What makes you pay attention to an ad that is what kind of an ad is a good ad?

To that question, there are as many answers as there are people on this planet. We all look at the ads from our own perspective and interpret them. Because everyone has their own, subjective opinion, I can only speak for myself.

I've started to get irritated by ads lately since they are everywhere. Some reasearches say that people expose to more than 40 000 ads a year. 40 000! That's a huge number of ads. And to how many do we actually pay attention? I cannot recall too many of them to be honest. Especially Australian TV is full of ads – have you ever paid attention how much there actually are commercial breaks? I'd like to run an experiment and take time how many minutes they are showing ads during programmes. I will report the results later. Moreover, it is more tricky to try to capture people's attention since everyone's doing there own business during commercial breaks – unless there's something really interesting going on. ”You have to find your own pink elephant.” -Paul Rogers

As we all know, ads have different functions: to inform, to remind and to persuade your target audience. Even though an ad is informative, it doesn't mean that it should be boring. On the other hand, persuasive ads might end up being nothing but persuasive. It's becoming harder and harder for advertising people to try to come up with new, fresh and innovative ideas, because that is what companies and customers are eagerly looking for.

There are two elements that appeal to me in ads: humor and emotions. If an ad is funny, it makes me laugh and feel good, it is probably going to do the same when others see it too, so I'll share it. Nowadays, when the social media is a part of our everyday lives, it is almost too easy to share those Youtube clicks. The more people share it to their networks, lets say for 300 people for example, after a few shares, there's an enormous reach – cost effectively. I believe that it is not too hard to try to pursue managers when saying out loud the magic word ”cost effectiveness”. One of the best ads that will fall into this humor category is the ad by Carlton Draught. There are familiar elements that will from now on have new associations in consumers' minds and will definitely be on top of mind when someone's feeling like a can of beer.

Using emotions in ads might be an effective way to get your message through. I must admit that I'm quite a sensible person and when I saw the ad for quit smoking campaign, in Australia, I almost started to cry. Basically the ad asks what is more terrible than to hear the doctor saying that you have a cancer. The answer: to tell it to your children. Even though I've never smoked, it made me feel really emotional and really got to me. I hope it will also reach its target audience and not just anti-smokers like myself. Even if you didn't care that much of yourself, the ad might make you thinking about others and how your death would affect to your near and dear ones.

Advertising in its traditional sense is changing all the time, e.g. facial recognition I wrote about. Companies are also trying to create interactivity with consumers and try to engage them. One example of are experiential campaigns, where people are actually in the ad either participating or looking at it real time. This ad by T-Mobile promotes cleverly their telecommunication services since people start sharing to their networks what they've just experienced. In these kind of flashmobs, people don't might even recognise that it is actually an ad and therefore people don't be as irritated as they might be when just looking at an ad.

The main thing is to evoke discussion: either your ad is funny and people share it or it is terrible – and people still share it. It might be even the purpose of the ad to annoy people and get them involved so that there will be constant buzz going on in the social media. But there's nothing in between. If your ad doesn't evoke any discussion at all, it's nothing but average. Strangely enough, I sometimes have the feeling about my posts being average since there are no comments. Maybe I should change my strategy and persuade readers in different ways. If you have thoughts or ideas, feel free to drop a comment!

What kind of ads appeal to you and why do you think they are effective? You can for example leave Youtube link for me to watch and write a few words.

Facial recognition – cool or creepy?

It isn't just something that appears only in sci-fi movies. In fact, it is reality - facial recognition, with which marketers can do miracles, is here. Using facial recognition in the ads is one of the most recent inventions within marketing. Whilst the usage of this tehnology is still in its infancy, I believe that within a couple of years' time only the sky will be a limit and we will see a more creative ad after another. Some might say that it is one of the coolest things on Earth while some might argue that companies are using the information gathered about consumers unethically and trying to trick them to consume more.

Facial recognition software is trying to define the gender by length of hair, lips or jewellery, age by wrinkles and mood by forehead and lips. Defining the gender and age will enable to show ads which are relevant to certain segments and therefore companies would be able to reach their target market more effectively and the cost of advertisement would eventually be reduced when companies would be able to reach the desired target market. The more the technology develops the easier it is to show relevant ads to consumers.

uberphones.com

 

Magnum recently announced that it will be the first company in Australia which is using facial recognition in its ads. The ad will recognise when a person is smiling and thereby it causes an interactive element which enables the viewer to eat the Magnum – virtually of course. This is a step further from segmentationally tailored ads. An example of this kind of ”discrimination” of showing ads to certain segments only was the campaign ”Because I am a Girl” by Plan in the UK. A huge group of people, that is all males, were excluded of seeing the full ad which demonstrated the situation of those girls in developing countries who don't get the same chances as boys do. Effective? Totally.

When the technology develops further we are sure to see individually customised ads which are directed only to you. Companies might gather the data from various sources and the companies owning the information are going to make a lot of money out of it. Such sources might be for example companies' databases which include a lot of valuable information about demographics and what customers have bought. Moreover, one of the most valuable sources which consumers might not even think about is Facebook. People voluntareely share a lot of details of themselves and what they do like – all of which is desired by many companies. If companies have an access to that database they can produce ads which are directed to each consumer. Cool but creepy.

Like said, the sky will be the only limit when putting this into practise. While I was batting I came up with one idea. If I went for a holiday it would be cool to see restaurants, music events or shops nearby based on the things I like. Furthermore it could tell more information in detail, for example the opening hours, the route to those places and how to get there as well as the price to name but a few. Or if I was in a shopping centre, the ad could show what kind of clothes I should go and have a look at based on the brands I like. On the other hand, that would require that whoever has created the ad would have an access to my Facebook profile information. I am not quite sure whether I would like that to happen or not.

Furthermore, it might also be an effective tool in some campaigns for example showing ads about the dangers of tobacco to people who are smoking. Or when you are entering to a supermarket a billboard might show you an ad that you might start gaining weight (if having bought one chocolate bar too many lately) and suggest some healthier snacks instead. 

What kind of an ad would you like to see?