Current Topic: Advertising

When I was a student, I once had the honour of giving a presentation to the board of directors of a Fortune 500 company. In this presentation me and my project group proposed multiple recommendations in order to improve their communication efforts. This was one of my first big presentations, so naturally I was a bit nervous. This feeling caused me to refer to their communication efforts as “shit”. In all honesty, those communication efforts were certainly suboptimal, but my choice of words was even more so. I can still hear my group leader grunting loudly in the background when I think of it.

We live in a returns culture, where delivery is free and so are the returns. Zero shipping fees and favorable in-store return policies make it very attractive to bulk buy products consumers don’t need. When consumers return their purchases, it causes losses for the companies due to extra logistical and repackaging costs. An increasing amount of returns have a negative impact on the environment too.

Marketers should strive to reduce the returns to save costs and reduce the adverse footprint on the environment. A recently published study has discovered a simple yet highly effective technique companies can use in this regard.

Sex in advertising campaigns can go both ways. On the one hand, it is an attention grabber. Being able to capture a consumer’s attention in this overly crowded world is potentially one of the best qualities an advertisement can have. Additionally, watching a sexual advertisement is a positive and rewarding experience.

On the other hand, sex can disgust people. Imagine watching tv with your friends, colleagues or family. All of a sudden, a naked woman is promoting the newest fragrance by some brand. You go red and avert your eyes. Seeing such a sexual image makes you feel dirty. How and why does sex sell, when it can bring about such different feelings in consumers?

The use of curiosity in marketing is nothing new. Every day, our curiosity is activated by teasers, advertisements, blog titles, and e-mails in our inbox. They evoke a motivational state to obtain missing information. We feel an irresistible urge to gain the missing knowledge. And…before you know it, you fell for it! You have watched the full video or clicked on that email to read its content. Your curious itch is scratched.

But that’s the problem. In order for this type of marketing to work, the consumer has to take that extra step to actually satisfy that curiosity. Although we experience an urge to close the gap between what we know and want to know, nowadays we are bombarded with click-baits and teasers. And the more it’s used, the less we fall for it.

Every day, companies and brands vie for the attention of consumers. Through a consumer’s interaction with a brand’s product, this brand wants to become an inseparable part of the consumer’s life.

But should brands focus on the individual consumer? What if a brand can become an inseparable part of the consumer’s relationships – for example, with a spouse? It appeared that brands can benefit from focusing on couples and their shared usage of brands’ products through becoming a significant part of their shared identity narrative.