Sam Hiner, Ridgemount
I’m just going to say it. I don’t like adverts.
*Cue your shock at such unbridled honesty*
They get in the way of whatever you’re watching or are sometimes just plain boring.
Now I get it; not every ad is going to be a stonker or go viral but at their very core they should at least be intriguing. An advert is the performance given by a brand and every performance needs to capture an audience’s attention.
I love a good performance. And I love a good advert.
You wouldn’t listen to a speaker with the charisma of a doorstop so why should brands be any different. Why should an advert which sounds the same as the competition or is astoundingly bland deserve your attention? I say it doesn’t.
What causes this breadth of boring?
When we’re stressed, we like things simple. And brands are the same; when the market is stagnating, budgets are shrinking, and the pressure is on, who could blame them for chasing more tactical or more ROI-positive messaging? Suddenly the focus is on the short term and hitting sales activations over brand building.
It’s something Les Binet and Peter Field explored in their book ‘The Long and Short of It.
This short-term focus limits innovation and creativity as teams are focused on immediate returns. Brands aren’t built on the back of white-hot deals, unless your entire brand strategy is based around high-low pricing, and you want to be known as a discounter. Looking at you, 1eternal sales king DFS.
But saying ‘we’re the DFS of the market’ isn’t exactly inspirational.
So is there room for creativity in a struggling market? You bet your non-existent budget there is.
We’re all in this together. Except not really.
It just requires a change of perception and trust in the long game. By understanding that it’s the market which is a challenge – and not your brand – you realise all your competition are also experiencing the same issues. And if you’re all chasing short term growth and saying the same thing, suddenly your brand becomes your most valuable asset.
Your brand is also your most resilient asset, according to research by Kantar. This resilience was highlighted by COVID where brands with a higher ‘meaningful difference (meeting customer needs and forming emotional bonds) were able to maintain short-term recovery and long-term brand growth.
So how do you tap into this resilience and make something meaningful?
Funny you should ask, that’s exactly what we did for Viega and their ‘mitsakes’ campaign. It started with understanding the state of the market. All press manufacturers were seen as the same which wasn’t helped by all the messaging being the same too.
Viega’s biggest USP was their enhanced safety features from SC-Contur which made it easier to spot mistakes. And when mistakes on a job site can be costly, having a campaign build around avoiding them is an emotional pull which worked. It helped we intentionally spelt mistake wrong too, to really rile up the audience.
The results were huge engagement and a creative campaign that cut through the clutter to deliver.
So when you’re weighing up how to approach your next campaign, be brave, lean into your brand and do something meaningful.