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. T
Importance of Mobile Optimization
We assume that your brand wants to reach every consumer that it can! If this is true, then your business must adopt a mindset that has the mobile experience in the forefront. In our previous article we talked about how different generations require different marketing techniques. Many of these reasons are due to technological preferences across generations. According to the HubSpot State of U.S. Consumer Trends, 56% of people surveyed stated that they use their mobile phones for searches and 44% of those people discover new products through these mobile searches. You’re probably reading this article on your phone right now aren’t you? It’s important that whatever your brand is putting out there not only looks great on desktop format but also on a smartphone. The more user-friendly things are the more likely they are to stay and discover what your brand has to offer them. It should be noted that mobile optimization and mobile friendly are not the same. Mobile friendly will display on smaller screens but mobile optimization will actually reformat itself for a mobile device. Websites should not only be clean but simple to navigate as well. Improving your brands mobile optimization of its website, newsletters, etc. will get you higher search engine rankings, increased positive audience experiences and in turn, more business.
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.
Consumer Attitudes Toward Brands
Consumer attitudes play a large role in consumer behavior and their decision-making processes. Consumer attitudes are a composite of their beliefs, feelings and behavioral intentions toward your business. Beliefs are composed of past experiences to develop an attitude toward something. Sometimes feelings are based on beliefs people have, but can also be independent of it. Lastly, intention is what the consumer intends to do with respect to your product or service. Of course, all brands want consumers to have a positive attitude for their business. Some studies showed that consumers may change their attributes toward an existing product/service if exposed to new ones that reinforce positivity. Measuring consumer attitudes can be difficult because they can have conflicting beliefs and feelings about one thing at the same time. However, surveys can be done in order to get an idea of consumer’s attitudes for your brand. It can help your brand make future decisions on products and/or services and improve attitudes toward your brand.
Which Social Media Channels are Best for Brands
According to Statista the leading social media platform for brand marketers is Facebook at 93%, with Instagram coming in second at 78%. Even if you’re a content creator, you want to get more engagement and turn followers into customers. We couldn’t agree more with this statistic. Let’s think about why this is. Look at YouTube for example. Sure, you can monetize to make money here but, you can only engage with your followers if they leave comments on your videos.
Customer Acquisition Guide
If you’re in the business industry we’re sure you’ve heard of customer acquisition but just in case you might be a newer start up let us clarify it for you. It is the process of finding and guiding customer to buy from your business in a way that is measurable and repeatable. This happens in 6 stages: awareness, interest, consideration, intent, evaluation and finally purchase. Awareness and interest fall under the umbrella of leads. Consideration, intent and evaluation fall under prospect. Those who purchase are then your customers.
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.
Advertising Predictions 2022
2021 was a great rebound year for advertising after the catastrophic one that preceded. Now that some of the dust has settled, we’ve been seeing inflation; interest rates increasing at sizable rates and stocks dropping significantly. A recession is now predicted and feared to be here sooner than later. But what does that mean for the advertising industry?
Connecting Authentically with Black Americans
Do you know the difference between race and ethnicity? A lot of people are unaware that there is a difference between the two. Race is the division of different groups of people based on physical characteristics, such as skin color, eyes, etc. Ethnicity is a social group of people that share a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, etc. For this reason, African American is no longer an accepted term for people of color. Actually, 1 in 10 Black Americans are foreign born from many countries around the world and therefore, black is a more inclusive, widely accepted term now.
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.
Marketing on a Budget
Inflation is here and it’s having an effect on every industry today. There’s no denying it. With the current state of economic affairs, we thought an article on how to maximize marketing on a budget was beneficial. Here’s a quick bullet point list.
1. Harness the POWER OF UGC. Of course, we’re bias on this topic since this is what we do. That being said, this is one of the best ways to market on a budget. It can cut the costs of production and according to Hubspot, production takes up to 24% of the marketing budgets. Pre-production and post-production come in at the second highest costs.
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%.
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.
Emotional Advertising
Of course, we all buy things out of necessity or want! However, as it turns out a lot of us buy things driven by emotions. A study done showed that “70% of viewers who experienced an intense emotional response to an ad were very likely to buy the product” (Unruly). This brings to mind that overly drawn out commercial for the SPCA. In the ad you’re shown sad faced, pitiful looking animals while Sarah McLaughlin sings in a melancholy tone the background. Yea, you know exactly which one I’m talking about. They’re really selling it home hard with triggering the emotional response here. This is the text book example of an emotional ad. Makes sense to advertise this way. IPA Research showed that, “ads with purely emotional content perform twice as well (31% vs. 16%) compared to those with only rational content.” It appears we are emotional beings rather than rational.
Multicultural Advertising
Gen Z is the most multicultural generation to date and it’s expected that multicultural advertising budgets are going to increase in the coming years. It’s estimated that the white population in the U.S. will actually be the minority by 2043 according to the U.S. Census. Large cities all across America are now enmeshed with loads of diversity and with the social justice movements during the pandemic, inclusion is now necessity in conducting good business. Yesterday we wrote an article on cross-cultural advertising, so today we’re going to focus on the importance of multicultural advertising. As essential as it is today, it is still no easy feat to create multicultural ads that resonates with its audience and does not offend or alienate them. Thus, we thought we would put together a tips list to help you get started.
Cross-cultural Advertising
First off, let’s note that cross-cultural and multi-cultural advertising are not the same. Multi-cultural advertisements are created with a specific ethnic group(s) in mind where cross-cultural advertising is created in order to reach many different cultures simultaneously. Although it may seem straight forward, multi-cultural advertising is a little easier to achieve than the broader spectrum audience of many cultures. Specific ads that may do well in one country may not always do well in another and in countries that are melting pots, such as the U.S., you want to make sure your message gets across the way you intend. Thus, cross-cultural advertising brings with it certain challenges. That being said, cross-cultural advertising has never been more important in today’s global society. Different cultures are more accessible in every part of the world with technology and transportation. It’s imperative that agencies adopt a cross-cultural approach to their advertising strategies. It’s not straight forward but the work will be worth it! Here are some things to consider when creating cross-cultural advertisements.
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.
Friday Fave 6/17/22
Father’s Day is a few days away, so what better ad to spotlight this week than one that promotes celebrating dad’s day everywhere! Our Friday favorite this week is for Oreo titled, “Milk’s Favorite Cookie!”
The Rise of Interactive Advertising
Did you know that there is a term called ad blindness? It is a term to explain the phenomenon in response to how people have begun to cope with being subject to constant advertising. People have developed a coping mechanism to subconsciously and sometimes consciously tune out advertisements. In fact, 82% of Gen Z skip or ignore ads completely according to A List Daily. You can check out our article from yesterday on tips to make your advertisements more engaging but there is another kind of ad emerging that seems to increase engagement; interactive advertising. Actually, interactive advertisements have been shown to increase consumer attention by 47% and 32% more memorable according to a study conducted by Magna Global. So, let’s talk about some different types of interactive advertisements.
Social Media Stats 2022
Upon all our blog research here at Locomotive, there is always a recurring theme in advertising with social media. It’s now one of the most important parts of an advertising strategy in today’s world. We found some really interesting stats that we wanted to share with all of you. We know it helps us see a clear picture of who is watching what and where. It’s important to know where your target audience is to better serve them.
