There is more to communicating with consumers than emotion – so why do advertisers keep selling themselves short on big ideas?
In the current climate, striking the right tone in consumer communications is more challenging than ever - so how can advertisers use data to ensure they get it right?
In 2013, marketers for the Big Bash League (BBL) cricket were gathered in their East Melbourne HQ, scratching their heads over a 20% contraction in attendance. By 2018, the BBL was in the top five most attended sporting leagues in the world – and data-informed communications had everything to with it.
Marketers for Cricket Australia, BBL, were scrambling to find solutions. In its second season, the little sibling to national Australian test cricket was struggling to gain momentum with sports fans. “Should we raise the salary cap to attract more marquee players?” speculated one marketer, “How about dropping the price?” asked another, wincing at shrinking margins. The marketers for BBL were strategising based on their understanding of traditional rational and emotional drivers for cricket attendance. For test cricket attendance, national pride and star players have always been strong motivators: for sports marketers, this has historically translated to famous faces in ads.
When BBL approached Forethought founder Ken Roberts for assistance, he suspected that what was right for test cricket might not be right for BBL. Forethought’s job is quantifying the rational and emotional drivers of purchase habits so brands can make better decisions: with their creative briefs, their operational performance, and their advertising budgets.
When Ken undertook the analytics for BBL cricket, he found that BBL attendees were uniquely motivated by ‘happiness’ rather than pride. And where ‘pride’ meant local sports stars, ‘happiness,’ it turned out, translated to friends, family, and ultimately, accessibility: the price of an admission ticket. Using the data they had gathered, Michael Fisher, then marketing manager for Cricket Australia, decided to leave pride for test cricket and instead, focused BBL communications on eliciting happiness.
BBL marketers took a streamlined brief to their agency partners. Their TVC commercial by M&C Saatchi focused on the faces of laughing children in a crowd, and the price of a family ticket – $42.00 – at every point the camera moved.
There wasn’t a bat, ball, or seven-figure-cricketer in sight.
BBL rocketed to a place in the top five most attended sporting leagues in the world. The campaign was so enduring it remained unchanged for six years.
It was a prime example of what can happen when creative agencies have a well-informed brief: one structured around scientifically derived insights into the rational, as well as emotional, motivators for purchasing behavior.
So, why doesn’t this happen more often?
Ken Roberts says the challenge lies with traditional agency approaches to campaign work. Agency creatives love selling in ‘big ideas’ – almost as much as they hate thinking of themselves as salespeople. Too often, when presented with a client brief, first instincts will move a creative director to envision something emotive, with artistic merit that captures the attention of awards judges. The creative will put aside considerations outside of their control, like consumer sentiment and consumer price sensitivity – factors that compromise their vision and can feel too close to the grubby realities of the sales desk.
But expensive campaigns that don’t work do more than make marketers feel powerless. When Roberts spoke at Mumbrella’s MSIX (Marketing Science Ideas Exchange) conference, he used the example of a campaign that the NY Forethought office observed at close quarters. The program was the brainchild of the CEO and cost 150 (USD) million. It scarcely resulted in a single additional dollar. The case drew gasps from the audience. They didn’t need to be beancounters to know what that meant: the CEO got fired as well as the agency.
Agencies have often used a church and state division between emotional and rational decision making to justify sprawling, blockbuster campaigns. A favourite example of the agency creative is Antonio Damasio’s Descartes Error, in which the neuroscientist uses the case of a patient. The patient had experienced a brain injury that affected his emotional processing, but not his rational mind. The emotional ‘detonator’ that enables humans to decide was off, making him unable to make a decision. This example has been used to illustrate the foundational role emotions play in purchasing decisions. But the message is often simplified: emotional decision making is an integral factor, and therefore, the only factor. In reality, emotional and rational work in tandem.
It follows then that optimum creative will appeal to the emotional and rational mind.
Crucial to rational decision making is perceived value. Communicating value doesn’t need to translate to slapping your pricing everywhere. Instead, it means finding a way to communicate what Roberts refers to as “price brand” – the tangible value consumers can expect to receive from your products.
The perils of omitting “price brand” were seen in NAB’s 2016 More than Money commercial. The bank hoped to differentiate itself by emphasizing that it cared about consumers. Grainy faux-home footage tracked a young woman’s development from infancy to adulthood. A male voice declared, “So you’ve decided to have a child” before outlining – in blistering detail – the associated costs. As the child made her way through school and birthday parties, the voice droned on, “Over the course of eighteen years, you will invest $450,000 in your child with little or no financial return for your investment.” The ad ended with the eighteen-year-old woman taking a video on her smartphone outside the Rockefeller Centre while a soft female voice interjected: “Life – it’s about more than money.”
The ad was a compelling piece of emotive creative. However, as an ad for a bank, it fell short by misunderstanding exactly how emotional people are about their finances. One of the most significant stressors faced by families is the necessity to go into debt to provide for their dependents.
In the last two decades, the minimum cost of raising children in Australia has increased substantially and has not been matched by salary growth. Understandably, the ad hit a sore spot for consumers. It triggered substantial anger and was panned by viewers as lazy and exploitative. After all, how can a bank be more than money?
Comparatively, a campaign by Bendigo Bank demonstrated an understanding that while life might be about more than money, banks aren’t. In the animated video, a family moved through life stages, including first home purchases. As they did so, Bendigo Banks’ home loan rates were displayed. The ad outlined the concept of being there for customers during significant life moments, without omitting the details critical to those customers’ decision making. The campaign delivered what consumers wanted from banks: transparency. While the rates Bendigo advertised weren’t market-leading, the fact that they were highly visible made Bendigo appear more trustworthy, a critical component of their price brand. Wil Anderson, host of ABC’s Gruen, called the ad “boring as batsh*t, and it didn’t win any creative agency awards, but it did earn Bendigo Bank above system growth.
Roberts believes brands must stop betting on big ideas. Instead, brands and creatives need to narrow their scope and look hard at their consumers. Agencies need to understand the power of specificity and challenge outmoded assumptions around consumer path to purchase. “The way people are reacting and making purchase decisions has changed,” explains Roberts, “this means you need to be doing a brand proposition and eliciting emotions and communicating facts in a much shorter period.” Ultimately, advertising will always be creative work; however: “Customer data needs to be the fence that creative plays within,” says Roberts, “if you’re not doing that, you’re wasting the brand owner’s money.”