Advertisers, Skip the Platitudes in 2021
During the Covid-19 crisis, too many advertisements have pushed unconvincing messages of “our brand cares about you.” Instead of repeating these platitudes and emphasizing the uncertainty of these times, marketers should highlight message of perseverance. Such messages, as illustrated by recent ads from Nike and Disney, encourage consumers to look ahead toward a time when normal consumption patterns can resume.
While the United States goes through a reckoning and grapples with internal divisions, businesses are wrestling with exactly what they should say about it all. Looking for relevance and timely messaging, marketers and advertisers are hard at work trying to say just the right thing.
Unfortunately, many are tempted to continue offering the same old platitudes. Just as they did when the pandemic set in, brands are so afraid to say anything controversial that they end up saying the same things over and over in unison. As one popular YouTube video pointed out, “Every Covid-19 commercial is exactly the same,” filled with somber music, descriptions of “uncertain times,” and promises to be “here for you” — all in ways that have little or nothing to do with the brand, and therefore did little or nothing to win over consumers. Such advertising goes in one ear and out the other.
If this trend continues, we can expect the messaging ahead from businesses — through ads (such as at the Super Bowl), social media posts, online videos and more — to center around themes of unity, healing, and getting along. There’s nothing wrong with those sentiments per se, but as advertising messages they are unlikely to inspire purchases (which, unfortunately, is typical for Super Bowl ads).
The role of marketing is to encourage people to buy or support something, whether it’s a product, service, campaign, or candidate. Ads showing that it’s nice to get along, just like ads saying that brands care about you during the pandemic, don’t offer something concrete to buy into.
But there is a message businesses can deliver at this time that would be powerful and constructive. According to research my firm conducted, the theme we need from marketers now is perseverance. If done right, this theme can do more than just win over buyers to certain brands; it can help restart the economy by getting people who have money to start spending it again.
Consumer confidence suffered in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. In the most recent month available, November, it fell yet again. Personal consumption accounts for an estimated 70% of GDP. Until consumer confidence, and therefore consumer spending, rise back up, the economy will remain in a slump.
Many assume that the vaccination rollout will do the trick, helping people feel safe and comfortable to resume activities and spending, loosening purse strings. But spending decisions aren’t made rationally. They’re the result of complex subconscious processes.
As research from Harvard Business School and Nobel Prize-winning discoveries have explored, virtually all purchase decisions are made on a subconscious level. So the key questions are: What will drive people’s instincts to spend, make purchases that they’ve put on hold, and resume more normal customer behavior patterns? And what can advertising do to trigger those instincts?
Throughout my 25 years of work and research, I’ve explored what lies inside the shortcuts that people take to make purchase decisions. As Wharton neuroscience professor Michael Platt and I have written, inside consumers’ minds lie networks of memories and associations with any given brand, both positive and negative. I call each of these networks a “Brand Connectome.”
Consumers don’t realize it, but these hidden networks dictate the brands they reach for most often. And these connectomes keep changing over time. They’re remarkably malleable and dynamic. Marketers can influence them by building up positive associations, overwhelming any negative ones.
These connectomes aren’t limited to brands. Causes, political candidates, and events have them as well. Covid-19 has one. And it’s currently having a huge impact on consumer confidence.
Using our proprietary algorithm, we looked into the subconscious associations consumers have with the pandemic. We found that the Covid Connectome involves two opposing clusters, like a tree trunk that divides into two strong branches: preservation and perseverance. The pandemic has triggered powerful associations for both, and the two sides are battling for dominance. Currently, preservation is winning.
Humans adjust and adapt. When frightening disruptions occur, we want to hunker down and hold onto what we have. We seek homeostasis. Because of the length of this pandemic and our strong survival instinct, a network of interrelated associations related to preservation has emerged. This includes everything from family activities and bonding to cooking and gardening. Memories associated with preservation have been reinforced through new rituals, becoming more entrenched. A “Covid-stasis” has set in — a state of suspended animation that is keeping us stuck in place.
But humans also desire to keep moving forward despite the obstacles. We want to resume the activities we love, make progress, achieve our goals, and not let the pandemic prevent us from living our lives. Spending is a part of that.
When the perseverance side of the Covid Connectome grows larger than the preservation side, people will start to spend again. Money will start to flow like lifeblood through the economy.
Advertising that carries the right messages, imagery and metaphors or cues, plays an important role in making this happen. First, it should validate consumers’ need for preservation. Reflect an understanding of their natural desire to feel safe. But it should also help edge consumers more toward the perseverance side.
Two ads from last year show especially well how this can be done. One for Nike, titled “Never Too Far Down” (part of its “You Can’t Stop Us” campaign) uses comebacks in sports as a metaphor. It highlights famous athletes ultimately rising and persevering for the win. The other is a Disney ad titled “Tomorrow is Just a Dream Away.” It shows families holed up at home, then suddenly feeling elated because they’re planning a trip to Disney World. Rather than showing people currently at the theme park, this ad taps into the viewer’s fondest, nostalgic memories and positive associations to create the instinct to book a future vacation.
By building positive associations around socialization, exploration, adventure, celebration, and innovation, advertising can make the perseverance side of the Covid Connectome expand, waking consumers up out of Covid-statis.
If marketers only want to make people momentarily laugh or tear up, and feel good themselves about having “buzz” surrounding their campaigns, they can stick with advertising that gets attention yet fails to achieve results. But if they want to inspire action, they should focus on what marketing can do best: Reach people’s innermost mental processes and trigger their instinct to buy — for the sake of both the brand and the economic recovery.
Advertisers, Skip the Platitudes in 2021
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