Ads are shown in a clutter - is your message disturbed by the wrong emotional setting?

If you want your customers to remember your ads in an adequate way, make sure they have the right facial expression and get into the right mood.

The psychologist James Laird at Clark University let people read short texts - an article about dolphins getting killed and a funny story by Woody Allen.

While reading, one group got to hold a pen between their teeth – something that forces you to smile. The other group got to hold a pen between their lips – something that makes a smile impossible.

Afterwards they were asked to write down everything they could remember from the texts, and now the researchers discovered a stunning difference between the groups.

The ones who were smiling remembered a lot from the funny novel, but not as much from the sad story about dolphins. Those who had been forced to look a bit sad didn´t remember much from the Woody Allen story but a lot from the dolphin story. It turned out their mood (that was not natural, but created by a physical restriction of movement) had a direct affect on their memory, on what their conscious brain had chose to pick up.

This means you should get your consumer in the mood before presenting your message. If you want them to engage in a charity message, make sure they are crying before you grab their attention. If you want to sell light hearted products and make the consumers believe they will be happier owning them, make them smile. It´s all about the emotion you create, the way you make them feel. Watch out for the quick changes between 30 sec ads, where the viewers go on an emotional roller coaster - annoyed by one ad, aspiring for glamour in another, playfulness in the third... Up down sad happy angry concerned ambitious. Phew. Remember that your ad is shown in an environment, in a clutter, and that they might listen to your message after watching ads evoking the "wrong" type of feelings seconds before.

I guess this is why media placement can be so important. Media outlets are experts in bringing out feelings. Movies make us laugh our heads off or weep. The news turn us into serious responsible citizens, and when watching reality tv we feel deeply involved and self conscious. (Reality tv is like therapy...) By placing ads in the spots where the bullseye is touched, and not just the places the target is watching in terms of numbers, you can create magic. But by placing your message in the jungle of other ads you may fail badly, no matter how great the ad is.

Love Branding strategy model - what model do you work with?

I have decided to share my strategic planning model with you! This is how I organise my thiking when coming up with strategies and ideas for brands, and perhaps it can be useful for you as well. This is probably similar to how you work today, but some parts may be different. I needed to create my own ways, because the models I´ve worked with in the past have missed some aspects.

1. They are often written from above, with brand glasses, but I rather focus on the consumer and write "I think", "I dream about", and most of all I focus on what brings the two together. The product can be awesome, but not for everyone, and the consumer might need and wish for loads of stuff, but what do they need from the product? When you find a truly meaningful meeting between the two, you have built a long term relationship. To get there you need to observe, read and ask. Not guess.

2. They spend energy on the functional benefits. My focus is always on emotions, and the insight is an emotional revelation, not a piece of statistics. The product in itself and its many benefits is a hygien factor, not the true reason people will buy. I dig deeper and ask "why?" is this functional benefit good for you, until I find a core feeling. That´s where you find the key.

3.  They forget the blockages. Too many brands are dreamers and believe people when they say that they fancy the products. But what is stopping them from buying? Who is our enemy in the shape of believes, competitors, flaws? Trends may help us, but which trends are in our way? I´ve seen many strategies that are like fairy tales without the evil witch, but they just become naive and when meeting that bitch with toads and a black hat they are smashed - and they don´t know why (what!!! people said they really liked our product in our market research!!!)

And here is my way of seeing the funnel.

This work is in progress, feel free to discuss, improve and develop. What model do you use?

And if you want to have a look at my book "Love Branding - how to make people fall in love with your brand", it´s 10 dollar + shipping. Just email and we can sort it out.

Why are so many ads SO stupid? Or... are they?

I DO really love the strategist role, to spend all day revealing people´s dark secrets and develop the insights into strategies and ideas. To dig around in the human psyche, discovering what "the target" thinks and feels about all sorts of things, and then guiding them to meet the brand of their dreams... It´s a fantastic, super interesting job, but some days when watching ads on TV I get a little embarrassed and frustrated. What on earth am I devoting my time and energy to?

There are sooooo many crap ads out there! Perhaps they work, and the ROI goes through the roof but it´s just stupid, simplistic, deepening shitty values and driving people to buy for the wrong reasons. I´m ashamed sometimes of the rubbish. I wish to change things, but is it possible? Will The Good Guys keep on singing? Will K Mart still have fake people fighting about bargains as if they were retards? Will beer brands keep on offering guys hats and key rings? Who dares to break the traditions? Maybe it´s not even a good thing? Perhaps my ad ideas aren´t efficient, maybe I´m the one on the wrong track.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

In Cannes I saw so much fabulous work I´m still a believer, but after a night with Australian TVC´s I´m numb and want to stay under the doona.

Facebook is addictive - withdrawal leads to mental and physical distress

I just love Facebook.

Yesterday was spent in bed since it was raining and we had a massive Swedish crayfish party on Saturday, so I did not really check my FB, and this morning I´m just SO happy browsing around on the site again. Back to normal. In control. Visiting my own private gossip site, having a little chat with friends from all over the world, spying on their lives. Ah, Love it.

It´s weird how attached we become to our social media places in such short time (4 years!). I´m a dopamine driven person, so I love the sound of a new text message and anything new, any change, anything exciting, but most people get something out of Facebook. Right now, even some 70 year old ladies at my local café are talking about social media and checking Facebook... We can learn a lot about humans by understanding how attached we can be to the cyber company.

Actually, Facebook is highly addictive. This news came out in April this year:

Student 'addiction' to technology 'similar to drug cravings', study finds

Withdrawal symptoms experienced by young people deprived of gadgets and technology is compared to those felt by drug addicts or smokers going “cold turkey”, a study has concluded.

Researchers found nearly four in five students had significant mental and physical distress, panic, confusion and extreme isolation when forced to unplug from technology for an entire day.  

They found college students at campuses across the globe admitted being “addicted” to modern technology such as mobile phones, laptops and television as well as social networking such as Facebook and Twitter.

A “clear majority" of almost 1,000 university students, interviewed at 12 campuses in 10 countries, including Britain, America and China, were unable to voluntarily avoid their gadgets for one full day, they concluded.

The University of Maryland research described students’ thoughts in vivid detail, in which they admit to cravings, anxiety attacks and depression when forced to abstain from using media.

One unnamed American college student told of their overwhelming cravings, which they confessed was similar to “itching like a crackhead (crack cocaine addict)”.

The study, published by the university’s International Centre for Media & the Public Agenda (ICMPA) and the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change, concluded that “most students… failed to go the full 24 hours without media”.

The research, titled The world Unplugged, also found students’ used “virtually the same words to describe their reactions”.

These included emotions such as fretful, confused, anxious, irritable, insecure, nervous, restless, crazy, addicted, panicked, jealous, angry, lonely, dependent, depressed, jittery and paranoid.

Prof Susan Moeller, who led the research, said technology had changed the students’ relationships: "Students talked about how scary it was, how addicted they were,” she said.

"They expected the frustration. But they didn't expect to have the psychological effects, to be lonely, to be panicked, the anxiety, literally heart palpitations.

“Technology provides the social network for young people today and they have spent their entire lives being ‘plugged in’.”

The study interviewed young people, aged between 17 and 23, including about 150 students from Bournemouth University, who were asked to keep a diary of their thoughts.

They were told to give up their mobile phones, the internet, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and they were not allowed to watch television.

They were, however, permitted to use landline telephones and read books.

The study found that one in five reported feelings of withdrawal akin to addiction while more than one in 10 admitted being left confused and feeling like a failure.

Just 21 per cent said they could feel the benefits of being unplugged.

One British participant reported: “I am an addict. I don’t need alcohol, cocaine or any other derailing form of social depravity... Media is my drug; without it I was lost.

Another wrote: ‘I literally didn’t know what to do with myself. Going down to the kitchen to pointlessly look in the cupboards became regular routine, as did getting a drink.’

A third said: ‘I became bulimic with my media; I starved myself for a full 15 hours and then had a full-on binge.’

While a fourth student added: "I felt like a helpless man on a lonely deserted island in the big ocean”.

Prof Moeller added: “Some said they wanted to go without technology for a while but they could not as they could be ostracised by their friends.’

“When the students did not have their mobile phones and other gadgets, they did report that they did get into more in-depth conversations.

  

If you want to know your personality type based on what hormones that drives you, take the test here: http://www.chemistry.com/whyhimwhyher/ 

Love advice for brands - does your brand suffer from a broken heart? Is it single and unhappy?

Hey, it´s the weekend and time to think of love and life instead of branding and advertising (which is of course about love and life too; it´s all entwined...but that´s another story).

A few years ago I left the corporate world and my communication career to work as a love coach, guiding people to happier love lives. It is a rewarding job, seeing sadness shift into joy and hopelessness into faith.

Today I do both. I´ve merged my insights from marketing and research with my insights on romantic relationship in the concept of Love Branding (see above) and I am doing my best to bring deeper understandings of human nature into agencies, but I still help lovesick men and women all over the globe to inner peace. Some see it as flippant, but it makes me happy :) Today it´s more like a charity than a business, but my way to contribute.

I run a YouTube channel and here are some of the latest videos. Enjoy :)







More of them at www.youtube.com/carolinlovecoach and info on my services at http://www.thelovecoach.info/

Ads for charities are too stylish and pretty to make anyone care

At Bestads this week I´m watching a couple of print ads for charities. They are all very clever and beautiful, thoughtful and stylish. I find myself thinking of interior design, about hanging something like this on my walls back home. Hmm... Perhaps that´s the wrong reaction. I´m supposed to be touched and apalled, right? I´m supposed to get tears in my eyes and open my wallet, right? I´m supposed to care for trees, oceans and people with skin diseases. But the fact is I don´t. At least not as a result of these pretty pictures. To me they are pretty pictures. Horror and disaster dressed up in a gown. Pain and tragedy all botoxed and covered in Mac lipgloss. Serious issues put on display by a Photoshop master.

I´m not opening my wallet. It´s not that I´m an ice cold selfish bitch; I simply have to make a choice whether to open my wallet for this or that; I need to make priorities among everything that matters.

We can care for a lot of things, but if you really want people to act on an opinion, you need to do better than a fancy art exhibition. All research on charity shows us that we get generous when we feel empathy, when we can sense the cause, as if it was a part of us. By watching others suffer we won´t feel involved; we need to imagine being the person in pain to wake up and give. Our selfishness and ego-centrism is what drives us to really be altruistic. Funny huh?

When I see the girl covered in bugs I don´t feel them crawling on me. I feel sorry for her - and I get in the mood for a trip to the art gallery.

Customers with heart ache do not have emotional space for your message

This morning I got a comment on my YouTube video on "how to cure heart ache" that made me laugh and think.

My video is very sensible and I talk about that you can feel better by going back to your core, remind yourself of what you wish for and deserve; people who are happy within themselves will be magnets for love, but if you run around worrying you tend to make things worse.

Most people like the message and calm down, but this morning someone had commented: "Orrr just break some shit"

Lol... Yes, we are human and sometimes wisdom and sensibilitiy and the message "love yourself first" just sounds stupid and we can´t accept it because we are just SO mad, SO sad and we don´t feel like calming down. We just want to break some shit! We want a hug. We don´t want the responsibility.

It reminds me of a blogpost from Seth Godin the other day "Can´t watch your parade if the house is on fire" where Godin wrote:

"People are in pain. Often of their own making, they tell themselves a story that obsesses/distracts and compels them. "I'll never get a movie gig again," "I can't believe they didn't like what I offered," "My job is in jeopardy," "Money's too tight to buy all the things I want..." "Does my butt look fat in these shorts?"

You can jump up and down and sing and dance and launch fireworks, but if the consumer's story of pain is vivid enough, you will be ignored. When the house is on fire, all your audience wants is a hose."

In coaching, I often meet people who self sabotage. They say they want to find love, be in love, and love forever, but all they do is finding faults with everyone they date or push new lovers away by asking them for too much too soon. Deep down they might be scared of love, don´t believe they deserve it, or think a relationship will change life so much they will get seasick. Staying in status quo is simpler, you know what you have. So...

We say one thing. We do another.

We want one thing. We do everything we can to avoid it.

Sigh...

Your branding must cut through all this. It must love people beyond their role as "consumers". Marketing is about creating illusions and offer us all something that we believe we need. But don´t listen to what we say in the quant research (yes, I wish to eat heathly and exercise every day blah-blah-blah), but listen to what is underneath. The depth of it all, the subconscious, the hidden, the embarrassing truth. The smallness, the fears, the self doubts. That´s where you will find the real insight.