Rehearsing reality
This post from 2007 highlights one of the most important but I suspect undervalued ways in which advertising works. Advertising can help you rehearse what it is like to recognize, use and desire a brand, even if you have never heard of it before.
OK, don't laugh, but over the last couple of months I have been taking ballroom dancing lessons. The fact that my travel itinerary does not let me practice as much as I would like has resulted in my appreciation of mental rehearsal – imagining what it would be like to dance certain steps in the "comfort" of my airline seat. Ballroom dancing is a complex activity and I find that mental rehearsal seems to improve my competence when the time comes to take a lesson in person.
You may not think that you need much rehearsal to recognize a brand, but the latest scientific evidence suggests that we do not store coherent constructs of brands in our heads (or anything else for that matter). Rather, every time we encounter something to do with a brand, stored associations "bubble up" into our mental workspace and form a representation of it. The quicker this representation forms, and the more vivid and complete it is, the more likely that the brand will be considered for purchase (for more on this see this award-winning paper by Graham Page and Jane Raymond).
Implicit in the use of the word rehearsal is repetition. We know that repetition matters – although there does not seem to be a convenient rule of thumb for how many exposures an ad should get – and we now have a scientific rationale for why it matters. The evidence suggests that the more frequently we use our mental brand associations to form a representation of a brand, the stronger and more complete the representation becomes. So repeated mental rehearsal of what the brand is about helps to build clarity and maximize the chance that the brand will be recognized, remembered, and found desirable.
Brand representations are formed from three different types of information: cues that help us recognize the brand, knowledge about how to interact with it, and the emotional value it holds for us. Exposure to the brand – through use, exposure to advertising, or word of mouth– has the potential to strengthen, add to, or modify our existing associations. Marketers have always valued the first type of association, brand cues, and have come to appreciate the last one, emotions, but often still ignore the importance of experience. And yet, some of the most effective advertising is effective because it creates expectations of the brand experience.
Advertising has a unique value to the marketer in that it can portray a positive view of the brand, without any negative associations that invariably come with real-life experience. It can ensure that potential customers have a clear idea of what the brand looks like, set up expectations of what it will be like to use, and establish a positive impression that makes the brand more desirable. Provided the portrayal is realistic, brand users will likely focus on aspects of the brand experience that justify their belief in the brand, and as a result will find their predisposition toward the brand strengthened.
This process of framing peoples' expectations of brand experience is what Gordon Brown termed "Enhancement." Speaking of product categories with little differentiation, he said, "vivid advertising memories powerfully enhance perceptions of the product field benefit which in reality all brands would deliver!...Where brands offer different combinations of end benefits…advertising memories cause consumers to "test out" the attributes that are in reality the product's strengths, diverting them from the weaknesses!" Gordon also confirmed the importance of creating memorable and enduring brand associations, stating that, "Consumers make up their minds when they think about brands. This is mainly when they experience brands." In other words, advertising can cause people to anticipate or remember what it is like to use a brand, and the reality of the experience – shaped by the advertising depiction - will determine their lasting impression of it.
Findings from our Link pre-tests confirm the importance of advertising rehearsal. We often find that the "bite and smile" shot in food advertising a powerful device when it comes to reminding viewers that this is a product they like. Of course, you do have to be careful that the advertising portrayal is realistic. Many years ago in the UK, the now defunct British Rail introduced an advertising campaign which lauded their new commitment to on-time arrivals and featured the tagline, "We're Getting There." Unfortunately, passengers who continued to experience frequent delays responded with, "No we are not!"
OK, don't laugh, but over the last couple of months I have been taking ballroom dancing lessons. The fact that my travel itinerary does not let me practice as much as I would like has resulted in my appreciation of mental rehearsal – imagining what it would be like to dance certain steps in the "comfort" of my airline seat. Ballroom dancing is a complex activity and I find that mental rehearsal seems to improve my competence when the time comes to take a lesson in person.
You may not think that you need much rehearsal to recognize a brand, but the latest scientific evidence suggests that we do not store coherent constructs of brands in our heads (or anything else for that matter). Rather, every time we encounter something to do with a brand, stored associations "bubble up" into our mental workspace and form a representation of it. The quicker this representation forms, and the more vivid and complete it is, the more likely that the brand will be considered for purchase (for more on this see this award-winning paper by Graham Page and Jane Raymond).
Implicit in the use of the word rehearsal is repetition. We know that repetition matters – although there does not seem to be a convenient rule of thumb for how many exposures an ad should get – and we now have a scientific rationale for why it matters. The evidence suggests that the more frequently we use our mental brand associations to form a representation of a brand, the stronger and more complete the representation becomes. So repeated mental rehearsal of what the brand is about helps to build clarity and maximize the chance that the brand will be recognized, remembered, and found desirable.
Brand representations are formed from three different types of information: cues that help us recognize the brand, knowledge about how to interact with it, and the emotional value it holds for us. Exposure to the brand – through use, exposure to advertising, or word of mouth– has the potential to strengthen, add to, or modify our existing associations. Marketers have always valued the first type of association, brand cues, and have come to appreciate the last one, emotions, but often still ignore the importance of experience. And yet, some of the most effective advertising is effective because it creates expectations of the brand experience.
Advertising has a unique value to the marketer in that it can portray a positive view of the brand, without any negative associations that invariably come with real-life experience. It can ensure that potential customers have a clear idea of what the brand looks like, set up expectations of what it will be like to use, and establish a positive impression that makes the brand more desirable. Provided the portrayal is realistic, brand users will likely focus on aspects of the brand experience that justify their belief in the brand, and as a result will find their predisposition toward the brand strengthened.
This process of framing peoples' expectations of brand experience is what Gordon Brown termed "Enhancement." Speaking of product categories with little differentiation, he said, "vivid advertising memories powerfully enhance perceptions of the product field benefit which in reality all brands would deliver!...Where brands offer different combinations of end benefits…advertising memories cause consumers to "test out" the attributes that are in reality the product's strengths, diverting them from the weaknesses!" Gordon also confirmed the importance of creating memorable and enduring brand associations, stating that, "Consumers make up their minds when they think about brands. This is mainly when they experience brands." In other words, advertising can cause people to anticipate or remember what it is like to use a brand, and the reality of the experience – shaped by the advertising depiction - will determine their lasting impression of it.
Findings from our Link pre-tests confirm the importance of advertising rehearsal. We often find that the "bite and smile" shot in food advertising a powerful device when it comes to reminding viewers that this is a product they like. Of course, you do have to be careful that the advertising portrayal is realistic. Many years ago in the UK, the now defunct British Rail introduced an advertising campaign which lauded their new commitment to on-time arrivals and featured the tagline, "We're Getting There." Unfortunately, passengers who continued to experience frequent delays responded with, "No we are not!"
So, what do you think? Does the concept of ad exposure as mental rehearsal of what the brand is about make sense to you? Can you think of other examples where an ad might have worked by creating expectations of the product experience?
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