Let’s just call it out that consumers no longer trust advertisements. They either ‘skip’ the ad completely or they use ad blockers. The consumer today is so evolved and active in their buying process, that they not only enjoy the power to discover the brands they’d invest in, but at the same time mute the brands they aren’t interested in. As admen, it’s imperative that we change the old intrusive ways of reaching our audience and focus more on customer-centric targeting.
Always gun for mental availability
There might be many key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure a campaign’s success, however ‘mental availability’ is quintessential. Mental availability is a play of various factors. Continuity in media planning makes sure the brand lives rent-free in the minds of the consumer. Without continuity, the consumers won’t hear what the brand is saying, and ultimately will stop listening. Big bursts or a single IPL sponsorship in one year won’t fetch you anything. It’s important to build the brand consistently across key platforms, providing experience and engagement, tailor fit and personalized comms. Keep in mind the seasonality, curate occasions for the brand and create core memory structures onto the brand. Latch on to the new age way of registering the brand in the minds of consumer through disruption. A creative, innovative, and differentiated big idea will pierce through the noise and generate the desired attention from the target group (TG) and amplify it on multi-media to garner a lot of buzz and virality.
Did someone say meaningfulness?
Today, the audience is changing and so is media. Brand trust has reached an all-time low and consumers wouldn’t care if 75% of brands disappeared (Source: Havas Meaningful Brand Study 2021). Now is when we create the most meaningful media experience for our audiences. An experience that goes beyond a regular plain vanilla media plan. Our TG is breathing content and living a 10-second story limit in their social media. A basic cliched media will never resonate with this high-octane cohort. We must look beyond reach and frequency. CONNECTION x CONTEXT x CONTENT is the way to activate and develop a rich immersive and meaningful media experience for the brand along with building ROI at each planning stage. Connection: How we reach the right people to catch the right attention of our audience. Context: The best environment where we know they had the right attitude. Content: The right formats and messages that will have the most impact. Today, he who aims at creating meaningful connections by targeting the right audiences in a clever way, in a context that makes sense to them, is a winner.
Consumer attention is the ultimate currency
The ‘attention economy’ is growing in importance for marketers. Post pandemic, there has been a shift in viewership (3+ screens) as well as the purchase behaviour of the consumer, and it’s time we sync up with these trends. Initially, we used traditional media to build reach and frequency. But now that’s just passé. Now, we must look at real-life behaviour to assess the impact of advertising. Quality reach is the need of the hour. Attention metrics is a valuable measure of effectiveness across both traditional and digital channels. The irony is, we think we live in a digital era, but while 43% of 30-sec TV ads are being looked at, they generate 13.8 seconds of actual attention v/s 5 seconds of YouTube ads (Source: The true cost of advertising attention; Mike Follett, 2021). This tells you where and what the audience is up to. It all boils down to - greater the amount of consumer attention your communication yields, greater the probability you’ll move brand KPIs. As planners, we must aim to jam together media, creative and data to capture the right consumer attention and thereby measure the impact of advertising.
(Preksha Kotian is Manager - Strategy, Havas Media Group India)
