The study of attention across channels, creative and measurement is thorough and ongoing. This first thought piece in a three-part series here on Branding Strategy Insider complements this research with a perspective on the consumer experience. Which is all about clutter. Well before consumers can attend to ads they must deal with clutter. The challenge of clutter is navigation, as discussed here in part one. Part two is about the ripple effects of clutter, which give rise to delegation. The brand imperative is reciprocity, as outlined in part three.

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The consumer gripe is clutter. Not ads. Consumers like ads and dislike clutter. Increasingly, though, it can be hard to separate one from the other. Ads come clad in clutter—the unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of our overfull information (AKA: knowledge) society. The shopping journey is a jaunt through clutter. What consumers encounter is mostly clutter. Clearing a way through clutter is how consumers pay attention to ads.

The related concept of the attention economy—and its corollary elements of overload, scarcity, storage, processing and technology fixes—was first articulated by Turing and Nobel awards recipient Herbert Simon in 1971 as part of a conference panel on computers and communications.

In 1988, educational psychologist John Sweller showed that learning could be improved by reducing the cognitive load involved in problem-solving. People must throttle their attention to keep from being overwhelmed by overload. It’s not getting easier.

The quantity of information and data bits vying for attention is growing multiplicatively. While the number of ads consumers are exposed to each day is far short of 10,000 (yes, I am person zero for that flawed viral figure—long story), digital media and channel proliferation mean more ads than ever. Not to mention more entertainments, SKUs and stores.

It is not in the nature of marketers to hold back. Consider virtuoso Atlanta adman Joel Babbitt who once lamented the wasted billboard space on the sides of stray dogs. When he ran marketing for the 1996 Olympics, he sparked a global outcry with his plan—ultimately vetoed—to launch a gigantic metallic billboard into geosynchronous orbit to promote the event.

Nor is it good business to hold back—to stay competitive, more requires even more in response. Without crossover synergies from multiple touchpoints, channels and outlets, ad campaigns underperform.

IDC estimates two zettabytes of data were created worldwide in 2010, versus 64.2 in 2020 and 181 projected in 2025 (up from its earlier projection of 175). But the bigger part of cognitive load is density not number. Data flows are now much richer in quality and require greater interaction and response. All of which expends more of one’s limited reserve of cognitive energy.

The solution for consumers is better navigation. At the turn of the century, some counterintuitive research had a clickbait moment with findings that too much product choice is demotivating. This academic work got a real-world test post-financial crisis. Many retailers tried to jumpstart sales by slimming down choices. Walmart made the biggest splash with its 2009 Win-Place-Show program of SKU rationalization. It did not go well. Less choice led to less sales. Two years later, Walmart did a U-turn.

Consumers are not dissatisfied with lots of choices per se. Consumers become demotivated when it is difficult to navigate lots of choices. What is true of product SKUs is no less true of advertising. As is evident time and again in surveys about advertising and satisfaction.

Few consumers want less choice. Just better ways to navigate the plethora of options. Which should be relatively easy to engineer—it’s choices nested within choices nested within choices, etc., seven at a time plus or minus two.

Consumers like shopping and ads. As long as clutter—and, as it turns out, decluttering, too—doesn’t take away all the fun. Hence, the brand imperative of better navigation.

On The Radar

Clutter, however, is like weeds, about which George Washington Carver once said, “A weed is a flower growing in the wrong place.” Clutter is information, too, just not relevant or useful in the moment. As such, it gets in the way, competes for attention and detracts from the experience. Consumers only have so much attention to give. Clutter comes from the mismatch between cognitive capacity and the quantity of information consumers must sort through to find what they want.

Cognitive capacity is limited. This is old news, with enduring insights. The post-WW2 surge of computing spurred a lot of research into the best ways to integrate computers with people. Information theory was an originating idea in the budding field of cognitive psychology (as it butted heads with behavioralist orthodoxy), from which came George Miller’s 1956 paper on the cognitive limits of working memory, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two.” Seven is our real-time cognitive capacity. The influence of Miller’s paper is so great that it has its own Wikipedia page.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider By Walker Smith, Chief Knowledge Officer, Brand & Marketing at Kantar

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On the other hand, it is less clear that celebrities sell more product, create greater loyalty, or increase consumer and media discussion of the advertised brand (in contrast to the ad itself). Ads that sell, whether to first-time consumers or to long-time repeat purchasers, give consumers a reason to buy the advertised product. Curiously, relatively few Super Bowl commercials, and television commercials in general, offer a reason to buy.  An analysis of 15 years of Super Bowl commercials found that only 21% contained any explicit or implied statement of how the advertised products differed from other products in the category. Other studies, in other contexts have found similar results. Whether called a value proposition, a brand differentiating message, a brand promise, a unique selling proposition, or something else, ads that sell include a reason for the customer to buy. If this is the case, why do so few commercials include such a message?

One reason for the lack of advertising messages that sell is a misunderstanding of the role of creativity in advertising. Indeed, this misunderstanding begins with the misuse of language. The term “creative” is often used to describe the content of an ad, regardless of how creative that ad might be. Indeed, the term implies that a creative message is always better. Media expenditures are often referred to as the “working budget” suggesting investments in the advertising message is non-working, so why invest in a compelling message, especially if the ad is otherwise entertaining. Such use is not only misleading, it leads to poor advertising decisions.

First, there is the problem with the term “creative.” The term is often used interchangeably with content, which can be more or less creative, or original. Indeed, a very compelling message might well be one that is effective and repeated often. Such messages may not be perceived as very creative, but they still work. Thus, the “priceless” campaign for MasterCard has persisted and remained effective for 25 years. “Great taste, less filling” was a theme of Miller Lite for three decades. BMW’s Ultimate Driving Machine campaign has been in use since 1973. There are numerous similar examples. To be sure, there was some creative variety around these themes, but the themes persisted because they communicated a reason to buy a product. Originality was less important than effectiveness, defined as selling a product by giving consumers a reason to buy the product.

Scholars who study creativity generally agree that something is “creative” if it is both original, or novel, and effective at producing some intended outcome, such as selling a product. Too often, “creativity” is defined solely in terms of originality and used as a substitute for a compelling product message. The problem with this approach is that being too creative, or original, can be distracting. Indeed, an otherwise persuasive product message may be made less effective by embedding it in so much “creative clutter” that the product and the reason(s) for buying it are lost (“that was a funny commercial; who was it for?”).

Properly understood, creativity in advertising consists of three elements, each of which may benefit from or be harmed by creativity, in the sense of originality. The first element is the product message, the reason the consumer should buy the product in the first instance or why the consumer should select the product over others. An important element of creativity with respect to the product is the product itself: how it is better, different, more convenient. Developing such a message often requires a focus on the product itself, product innovation and improvement, though it can sometimes involve identification with unique people, feelings, or uses. Thus, Apple, a technology company, has been successful in communicating empowerment and self-expression as reason to buy (though the underlying technology helps too).

A second element of creativity is strategy, that is, how the advertising will do its work of moving from communication with consumers to consumer purchase. Pepsi was an “also ran” product to Coca-Cola when its message was price (“Twice as Much for a Nickel”) even though the price message bought it sales during the depression. It was only when the strategy shifted to a spotlight on taste, with creative vehicles like the “Pepsi Challenge” and a focus on attracting consumers new to the category (the Pepsi Generation), that Pepsi began to achieve parity with Coca-Cola. Creative strategy can matter.

The third element is how the product message is delivered within the context of the overall strategy. This might include celebrities or other spokespersons, jingles, visuals, demonstrations, and a host of other elements. This is what is often thought of as “creativity” in advertising, and such creativity matters. An ad that attracts attention to a strong product message in a compelling and credible way will indeed be effective. The challenge is to deliver the product message in a way that reinforces attention to it rather than distracting from it. Of course, if there is no product message, no amount of creative delivery is likely to be effective at selling the product, even if the ad is entertaining and likeable.

Finally, there is the question of what part of the budget actually “works.” The reality is that no amount of media spending can compensate for an ineffective product message. Such media expenditures are “non-working”. On the other hand, a strong product message facilitated by a strong strategy and delivered in a compelling fashion can dramatically improve the effectiveness of the media. However, it is the message that is working, the media are just a tool for leveraging the message.

What does this mean? More attention and resources devoted upfront to product and message development are likely to produce large returns. Relative to media expenditures the additional upfront investment is likely to be modest and will reduce the waste associated with large ineffective media expenditures that support a poor product message, or no product message at all.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dr. David Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Marketing and Business Law, Loyola Marymount University, Author, Financial Dimensions Of Marketing Decisions.

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Creativity is the biggest variable when it comes to ad effectiveness so if an ad works well, it should be used for as long as possible. Coca-Cola’s ‘Christmas Caravans’ ad has been used every year since 1995 in many countries across the globe.

Yet very few ads are used for more than a few months. What a waste! Why does this happen? Is it to do with licensing issues? If so, how could this problem be addressed?

Research data indicates that advertising ‘wear out’ is a rare occurrence:

• It is true that if people see an ad more than 2-3 times in a week, its impact on sales diminishes – but after a short break, the ad’s effectiveness returns.
• The response to an ad shown over months and years rarely changes. Enjoyment doesn’t diminish, and people do not get fed up with seeing it.
• Ads that communicate motivating new information about a brand do ‘wear out’ in the sense that the persuasive effect of the news diminishes once the audience has already heard the news. However, only a minority of ads work in this way.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dan White, author of The Soft Skills Book, The Smart Marketing Book and The Smart Branding Book

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The five situations:

1. Similar brands. (When your doppelgänger gets all the credit.)
2. Similar branding devices. (Imitation is sincere flattery but bad branding).
3. Parent/sub-brand confusion. (Too much family resemblance.)
4. Misattribution to market leader. (The big wheel gets all the grease.)
5. Misattribution to everyone. (Shining a light on everybody.)

To put it another way, these are situations in which a brand fails to create enough difference. Difference builds brand value, but difference is a matter of communication, not product. It is what people believe about a brand—so advertising is critical to difference.

A Multi-Faceted Problem. Bad advertising hurts a brand in many ways. These charts are drawn from Kantar client work on behalf of Brand A, a mobile phone brand. In this category in the markets of interest at this point in time, many brands overlapped in terms of imagery and benefits. Brands A and B, especially. As part of diagnosing what was going on with Brand A, Kantar assessed its advertising. On the left, it’s clear that the ad was bad in multiple ways. To begin with, it failed to break through the attention span of 59 percent of consumers. Then, among those reporting some sort of recognition, just as many attributed it to other brands. Contrast that with the advertising of Brand B, which was working at roughly the level to be expected. However, Brand B had been off-air for a long time, yet, as seen on the right, its reported awareness went up. Courtesy of Brand A’s bad advertising.

Motivating, Too. What’s examined in the Kantar report from which these results are drawn is memorability, or the power of advertising to bring attention and recognition to a brand. That’s important, but not nearly enough. If the difference communicated—and recognized and properly attributed—is not motivating, then all is for naught. Difference alone is never enough. It’s never a matter of mere difference, even though many discussions of difference talk about it in isolation. It must be a difference that is motivating and meaningful. It must give people a compelling reason to buy. It must solve a need in a unique way. Difference could be trivial. Which is the unexamined part of the results shown here. Brand A’s advertising could be bad because the difference it is communicating is so frivolous that it is forgettable, thus randomly remembered, if at all. Difference must be motivating, too.

Difference In The Doing. High-level plans have to be right, but in the end it all comes down to execution. A lot of emphasis is placed on strategy in marketing. It’s the main focus of most marketing textbooks. It’s the big ideas we like to get on panels to discuss at conferences. It’s the way tales are told and reputations are made in business media. But strategy succeeds or fails on execution. This applies to building difference as well. In whatever way brands are designed and built, if difference is lost in the advertising or other communications, then the strategy fails.

Not because the strategy was bad, but because the strategy was badly executed. This is one reason why there is so much heat in the debate about difference vs. distinctiveness these days. The latter is little strategy and all execution. But there’s a confusion. Just doing things matters, but doing things that push strategic difference will always matter more.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider By: Walker Smith, Chief Knowledge Officer, Brand & Marketing at Kantar

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Evoking A Reaction

Of the top five emotions evoked by SEM ads, the top three are positive; the next two are negative. It is not surprising that the top emotions are positive. Ads are targeted for specific audiences and thus explicitly composed to resonate positively with the beliefs and values of a group of people. More interesting are the negative emotions of guilt and sadness evoked by SEM ads. These emotions rank almost as high as the positive emotions. Ads are not supposed to trigger negative reactions—no brand wants to be linked to negative emotions. But sustainability is different. There is no way to broach it without a negative element, even as part of an upbeat message about what a brand is doing or offering. And particularly true in the broader context of other communications, like those mentioned above. The rank-order gaps versus ads without SEM underline this unique paradox of sustainability.

Feeling Guilty

The emotion of guilt reminds us that fear of some sort is always a part of SEM ads—the self-reproach and fear of climate change that evokes guilt. When it comes to SEM, there is no way to avoid fear. By definition, worry and fear are part and parcel of it—the environment is part of the message only because it is threatened, and the idea is that people should be fearful enough to make a brand choice on that basis.

The body of research on fear appeals is huge, much of it health-related—smoking cessation, cancer screening, safe sex, etc. Which is different than brands touting the environment as a product solution or for image building. Still, the objective is the same—to motivate behavior. Thus, the same question applies to wit: What is the best way to handle the unavoidable element of fear? Typically, we lean in on inspiration and lean away from fear and guilt. The right answer, though, is more fear.

More Fear

Fear is one of the foundational and most researched topics in persuasion. The literature is vast, but there are definitive (and replicable) results from meta-analyses of this extensive research. Contrary to popular belief, fear appeals work. And the more fear the better. There are no threshold effects or backfire effects. However, to succeed, fear appeals must include an action plan or ‘efficacy statement’. Plus, fear appeals mostly work for one-time actions not repeated behaviors. Obviously, buying the brand should be the plan, but this must have a clear, direct tie to efficacy, not just name-drop a cause.

Most of all, people must feel a high degree of susceptibility and severity. In short, a personal sense of risk. Reminding people of a general threat is no motivation. So, what’s needed is more fear—of the right sort—not more positive vibes. Only that will turn inspiration into action.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider By: Walker Smith, Chief Knowledge Officer, Brand & Marketing at Kantar

The Blake Project Can Help You Craft A Brand Advantage In The Strategic Brand Storytelling Workshop

Join 20,000 Marketers Who Have Taken A Transformative Journey To A Bigger Future In Mark Ritson’s Mini MBAs In Marketing And Brand Management Courses.

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