Why are so many ads Yawn Triggers and Lame Lovers?

The problem with most marketing attempts is not that they are annoying, ugly, or bad, but that they are invisible, and impossible to remember, either consciously or subconsciously. They don´t make us feel anything at all, so we simply don´t notice them. But you need to awaken a feeling in order to be adored.

Brand guru and author Martin Lindstrom once researched 60 different TV commercials produced by 20 car companies and he found remarkable similarities in their approach. “Each one had a scene in which the new, shiny, and seemingly driverless car guns its way around a hairpin turn in the desert, sending up a dramatic little cloud of dust – poof. The thing is. Though the type of car might have differed, that scene was exactly the same in every single commercial. Same swerve. Same turn. Same desert. Same dust cloud.”

I have noticed the same phenomena with mascara. The ads I found when going through magazines all focused on facts and all looked the same, showing a headshot of a dark haired girl, gazing into the camera with a bored look on her face. All ads talked about “volume”, as if all women want is to have really massive eye lashes, the bigger the better. Even the names are getting more and more extreme; the latest mascara from Maybelline is called “Colossal” and the new release from L’Oreal is named “Explosion”.

The models´ lashes are obviously getting larger from using the right mascara, but there is no emotional value presented what so ever; the girls just stare at you with their mascara surrounded eyes, as if they don’t dare to either move or blink (maybe they are afraid those eye lashes will break!). How is that supposed to make me feel?

Ads that use "love" in a lame way - as the Priceline ad above saying "Women love Priceline because Priceline loves women" - are just as meaningless. It is just words! If a lover is telling you "I love you" a hundred times, or "you love me" another hundred does not build a bond between people. It is simply empty words.

Love Branding is not about using the word love or a bunch or love hearts in your marketing. It is about evoking strong positive emotions within your market, making them stay with you forever.