Creating Ads that "Connect" with your Audience

There are few places to get good ideas for bank advertising. But, that's not the question we suggest you ask. The question is: How can I best communicate with my markets? What can I do to get the interest of my markets with the best chance of converting that interest into a purchase/selection decision?

Obviously, the first challenge in marketing is to generate awareness of a product message in consumers’ minds and get them to feel it has importance to them. This only happens after there has been an unconscious arousal of emotional responses in the right brain to the product message. A recent Paine Weber ad illustrates what not to do if you want to generate emotional responses in the right brain. In the ad, a headline is superimposed over a collage of about a dozen pictures of a financial analyst. Ho-hum:

“Everybody should receive financial advice. But should everybody receive the same advice?”

That headline is a left-brain lead, a generally ineffective way to introduce a product message. The headline essentially is an abstract statement with no sensual content. It is made even less effective by the emotional neutrality of pictures and body copy. The right brain cannot process the ad's contents very easily or completely because it cannot directly process abstract concepts, that is, representations of reality by symbols.

The right brain processes sensory images, not abstract symbols. Sensory images appear in the form of sights, sounds, aroma, tastes and feels. To avoid confusion, I should point out that while words are abstract representations of reality, they could be strung together in ways that allow them to be processed by the right hemisphere. By creating word pictures, the right brain can process language. This is the specialty of poets. There is no word picture in the Paine Weber ad.

Create Empathy With The Market. The more experienced a person is, the more influence gut feelings have on decisions. This is borne out in studies by psychologists Laura Carstensen and Susan Turk-Charles who have empirically determined that “The relative salience of emotion increases with age. Among older subjects, emotional material was processed more deeply than non-emotional material.” This means that to be effective in conveying emotionally neutral information (such as retirement information) to consumers who are approaching middle age or older, it is often better to send it piggy-back into their brains on the shoulders of emotionally enriched information.

Tell a Story. Narratives works better for getting adults’ attention than expository. Stories generally arouse emotions more readily than emotionally neutral expository. Research shows that the more emotionally neutral information is, the less likely the mind will give it attention.

The future of brand husbandry lies in the art and heart of storytelling. “Those who tell the best story first will be leaders in their category.” Explicit monologues on product features, benefits and value do not require storytelling abilities. But good stories are not monologues. They are silent dialogues between the storyteller and individuals in his audience. His words will catalyze dialogues throughout a large audience only when members of the audience see themselves in the storytellers’ tale. If the storyteller reveals all, his audience will be small. If he drops cues and clues he can draw legions into dialogue with him,

Good marketing is good theater. Marketing scripts play out in the auditoriums of mind where human needs eagerly await the unfolding of scripts that spread warm, and often, exhilarating pleasure - not the dread feelings of defensiveness and anxiety associated with marital conflict. The most commanding force in life is desire for pleasure. Nature gave us the chemistry of pleasure so that we might have incentives to take actions that serve our survival and well being needs. Marketing is about securing consumers’ confidence that what is being offered will contribute to those needs.

Stories get our attention because stories arouse our emotions. Facts do not. Claims do not - unless they produce a viscerally counterargument, which advertising claims frequently do. When people say they do not trust advertising, they are saying they do not put stock in claims. Few people ever like an ad because of any facts it presents or claims it makes. And studies show that likeability is key to most advertising success. People like ads that stir their emotions, not that engage their rational argumentative selves.

Ads are catalysts that stimulate the brain into arousing emotions. Emotions must reach some threshold before they are strong enough to cause feelings to arise in the conscious mind. Most emotions never reach that level. When they do, it is because the message has made contact with the person’s experiential aspirations.

Finally, the development of a realistic and effective marketing plan takes much more than completing a form. The foundation of effective marketing planning is an assessment of your bank's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A key to success is to use the results of the assessment to drive your markeitng communications efforts. Leverage your strengths and correct your weaknesses.

First published on BankersOnline.com 6/3/02