Some marketers believe they need to communicate all brand benefits to the consumers in the ad campaign to entice them to buy the brand. It is time to reveal this myth. Market research, neuroscience, behavioral science all point in the opposite direction: using multiple messages for a single campaign does not work. Simplicity is the key for effective and innovative advertising campaigns in today’s world, meaning the focus should be on quality rather than quantity. Advertising effectiveness studies show that adding a second message reduces consumer take away from 100% to 65%. Adding more messages amplifies this decrease. After the fourth message, the likelihood of consumers paying attention to the message drops to 43%.
Marketing has a lot to take away from neuroscience in an endeavour to better understand consumers. By means of this, consumer-focused ad design is very likely to bring more success to your ad. Moreover, being aware of neuropsychological mechanisms helping people in decision making will put you one step ahead of all others in this competitive era. Do you know why using multiple messages decreases consumer attention? Simple; because this is how our brains work, and this is the very basics of neuroscience. The best way to make your ad remembered is to use only one simple message since people can only process one message at a time. More than one is just an unnecessary crowd of information bound to be forgotten in minutes, and it affects your target audience’s buying preferences negatively. By using one straightforward message, you can catch the full attention of your consumers and help them create a memorable experience which affects the future intention of purchasing your product.
Let’s look at some examples to understand the very basics of a good marketing message.
First things first, keep in mind that your well-thought marketing message will affect the consumer's overall view of the brand. So, it should absolutely be a reflector of brand's vision, mission and values. Otherwise, it might cause a state of confusion, and poor brand awareness at the end. To observe with the help of context, we can look at a couple of different sports clothing brands’ marketing projects over the years. Why this particular category of clothing, you might ask? Because it is very easy with this segment to see how simplicity and direct association with the aim work best. Even without seeing one, when you think of a sports clothing brand ad, what comes to your mind? Sports! Right? How straightforward is that! Just as it should always be. Under Armour’s “Rule Yourself” ad in 2016, became the second most shared ad of the Olympics. It was so simple but uplifting, the athlete even expressed that it showed exactly how he trained, giving viewers a sense of reality and association and how to rule yourself in order to be successful.
Nike’s “Just do It” slogan, probably the most recognizable one in the industry, was created to be a powerful driving slogan, and it successfully carried the meaning for years, showing what the brand wanted to achieve. We can also take a look at a digital marketing example.
Lululemon’s #TheSweatLife digital storytelling campaign worked wonders for the brand. With this very straightforward message about living an active lifestyle, which is representative of the brand, they simply created a community that shared photos of how they like their active lifestyle and gave the company thousands of emerging free advertising opportunities.
The highlights and common elements of all of these ad campaigns are: aiming at the correct target audience, having emotional and driving content, being inspirational, relatable and real. But the most crucial part is that they all have one simple relatable message at the core, which is tailored to inspire the consumers. The takeaway here is: Why confuse people when it is very easy to simply create quality content that shows the true identity of the brand?
Ultimately, strategically thought simple messages carry better functions to make your brand successful. As a marketer, do not hesitate to embrace the power of talking less. But, be mindful of what you should include in that very concise message to intensify your campaign effect. Communicating the language of your consumers and being cognizant of your target audience have utmost help to you at this point. Never forget your whole campaign relies on your message and it plays a crucial part in overall brand image and recognition. Not under any condition you should underestimate the influence of your message since it can either be the reason why you have a perfect reputation or why people hate it.
Contact us, if you’d like to understand what message for focus on in your upcoming campaign.