For advertising to be popular it has to be remembered, to be remembered it has to be recognised, and to be recognised it has to reduce cognitive load.
The best way to do that is distinctive assets. So far so good, but do you really know what your distinctive assets are?
While everyone knows what a brand asset is, distinctive assets make your audience immediately think of your brand. They’re often not the same things.
What makes assets distinctive?
The brain is a pattern-recognition machine, constantly scanning for familiar cues while at the same time being alert to novel stimuli.
Distinctive assets work on both levels – they become familiar patterns that consumers recognise instantly, while also maintaining enough uniqueness to stand out from competitors. This makes them very effective attention-grabbers.
When people encounter these familiar assets, like a logo, jingle or slogan – think Mazda’s ‘Zoom, zoom’ , their brains automatically activate associations with the brand, speeding up recognition and reducing cognitive effort. The asset can capture attention quickly and direct it toward the brand, rather than requiring mental effort just to identify what they’re looking at.
Who owns your distinctive assets?
Marketers probably think that they own their distinctive assets. However, it’s the audience who determines if something is distinctive.
While marketers might want to pick which assets trigger that effect, it’s not entirely in their hands. Nor are they very good at it, according to recent research.
Typically, marketers will select the assets they ‘like’ or the ones they have invested in, or they think reflect well on the brand.
It’s not unusual for a marketer not to like a strong asset, which makes it hard to want to use it prominently. The advertising history books are littered with stories of marketers who initially rejected icons that became central to the brand.
The Hofmeister bear is one of the most famous UK advertising bears from the 1980s. The sophisticated, sunglasses-wearing bear for Hofmeister lager initially faced scepticism from the marketing team and senior management who worried that a cartoon bear wouldn’t appeal to adult beer drinkers. Some marketing teams thought the concept was too childish for an alcoholic beverage. However, the “Follow the Bear” campaign became hugely successful and the bear became a cultural icon.
Top of mind in Aotearoa
TRA’s recent research of New Zealand’s favourite ads includes a range of ways that distinctive assets are leveraged and contribute to these campaigns being the most popular and top of mind.
It’s important to note that these favourite ads are chosen out of the context of their category. People aren’t asked for their favourite supermarket ad or fast-food ad, which means the ads they mention shine a light on memorability and entertainment value.
What’s in an asset?
The top 10 New Zealand ads include characters (real and animated), colours, logos, objects, the product, tag lines and music. However, it can be hard to determine what is a true distinctive asset. The ‘Power of KFC’ ad has the packaging centre stage throughout, while in Lotto’s ‘Powerball Imagine’ ad the ticket isn’t always present; it appears early in the ad. The ‘Imagine’ image also has a prominent top right hand corner slot.
Sometimes an asset has more than one element that makes it distinctive. Pak‘nSave’s stickman has to be a contender for most distinctive character-based asset, but would you instantly associate it with the brand without the yellow background?
What cues recognition for ASB’s Ben and Amy? Would they still be distinctive if the background wasn’t yellow? Would the Sharma family, if they weren’t surrounded by ANZ’s blue? Tina from Turners is similar with a strong character and a prominent use of blue, but now also has a song.
Why is sound a powerful asset?
They are using the song for the first time, so it’s unlikely to have embedded itself yet. Sound however is a powerful asset. We are hard-wired to pay attention to it: a loud bang, screeching brakes, rushing water all have us on hyper alert.
Then of course there is the curse of the ear worm. I hummed the music from the Interisland ferry ad for about three months. How many of you can remember singing along to an ad as a family when you were young?
TRA found that 25 per cent of people cited the soundtrack as one of the things that caught their attention.
Ask your audience
So, do you really know what your distinctive assets are? Are they the same as the assets your audience uses to associate your ad with your brand? Trying asking them – you might be surprised.
The post What makes your brand distinctive? Ask the audience appeared first on stoppress.co.nz.