Make Real Connections

We are studying it. How did it happen? Why did it happen?

There were the motivations -- conscious and mostly subconscious -- of the recipient. There were the motivations in the ad -- again, conscious and mostly unconscious. The interaction of those two streams caused the result.

Wait, some will cry. Okay, persuasion is hard … but awareness is easy. We have all tacitly agreed to awareness as what we are mostly selling.

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Unfortunately, most of the money invested globally in advertising is directed by that settling-for-proxies mindset. Accepting attention, awareness and recall as enough. I thought we had laid that to rest when the amusing (but not sales producing) Bert & Harry Piels commercials were taken off the air in 1960, and the advertising industry began its seismic shift to measuring persuasion instead of recall. The so-called revolution from recall to persuasion turns out to have been largely performative.

Nevertheless, marketing and advertising have increasingly been getting better with the evolution of measurability, addressability and interactivity, as I promised in the Media Science Newsletterback in the 20^th Century. Direct marketing know-how has been integrated into brand marketing thinking over the past two decades. We are starting to achieve the Hegelian synthesis of the false dichotomy of brand equity and sales performance.

But there is still work to be done! Further we must go.

The essence of the Big Idea has been lost. What is that essence? One of the most consistently successful ad executives of all time, Bob Schmetterer, explained it in a single word: "Psychology." Bob went on to add: "Marketing and advertising are all about psychology."

We must put that back in. The latest findings of the science of psychology are well discussed in academia but not in the C suite. That must change. Peter Drucker said the same thing a long time ago and no one was listening then, either.

Challenge and reward creative teams to integrate science and art to create experience moments where your brand actually connects with a person. Not just recall but an incremental degree of new bonding with the brand.

Those counts will not correlate as highly as you might suppose with the impression counts.

For years, many of us put in long hours of pondering how to cause advertising to become more authentically natural and human in communicating with people.

There have also been bribe-vertising schemes that paid people to watch ads. The execution of such ideas has always demeaned the brand. There's that psychology thing again.

My own idea has always been sponsored uplifting mini-programs in commercial pod inventory -- and P&G's "The Talk" epitomizes what I recommended in my newsletter last century.

In addition to this idea, my friend Sue Fennessy, the genius who brought you the first accurate media spend data on the planet with Standard Media Index, is today taking into reality a brainchild of her's, WeAre8. This is a totally new form, not fitting into any pre-existing pigeonholes, and it's aimed at real connections. Real connections matter. Other impressions are breakage.

The "ad" experience is changed in WeAre8. A community has been formed, with great support from distribution partners including British Telecom and EE (BT's mobile arm), and 80 advertisers have already experienced using the system. People opted in to be able to make a positive difference in the world. They would be paid to watch ads and answer quick questions, and beyond what they are paid, the brand makes a charitable donation every time an 8Citizen watches a sponsor video.

In each WeAre8 campaign, the brand provides a video and a few questions, the community is offered the opportunity with a short description of the subject, the individual decides whether or not to look at it, and a minute or so later enjoys the good feelings of what his/her minute accomplished to help the world -- where the donation went and the impact it had. Citizens can choose to click on to find out more from the advertiser. This clickthrough is not incentivized.

On average, 97% of the time, the WeAre8 user accepts the voluntary viewing of the brand ad or other video content, and 30% of the time, the user also clicks through to additional content that is not incentivized. Each brand specifies the metrics/questions it uses. The averages so far:

Conversion = 58%
Purchase Intent = 72%
Increase in Brand Favorability = 66%
Increase in Brand Awareness = 83%

These high scores based on questions specified by the advertiser are obviously much higher than we are used to seeing for normal intrusive media advertising. About an order of magnitude higher. Suggesting that these are opportunities for brands to have a true human connection with people while cooperating to help the world. Implication: every advertiser should test this medium within an ROI framework in synergy with normal media and other altruistic media (e.g., altruistic brand messages in ad pods/display), and decide future allocations accordingly.

Advertisers who are already using WeAre8 are enthusiastic. Jimmy Hughes, Social Media Lead of Heineken says, "We've run three campaigns already with WeAre8 and the performance results we are seeing are truly groundbreaking. We know exactly where our media spend is going -- how much is going to 8Citizens, how much is going to WeAre8, and how much to [the chosen charity]. The platform is completely aligned to our Inclusion, Diversity and Sustainability agenda at Heineken and we cannot wait to continue working together.''

Laura Godsmark, Brand Manager of Fairtrade says, "WeAre8 is a natural partner to Fairtrade as we are both on a mission to change the world for good. The team [members] are fantastic to work with and Fairtrade are very proud to be supporting them on this journey. We can't wait to see where this collaboration takes us in the future!"

Millennials and Gen Z exceed the rest of the population in their expectation that advertisers are going to use their leverage to make the world a better place, but this expectation is spread widely across all demos, too -- and is increasing over time. I predicted this to the heads of J. Walter Thompson and Grey a half century ago. They agreed it was going to happen but felt their clients at the time would not be ready to lead it. Here we are. Time to test the new tools and create your own new ones which cause real brand engagement, not just the appearance of it.

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