Creating Advertising That Works

John Hallward has worked in market research for over twenty years; he is currently global director of product development at Ipsos ASI. John's book, Gimme! The Human Nature of Successful Marketing, stems from years of data and insights gathered from work with hundreds of companies, as well as John's particular interest in how humans are genetically wired and how this influences their reactions to marketing and advertising. Ipsos Ideas conducted the following interview with John to find out what makes Gimme! a must-read.

John, what motivated you to write Gimme! in the first place?

I wrote Gimme! to forge a link between what marketers should consider when doing their brand planning and our human genetic characteristics. It's important given the current marketplace, which is characterized by me-too products, ever-stronger trade channels, fragmenting media, and fickle consumers. It takes smart thinking and strategizing today to make a brand stand out and be noticed. We see this in our databases and R&D. Over time, I've collected a vast amount of evidence suggesting that creating emotional resonance and associations is key, and that marketers who leverage how humans are wired enjoy greater success.

Several different sources have provided estimates about how much advertising is purchased on a global basis each year, ranging from US$350 billion to as high as US$700 billion. Whatever the number, advertising represents a staggering amount of money. What's even more staggering is that half of this money is wasted, or at least does not show much impact or return for the advertiser. We see this pattern in our Ad*Graph databases.

At Ipsos ASI, we have learned a lot about what contributes to the success of advertising, and I wanted to share this with the marketing community. I wanted to share what has taken me over 20 years to learn to help our own staff learn more quickly and to provide value to our clients.

So why the title? What does Gimme! mean?

This one word summarizes the big idea of the book, and the secret to marketing. Perhaps you recall your childhood and your parents saying: "Gimme, gimme, never gets, don't you know your manners yet?" But wanting things is a very natural and normal feeling for children and adults alike; humans are genetically wired to be self-centered. The more marketers understand this concept, and our other genetic characteristics, the more successful they will be. Gimme! reveals the genetic traits of humans and then shows how successful marketing reflects these very characteristics.

It's clear to me that the best marketing and advertising, and the best brands, appeal to the way consumers' brains work, especially when it comes to how they assess and process messages and images. Curiously, many companies fail to leverage an understanding of what their consumers want from the products and services they're selling. What consumers want goes way beyond brand features - they want a promise that certain emotional desires they have will be fulfilled from their purchase or choice. For companies to capitalize on this, they need to understand the "gimmes" of their target markets - that is, the emotional desires they want satisfied. Understanding "gimmes" means understanding how human brains are wired with regard to emotions, habits, memories, desires, moods, thinking, and motivations.

I also wanted a title that was catchy, memorable, and perhaps a little emotional. I have to follow my own advice, after all!

Can you explain more about the need for brands to appeal to consumers' emotional desires?

Good question - it raises an important distinction we need to understand. Creating an emotional response in consumers via the advertising is fine, but if emotional associations are not connected to the brand itself, then the effort is lost. Ads are fleeting. It is the brand that consumers buy. So the advertising needs to promise consumers that the brand in question will deliver desired emotional payoffs.

Let me illustrate this by looking at how a company could advertise a power hand-drill. One advertising strategy would be to position the drill based on product features, targeted to a definition of consumers, leveraging the product features to support this targeting and messaging. They might reference the suitability of the drill for many jobs, a long battery life, new techie features such as a laser-guided beam of light, or a low price point. The problem here is that consumers aren't looking for a drill, per se. They are looking to put holes and screws into things, of course, but they want more and they will be influenced by more.

Many consumers who buy drills want specific emotional pay-offs. They want to avoid the disappointment they would experience if they ruined the surface they are drilling. They want to experience pride for doing a job well. They want to feel competent and have others appreciate their handiwork. They want their spouse to exclaim with delight (proving their worth). They may want the thrill of doing the job themselves. They may want to show off their accomplishment to the neighbors. Most consumers want to experience many of these pay-offs. And since many top brands of drills put holes in things equally well, it's the brand that goes beyond advertising its features to assuring emotional pay-offs that can distinguish itself. Brands that can do this recognize the self-centered nature of consumers' decision-making process, command the greatest brand commitment, earn the best brand equity, command higher prices, and compete more profitably.

You mentioned that consumers want more than one emotional pay-off from a brand, yet there is a school of marketing that advocates communicating just one USP (unique positioning statement). What's your take on this?

I think it's limiting, and limited, to feel you have to focus on just one USP. Let's face it, consumers want it all! Let's say a consumer is deciding on what to take for a pain reliever. Why should he or she have to choose between the longest lasting one, the fastest acting, the safest, the strongest, or the cheapest? This is not a realistic, relevant reflection of how consumers operate. Consumers want pain relievers to be fast-acting, and safe, and strong, and inexpensive. The concept of a USP is a manufacturer-centric point of view, not a consumer-centric reality...

Another reason that subscribing to the belief that marketing one USP is incorrect is that it assumes a stable, fixed consumer identity. This is too simple; human beings are not stable or consistently rational. Although market segmentation research allows us to place consumers into distinct groups and to put a descriptive label on each person, consumers are not fixed with only the characteristics of the one segment. At certain times, our emotional needs will be different than at others - some needs will be stronger and some weaker. Our emotional desires fluctuate, and so what appeals to one person one week might be less appealing the next week. Sometimes we want a strong, quick-acting pain reliever, while other times we want a safe, long-lasting one. By extension, a population of consumers is always fluctuating. This is what makes segmentation research so frustrating sometimes - it can't always neatly explain brand behaviors. Unique segments do not uniquely buy just one or two uniquely defined brands. And segments are not stable. Segmentation is a great foundational exercise, but it is not the end of the process. A truly consumer-centric model should focus on emotional need states rather than on segmentation.

The research I've conducted suggests that brands offering many emotional associations have higher brand equity and stronger purchase interest than brands offering fewer of these. Why? Because the greater the number of need-states a brand satiates, the more often that brand will be relevant to consumers. Emotionally rich brands such as Starbucks, Apple's iPod, Hallmark, eBay, RIM's Blackberry, Nike, Viagra, and Virgin fulfill many emotional desires and avoid one USP. These brands have also earned great equity and success by avoiding unique segmentation and positioning. Their general positioning allows all consumers to approach the brand to each create their own emotional experiences.

So if consumers are not stable and change day-to-day in their moods and desire, is there anything common to all consumers that all marketers can leverage in their advertising?

Yes, and this is the key to successful campaigns: as humans we all share common basic genetic characteristics. The most fundamental and important is that we are wired to be self-centric. And most of our decision making is directly driven by our emotional desires or feelings. Many studies illustrate this, and the use of fMRIs is further showing how the emotional centers in our brains are activated when making a decision. As I mentioned, we are born with the "gimmes"- our demands to be emotionally fulfilled - and these drive our brand choices. We ask questions like: "How will I be perceived by choosing Brand X over Brand Y?" and "Will I position myself as more competent, more successful, more tuned-in, if I choose Brand Z?" These self-centered questions are the basis of our decision making, and good selling practices recognize this. Advertisers who figure this out and cater to consumers' emotional desires, the "gimmes," will likely fare better than companies who compete on price or gimmicky promotions. The successful companies will build up their brand equity in a more lasting way.

How does a company successfully communicate to the consumer that there will be emotional pay-offs from choosing their brand?

Is the question about how does a marketer successfully go about establishing the gimmes for a brand? Well, beyond the importance of our self-centered ways, humans also share many common characteristics that affect how advertising works. We all have habits; we use short-term versus long-term memory; we notice irregularities while desensitizing to familiar stimuli; we think in units, associations, pictures, and stories; we are largely reliant on our visual sense; we are moody; we have five different senses each with a different functional area in the brain, and so on. The marketers who best understand these characteristics and leverage them will have better success. It is genetic! The book covers many tactical "lessons learned" about leveraging human characteristics.

But I think it is equally important to recognize that once the emotional associations have been built in the heads of consumers, marketers need to trigger these brand associations. You see, the mind will only go where it can see and envision the emotional trade-offs. Thus, if the appropriate brand beliefs are not called-up for consideration at the appropriate time or need-state, then the brand will have missed an opportunity to be considered. Many mature brands work so hard to get the right beliefs into consumers, but they fail to build the triggers for their brand's emotional pay-offs to bring their brand to the forefront of consumers' minds when their need-states arise. Brands need to be activated, or triggered.

An example of excellent triggering was Miller Beer's "It's Miller Time" campaign, which leveraged the concept that after a hard day's work, it was time to relax and enjoy a beer. The campaign summoned up the emotional transition from work to relaxation, a beer category consumption time. The campaign took ownership of this by triggering Miller as the beer to have at the end of each day for happy hour or whatever other decompressing occasion. "It's Miller Time" is a beautiful, easy-to-remember slogan that activates positive feelings of quitting time, triggers the beer consumption period, and ties in the brand name - all in one easy-to-remember memory unit. This is not about product features, how the beer is made, purity, or great taste. These elements are known and already familiar to consumers. "Miller Time" triggers the attitudes, the emotions, and the brand at the relevant time association. Brilliant!

You're from the world of market research, a field known primarily for its statistically based insights. Where does market research fit into a philosophy that espouses the acknowledgment of human wiring and unpredictability?

There is a great expression that says: "Conflict starts when theory meets reality." I am certainly not a philosopher, but I understand facts and reality.I am not a trained biologist, psychologist, neurologist, or anthropologist, but I can study their science and adapt these to my field. This is what being a market researcher is about!

As a market researcher at ASI, I have unique access to databases of tens of thousands of ad pre-tests, thousands of tracked campaigns, and millions of brand equity interviews. The book is about applying learnings from scientists and matching these to what I know about marketing. Good market research is flexible; it is not set in stone, and it should be influenced by other, relevant disciplines. That's what Gimme! is about.