Volker Dressel is CEO and
founder of Quaid Media.
In the realm of of TV
advertising quality, infomercials have to be the worst. You know it, I know it.
Even they know it. For whatever reason, no matter how awful they are, they seem
to work.
This is because they’re
broadcast early in the morning and they appear on quiet TV channels. If you
place an infomercial next to an advert in a primetime slot, it would stand out
as being especially bad.
This is because primetime
adverts will likely have a narrative and tell an interesting story. Primetime
adverts use creativity to sell products.
For any advertising,
creativity is important. But so is the context of that creativity. For example,
a spot that works well with a 15 second Instagram video, won’t necessarily work
on a 42” TV.
With TV advertising, the
creative narrative is often more important than the product itself. It's not
enough to take the snazzy new app trailer you've just shot and think that it's
a TV ad. It's not.
With your app trailer, you
are often trying to convert a user at the last point of the decision-making
process. With TV ads, you’re trying to get new users as well as potentially
remind lapsed users to use the app.
There is no set formula for
TV ads, or for creativity. However, a recent study from ThinkBox and
Neuro-Insight, which studied people’s reactions to watching different videos,
has shown that effective ads tend to share the following traits:
- Showcase the
product, by showing it in use, rather than overtly “selling” it
- Deliver a clear
narrative, using classic storytelling techniques such as tension
- Feature
interaction between people (our brain is tuned into other humans)
- Use music to
drive the action (but not just as an incidental background track)
- Time the
delivery of final branding so that the brain perceives it as “new news”
(rather than overtly showing it early on)
The above isn’t a strict
formula, but using it as an outline for the creative process can help to
improve your TV spot’s impact.
Of course, just following
this isn’t enough. The video still has to be filmed in a way that makes it look
professional. You still need to have people that seem genuine (can act) and
have thought about what the story is.
No other medium has the
same ability to stimulate our emotions.
The importance of creating
adverts that deliver an emotional response was also highlighted in a study by
the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, called The Long and the Short of
it. The study identified that emotionally-driven campaigns were twice as
profitable as those which weren’t.
That’s the unique power of
TV, and why it continues to be the most popular advertising format – no other
medium has the same ability to stimulate our emotions.
Though TV is a better
medium for creating adverts with emotional impact, a bad TV advert is just as
ineffective as a bad mobile banner ad.
When creating TV campaigns,
app developers need to bake in creativity and an emotional angle if their
campaigns are to be truly successful. Creativity drives emotion, and emotion
drives decision-making and this is the gateway to long-term association.
Great creativity is
ultimately about understanding the medium you are targeting. It understands how
to get your message across and hit the right notes, within a limited amount of
time, bringing all of the elements together in a way that connects and
resonates with audiences.
Let’s take a look at what
this means in practice.
The Kim Kardashian: Hollywood app was a success in spite of its ad. Watching this, it lacks the creative element and just leaves all but the most ardent Kim K fan with feelings of confusion and sadness.
Kanye may argue with us here, but we feel that this is a poor use of celebrity, a poor use of timing and focuses far too much on the gameplay, rather than telling a story. Essentially, it feels like they gave up on being creative, because they knew the game was going to perform well regardless
Chameleon Run is a great game, and this trailer may work on the App Store to help get someone to install the game, but if you were to put it on TV, it would likely fail to get any interest - or even make existing players open the app.
If this were to be made into a TV ad, the studio would likely need to think about how to bring it to life in a fun way - with a small clip of the actual game and a matching audio call-to-action.
The good
This Disney LOL ad has a good use of timing, mixed with some humour before building to the reveal at the end as to what the app actually is and where you can get it from. It’s only at the end that you see the Disney logo. It’s clear who the app is aimed at by watching the ad.
The great
While the ad is tailored for a Japanese audience, it’s creativity and clear visual story makes it connect with the viewer. The app is only shown right at the end, helping the story to make sense to a viewer.
Another great
Nintendo's ad has humour, self deprecation and clear awareness of exactly what it is. It’s a commercial about behind the scenes of creating an ad, that’s about creating a viral hit. Linked in with product references. It’s a long commercial, but it tells a fun story. You’ll notice there is no music, right until the critical moment at the end.
As each of these TV commercials show, when creativity is used effectively, it can be very powerful.
A truly creative ad will resonate with an audience, even if they don’t speak the language - your advert should be clear to anyone watching what the key emotion is meant to be.
There isn’t a formula for it, but there is well documented evidence of what is effective and why it is effective.
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