What makes an advertising campaign successful?Targeted to the right audience? Sort of. It doesn’t do much good to run an ad for snow blowers in Baton Rouge and, just because you place a banner ad for a hot new video game on the World of Warcraft chat-room doesn’t mean people will click on it. Targeting helps, but it doesn’t guarantee an ads success.
Has a call to action? Sometimes. It’s true; ads that spur you into action are successful. Burger King’s ads make me want to run out and buy a hamburger. Mission successful? Wrong. Although I now want a hamburger, I usually go out and buy any burger. The problem is I don’t care about Burger King burgers one way or another.
Inverts the bell curve? YES! If the consumer opinion to most ads were plotted out on a curve, they would follow a normal bell curve such as the one shown to the right. The problem with this type of curve is that most people don’t care about the ad one way or another.
Lets look at a successful series of advertisements from Apple. This successful series of Mac PC ads not only cause one to want to buy an Apple, but they simultaneously cause people to be dissatisfied with their PC as well. These ads offer strong compelling images (visual, verbal, and written) that polarize the audience and forces viewers to form an opinion
It is nearly impossible to watch these commercials without forming an opinion one way or another. PC die-hards staunchly refute Apple’s exaggerations, while Mac users, such as the ones in our office, love it so much they huddle around computer screens and watch reruns during lunch. Then there are people like me who use both a Mac and a PC. We watch the commercials and wonder whether the Mac has finally come far enough along to allow us to throw our PC’s in the trash.
If one were to plot consumer opinion of commercials such as the Mac-PC ads on a curve, then the curve would look like a skateboard half-pipe. The majority of the people either love it or hate it. Very few people lack an opinion.
We see this phenomena all the time with celebrities. There is a reason celebrities like Madonna, Eminem, and Paris Hilton are famous. Everyone has an opinion about them. They are impossible to ignore. These stars have realized that it is better to have people love you and hate you than to try to be loved by everyone.
Ostentatious looks and outlandish behavior might be the sure fire way to success in Hollywood, but these tactics can backfire in advertising. Too often advertisers try to invert the bell curve by making the ads visually or thematically over the top. The problem with this method is that it only polarizes the audience towards the advertisement and not towards the product. Burger King’s commercials are a prime example of incorrect polarization. A typical commercial in this series features the mascot, who is man with a big plastic kings head, popping up in the back seat of a car like a bad acid trip. At the end of the commercial I am left hating their lame attempt at trippyness, yet I remain ambivalent about their burgers.
A burger company that correctly inverts bell curve is Carl’s Jr with their “If it doesn’t get all over the place, it doesn’t belong in your face” campaign. These ads feature a sloppy, dripping burger packed with stuff. After watching this ad I know definitively that I do not want a Carl’s Jr Burger. I like my food to reach my mouth intact. However, sure enough there is also somebody out their that has watched the same commercial who responds with a “%^! Ya. Now that’s a burger.”
For a successful ad campaign (1) Invert the bell curve (2) make sure that when your prospects are saying “% Ya” or “%^! No” they are referring to your product and not to your advertisement.
By Drew Hendricks
Tags: advertising, lead generation, marketing by drew.hendricks
No Comments »
