Spot the difference: why is everyone making the same ads?
Brands continue to serve up the same content as their competitors and wonder why it doesn’t cut through. 3rdspace Communications' Rob Logan shares the worst offenders.
Take few moments to watch the two videos below. What do you notice about them?
Yep, they’re pretty much exactly the same. Like, almost shot for shot.
It happens so often across so many categories – brands serving up the same content as their competitors and then wondering why it doesn’t cut through.
With the above examples you could swap the logos for APT and Riviera and the outcome would be exactly the same. How is a strategy of copying your competitor going to win you any customers? It’s just marketing for the category.
When we start defining a content mission for our clients we spend time having a look at the competitive set and sometimes even ask the client to name the brands behind the content. It’s rare they pick them correctly.
To cut through, content needs to have the consumer at the heart and be built around strong insights and brand truths, but also there are always opportunities to disrupt what the pack is doing and cut through with hero content campaigns that don’t look or take the same narrative as your competitors.
It also seems that the higher the price point, the less risk averse brands are:
Jewellery: great looking model or celebrity with a piece from the brand.
Cars: highlight the car in aspirational location or escaping with the family, beautiful exterior shots, internal shots showing the instrumentation and cut to the driver and/or family enjoying the experience.
That’s why I love this new piece of work from The Wieden+Kennedy team in Tokyo, who decided to leave the car clichés in the bin with their latest campaign for Audi Japan. They opted for an approach that tunes into emotion and headspace, leaving shots of the A7 Sportback and A8 until the final seconds of the two spots.
And of course, travel.
If you go back to the examples at the top there’s a pretty obvious formula to spruik travel. Panoramic destination shots, authentic experiences and people slightly more aspirational than me enjoying themselves.
Obviously there is a reason a lot of these elements are included, they’re evocative and trigger something in customers. But even when it is a must from the client to have them, any content creator worth their salt will relish the opportunity to make content which is more relatable and not same same.
It’s proven that taking a differentiated approach to market works. Consumers can become snowblind to the usual cliches of your category, but bundled in a different way you can use them to your advantage, and drive actual awareness for a brand rather than just a category.
Why spend marketing budget to make money for your competitors.
Rob Logan is director of 3rdspace Communications.
What would be better for jewelry? An unattractive model, and the product left out of the creative?
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What about something with an idea?
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We used to call it Isomorphism, the tendency for all structures to be in so many ways similar.
Today we have created an environment which is perfect for isomorphism, it is driven by the mono culture and the deep seated fear of expressing an idea, any idea which risks running foul of the supposed acceptable norm, the politically correct view, or the brand new and ever tightening status quo.
Creative means being free to express ideas, so called “blue sky thinking” ( I hate that expression) or risk taking, the golden rule of the no rules associated with Creativity, is that there must be a certain amount of reckless abandon. We have cloistered ourselves in socio – political bullshit, and lost sight of real ideas and real expression.
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The only time I see a video ad now is in the cinema if I’m paying attention. Occasionally the odd add on a commercial tv steaming service. I imagine a lot of people are the same and see very few commercials. So showing the product simply and what it does is a lot more interesting to me than trying to create an emotional attachment. Honestly most ads now should be a web address and a brief explanation of the product begging us to look it up if we are interested.
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Oh, well perhaps we should just go monochrome and have a line drawing and a description like the original newspapers. I fear that the brain will seize up, and become more like a bar code scanner, requiring only subliminal flashes if we follow the road you suggest.
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