list of some tips to help get you get started.
AI & Copyright Laws
Artificial intelligence is the hottest topic right now. There are so many questions surrounding the technology that can create art, text, and even advertisement scripts based on certain actors’ personas. One thing that not a lot of people have talked about are the issues surrounding AI creations and copyright laws. Since it’s such a new territory these waters haven’t really been explored yet but there is some buzz starting to circulate around it. Think about this, AI is trained to search massive data pools that surround the parameters it’s given to create something.
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.
Marketing Attribution
Let’s be real, no one likes wasting their money! Well, maybe those who have it to waste. But most of us will do anything to save a buck in our personal and business lives. Marketing attribution is a technique that does just that in the business world. Marketing attribution evaluates areas of brand marketing strategies during the consumers path to purchase to see what leads to a purchase and what doesn’t. This allows for the brand to allocate more resources to those strategies that lead to revenue and back off on those that don’t. Thus, saving the company more money and ultimately, bring more in. The benefits are pretty obvious in order to optimize resources and budgets.
Programmatic SEO
We all know that high SEO is important for your brand but what is programmatic SEO? Even if you’ve never heard of it, it is quite common practice in the digital space. Instead of spilling a definition at you, let’s look at an example of programmatic SEO and work our way backwards. Imagine you do a web search on best restaurants in (city) and when the results come back with a TripAdvisor page in at least the top 3. The reason for this is that they have a page for almost everything travel related anywhere in the world. They have to create thousands of landing pages in order to increase their SEO ranking. This is programmatic SEO in a nutshell. It is building a database of thousands of pages that are connected to a template in order to rank higher in Google’s search query. They all use similar, long-structure keywords. Brands can use this to write the content and publish for them instead of having to it all manually. So, how do you implement programmatic SEO? Here is a quick tips list to get you started.
Autism Awareness Month
April is autism awareness month and we recently saw a wonderfully done ad stating that girls are 3x’s less likely to be diagnosed with autism. Autism is a spectrum disorder and is a condition related to brain development that impacts how a person perceives and socializes with others. Although there is no cure for this, early diagnosis and treatment can make a huge difference in the lives of those that have it. It’s important to understanding the early signs that can change a child’s life.
Brand Salience
When I say Nike, you think… we’re pretty sure the image that came to mind was the iconic Nike swoosh. This is a prime example of brand salience. It sounds similar to brand awareness but they are different. Brand awareness focuses on measuring overall visibility during the entire customer journey. Salience is a measure of awareness during the actual purchasing decision. The Nike swoosh might come to top of mind when you want a new pair of kicks. So, how do brands increase their salience?
Demand Driven Pricing
Imagine that it’s winter time and you go to the sale rack at the clothing store. There are a ton of bathing suits marked down. This is an example of demand driven pricing. It’s a method that considers fluctuations in customer demand and adjusts prices to fit changes in perceived value of items/services. Let’s think about what goes into the price of an item or service. Looking at an item we have to think about factors, such as manufacturing costs, market, competition and quality. Taking these factors into consideration allows for demand driven pricing tactics as long as the brand is covering their costs to manufacture their product with some profit left on top. There are a few different demand driven pricing tactics to discuss.
Common Mistakes to Avoid in the UGC Space
UGC found content is a very effective way to market your brand. It helps create an emotional connection, reduce marketing spend, engage your audience and make your brand stand out from the rest. However, it’s important to know what good practices are when creating a UGC found content campaign. Here are some common pitfalls to avoid and why you should steer clear of them in order to have a successful campaign launch.
Women’s History Month: Women in Advertising, Eliza Jane Nicholson
The first female publisher in U.S. history was Eliza Jane Nicholson. She ran the Daily Picayune from 76’-96’. And when we say that, we mean 1876-1896! Not only was the first female publisher, she owner the entire major newspaper. She moved to New Orleans to become a professional journalist and began working for the Daily Picayune, where she wrote under the name, Pearl Rivers.
Consumer Trends March 2023
Trends shift so very quickly in our society today. It’s important to stay on top of what’s hot and what’s not in the advertising world. Every few months we do a dive into what is important to consumers and the trends that they’re following. Here is what we found as we’re about 4 months into the year so far.
AR & VR: What is the Difference & Why is it Important in Marketing?
Well, from all the science fiction movies over the years, I think we all understand what virtual reality is. It’s a software that immerses the user completely in a 3-D environment that is interactive in a 360-degree way. A good example of this is the Get Supernatural Fitness experience. Augmented reality is slightly different from that. This virtual space layers elements on top of a real-world scene in order to use the space they’re actually in while changing elements of the experience. Pokémon Go is an example of this digital reality experience. Let’s dive into how each type of these digital reality experiences can be used for marketing.
Product Ecosystem Theory
Let’s go way back to science class. Remember what an ecosystem is defined as? Yea, we didn’t either, so we did some research and it is defined as a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. It’s also simplified by saying that it is just a complex network or interconnected system. Let’s go with this last one to describe what a product/service ecosystem is. I’m sure you’ve guessed already. It’s a new theory that describes how products coexist and complement one another. It also implies that products will inherently evolve over time, such as that in nature and parallels how species do the same.
Jack of No Trades, Master of One: Benefits to Niche Businesses
Sometimes it is better to stop trying to please everyone! I know this might seem counterintuitive to a business, but it is the truth. Jess Wheeler talks about this in his recent newsletter and it has inspired us. We couldn’t agree more. You’re never going to stand out from your competitors if all you’re doing is trying to be like them. It’s time to stop following the crowd and create your own path. The only way you’re going to do this is by making people some type of way.
The Frequency Illusion
Loss Aversion
No one likes losing and it isn’t limited to certain parts of our life. Losing sucks in any way, shape, or form. Loss aversion is the behavioral phenomenon that individuals perceive loss more severely than gains. According to Behavioral Economics, the pain is about twice as powerful than a gain. This means that people will go out of their way to make decisions or take risks purely based on what they avoid losing rather than what they will be gaining. This is why it’s sometimes argued that punishments, rather than rewards for doing or not something are more motivating.
This or That: The Framing Effect
Let’s create a hypothetical for you. You go to the store to get some yogurt. One claims to be 80% fat free and the other brand says that it only contains 20% fat. Which do you choose? If you’re like most individuals, you choose the 80% fat free option. This is the framing effect. It is a cognitive bias that influences our decisions by the way that information is presented or “framed.” When something is framed in a more positive way, we tend to lean in that direction since we’re wired to avoid loss. This can sometimes cause us to overvalue how something is said and undervalue what is being said. Looking deeper at this takes you into the prospect theory of psychology. As we age we become more susceptible to the framing effect as our cognitive functions diminish.
Sticking with What’s Familiar: The Mere Exposure Effect
Sometimes the best decision is not always the familiar one. The mere exposure effect, also known as the familiarity effect, is when people chose preferred things, they’ve seen over things that are new. You can see why it is also called the familiarity effect because we tend to choose things that are familiar. This effect occurs even if the exposure is short and goes unnoticed by the viewer’s conscious mind. Therefore, the more someone has been exposed to something the more likely they are to like it.
Notable Women in Advertising: Phyllis Robinson
Phyllis Robinson was born in 1921 and earned her Bachelor’s Degree in sociology from Barnard College. After WWII, she moved to Boston from NYC and started working at Grey Advertising where she wrote fashion ads for Bresnick & Solomont. She was a chief copywriter for DDB in 1949 and was the first ever woman to hold this roll.
Decoy Effect
How many times have you been out to purchase something and ended up with more than you essentially went for? The decoy effect may be the explanation for how you’re being influenced without knowing it. This is a pricing strategy that offers 3 options and one of which is only designed to get you to switch your choice to the more profitable one.
