Empathetic Advertising

Watch it live on MediaVillage today The FQ Virtual Equality Lounge Davos 2022amp160 Marketing and advertising have not paid sufficient heed to the fact that all people have two levels One level is the one that they are consciously affecting their mask how they present themselves to others and to themselves The other is so deep inside of them most have lost touch with it that39s why it39s called the subconsciousThe conscious Freud posited a quotmanagerquot function he called the Ego in the present world culture we call quotcivilizationquot is a reservoir of how we have been conditioned to quotfit inquotamp160The subconscious the part that makes 95 of decisions is the side of us that harbors our aspirational self who we would want to be if the world let us if we didn39t have to work at something paying us moneyIf we are now bent as an industry on making our advertising empathetic let39s make it empathetic to the subconscious self who we really are au naturel before the conditioning to fit in got layered over those hopes and dreams That is 95 probable to be effective because it appeals to the Deep Self that commands 95 of our choicesLet39s compare the two fundamental alternative advertising approachesAddress the conscious mindAddress the subconscious mindBefore we proceed let39s acknowledge that there is a taboo in this area Mind control as a tool of advertising has been a popular myth since Vance Packard But in reality neither of the two approaches is inherently more ethical than the other We all attempt to persuade one another of things What can make this unethical is if one is insincere and seeks to trick or coerce the other or is covert ieamp160uses purposely hidden measuresAddressing the ConsciousWhen one seeks to address the conscious mind the first job is to capture their attention and maintain it while you tell your story and get them to remember who you areThis used to be a lot easier than it is now The first year a family got a TV set they couldn39t believe how much fun they had and didn39t have to pay a penny for the programming They had only to tolerate some commercial interruptions which were a novelty in themselvesNow that one is constantly tempted to lift and see the little screen btw 70 of digital ad spend is now through mobile and the level of acceleritis information overload ensures a backlog of inner distractions from recent memory the mind is eager to go back to the present world audience is in analysis paralysis mode all the timeUsing this approach to the conscious one is drawn into using an excusable degree of trickery by means of baiting the attention with something tangential to the brand39s main point then adroitly ie without losing the audience switching subjects to communicating a rational benefit or brand image then making sure all too often only at the end to let them know which brand you39re referring toAddressing the Deep SelfHarvard39s Gerald Zaltman has published findings proving that 95 of the buying decisions consumers make are made by the subconscious mind No one has taken issue with this as it is so selfevidently true Simmons has shown that demographics and geographics combined account for an average of only 6 of brand adoption The rest is caused in the Deep SelfThe Deep Self is always there the experiencer of all that goes on within and without The attention of the Deep Self is always looking for important things to focus upon but in the absence of anything but the usual trivia defaults to the Default Mode Network DMN which intuitively steers through stimuli whether presented internally or externally The DMN we hypothesize is always in touch with a Subconscious Alarm Network SAN which is always scanning for threats or opportunities Theamp160SAN is always interested in picking up on any signals which relate to the individual39s driving motivationsA brand seeking an empathetic approach will gravitate toward this method use the opening of the spot to identify the brand and in the audio and video tracks convey the main motivation of that individual as identified by whatever data are used to understand that individual39s deepest motivations not related to your product but related to the individual39s hopeful dreams about their own future life RMT passively measures these 15 RMT motivations based on the content they consume through media RMT detects the motivation strongest in your ad based on humanmachine semantic semioticamp160and kinesthetic analysis and can then recommend the best IDs and contexts that will positively resonate with that motivationBy signaling that motivation is what you want to talk about the attention of the Deep Self of the viewer will be obtainedThis elevates the experience from a pitch about a mere product This is talking about the most important stuff in lifeIn straight advertising the motivation will then need to be connected to the brand For example if the individual is mostly motivated by having interesting positive experiences that will be connected with the brandIn a branded content approach such as normally used in digital display quotnativequot however in this case used in video including on linear television in ad pods the brand announcement at the beginning could take the form of quotBrand X Presentsquotamp160a leaderboard or animated logo that lets the viewer know that they are going to be seeing a bit of philosophy from Brand X The content that follows need not mention the brand nor even the product category The message merely establishes that Brand X is on your wavelength and might impart some suggestion that is actually helpful in achieving the outcomes that motivation wants More than two dozen random control experiments show that true sponsorship of content without a brand pitchamp160averages 7X the persuasion effect of the average 30secondamp160TV commercialIn linear TV and other nonaddressable media one is selecting vehicles based on the degree of motivational resonance between one39s creative executions and the aggregate average audiences of the alternative programs rotations andamp160networks One can also predict this motivational skew of the audience by use of RMT content analytics The two methods can be used together for maximum effectZooming Back to the Bigger PictureMarketing and advertising have remnant mass marketing memes clogging their neurons Their approach to creative strategy with notable exceptions is stuck in the modality of the 1950s addressing the conscious mind seeking to capture attention and then cause persuasion and branding before losing the audience Like skeet shooting crossed with a tachistoscopeMeanwhile the culture has moved on and occasionally grunts something impolite about advertising and about big brands lost in space and not understanding quotmequotamp160Wherever they can they depend on each other and small new businesses with prosocial motivations to decide what to buyThere are seeming disconnects in the data One source reports that the average TV spot gets a few seconds of attention at best while TRA Nielsen NCS BHCamp160and many others continue to report that TV has higher ROAS return on ad spend than digital How could both of these things be trueIt39s because TV does its job often without requiring a high degree or a constancy of attention Typically one sees a commercial more than once Even straight 1950stype ads if used today as is common gain cumulative effect across a campaign in some cases simply by a reminder effect The whole process could be described as subliminal because it39s going on mostly in the background of the mind and yet this is enough to have effect If you like a brand but have not used it lately even just hearing something for a second from the next room can help cause you to buy that brand again sooner than you would haveThe old marketing advertising model was pretty flat and stayed on the surface of things The new marketing advertising model is already far more nuanced and still has a long way to go As always there are leaders fast followers etc Today a number of agencies advertisersamp160and media are regularly using the RMT motivational approach Every year that number grows At the same time other researchers with similar views are pushing back the veil companies such as Semasio and NeuroInsight academic superstars such as Dr Americus Reed at Wharton addressing deeper levels of what makes us individuals and motivates us beneath the surface consciousness and all RMT partners in the pursuit of advertising that speaks to the Deep SelfSoon CMOs and other senior practitioners will be visualizing the world as it is where brand messaging through media is like water around fish and is absorbed and acted upon to the degree that it is relevant to the Deep SelfClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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Empathetic Advertising

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Bill Harvey

Don’t’ Back Down; Double Down on DEI Investments - By Jack Myers

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