Why do great ads make us feel things?
Messages that stick get pierced by our thorns.
Not all messages are created equal. Communication is not a plainly practical thing we humans do. When we communicate we do so much more than just relay messages. The act, manner, and content of messages mix in the delivery to create a concoction that when we receive, changes the way to think, feel, and behave.
The same way, there are good advertisements and there are bad ones. But what makes good ones good and the bad ones bad? There are many lenses to use to answer this question of course. I, for one, believe that a strong metric for how good an ad is is to what degree it was able to achieve its objective. Did you meet the sales target? Then it is a good ad no matter how poor the workmanship is. Did you intend to win an award with that ad? Then even without meeting your sales targets, it can still be a good ad; at least in my opinion. But I digress. What we can all agree on I think is that great ads or great communication products make us feel things. The feelings may be varied, depending on the message. But what’s constant is that great they flip a switch inside of us that triggers us to action.
How does this happen? Here are my observations and thoughts.
Humans have many needs
Advertising and Marketing have been quick to recognize that humans are in a constant dilemma of how to improve their lives. That is why if you look at any piece of modern advertising you will see that in their stories, they insert their products into people’s lives. Let’s look at 3 of my favorite examples:
Oreo Webcam
TL;DW: A father and his son are face to face, each with an Oreo cookie on-hand. The son teaches his dad the step-by-step process to “twist-lick-dunk” way of enjoying an Oreo. The camera dollies out to reveal that the son is in front of his computer as he greets his dad “good morning, dad”. The father answers back “good evening, son”, finally revealing that they are on opposite sides of the world, communicating via webcam.
Dove Real Beauty Sketches
TL;DW: This ad series by Dove was everywhere when it first came out. It features women who get invited to be sketched by a professional composite artist (police sketch artists). The twist is, the artist cannot see them and they’d have to describe themselves to him. Before each of their sketch sessions began, they were asked to chat with their fellow participant. And then the 2nd twist: they had to describe the other person to the artist to create a second composite sketch. The episodes conclude with a comparison of the sketch made with their description of themselves, and the sketch done with other people’s descriptions.
Apple at Work
TL;DW: A group of employees who’s part of a design team’s eager to score a meeting with their big boss. A happenstance afforded them this chance to present an idea; but sooner than they expected. The team, equipped with materials that enable them to work together remotely and collaboratively online (the Apple products) were able to finish their presentation in time for their scheduled meeting, in spite of barriers to productivity like matters at home, and nasty co-workers.
The three ads above are some of my favorites partly because of their stories, but also because of how they approached their messages. Did you notice that none of them explicitly said to buy their products in the story? They all just told stories around a premise and attached their products to the plot. These three are strong examples of the old saying in literature: “show, not tell”.
By showing the stories of the characters, they elicit an empathic response from us. This response is congenital; and unless you have a behavioral disorder, unavoidable.
Six gates to emotion
One purpose of communication is persuasion. And as an emotional species, we get easily convinced through emotional persuasion. This idea is what great salesmen, public speakers, and advertisers use to get us to behave a certain way or purchase a certain product. But Emotions is a big, abstract concept. We can look at these 6 aspects of human experience to get tap into people’s emotions. Examine all your favorite stories, messages and ads; they all use these 6 gates:
- Romance — Boy meets girl, boy meets boy, or girl meets girl; it’s impossible to not remember an ad with a romantic angle to it. Close-Up’s Free to Love campaign, and this ad by Jollibee that took the world by storm are just examples of how brands insert themselves into our need for romantic love. Actually just check out this link for some of the most shared-romantic ads ever. Brands make us feel like they empathize with us on our need for love, and they are our companion in our search for our “the one”; or in our recovery from a heartbreak. Oh before I forget: all of Axe’s ads are about this!
- Work — I think everyone can relate to the climb. We all have had a need to improve our work. A couple of examples would be Apple’s The Underdogs and The whole working-from-home thing. A computer company using work as a selling angle is expected; but it’s also used by Kia Niro, and Mia Workwear Jewellery.
- Family — Family is always a tear-jerker topic and brands have not had a shortage of its use in ads. Apple’s 2013 Christmas commercial is my favorite since it’s so subtle. A not-so-subtle example would be Breeze commercials. The Oreo webcam commercial is also another one. Just search “family ad” on YouTube and you’ll be binging the whole week on family-related advertisements.
- Self-image — Brands are also eager to show that they empathise with us on our self-perception and image. From a meta-perspective, all ads are about self-image since they all reflect the things we value. But some ads like Always’ Like a Girl campaign, Dove Real Beauty Sketches (or basically all of Dove’s campaigns), and Nike’s Find Your Greatness are just some examples.
- Belonging — The 5th gate is our need for friends or a “tribe.” Actually, all campaigns nudge us towards our own particular tribes. It’s standard market segmentation and archetyping. Our need to belong to a group that understands us is used by brands to tell us “We’re here. We’re your pal. We get you.” You can see this in ads like Coke’s Open Happiness, and this legendary ad by Volkswagen featuring a pack of dogs barking the Imperial March which is a low-key belonging ad (only dog and Star Wars lovers will get it!).
- Wonder — Some ads bank on our primal instinct of curiosity and wonder. Ads about wonder do not necessarily rely on our relationships like the previous gates but on the complete lack of. The last gate is Wonder. Wonder ads use a concept called Expectancy Violation; which is suggests that we respond strongly to things that we do not expect. Rube Goldberg machine ads, ads that are pure entertainment, and Volkswagen’s Fun Theory ads are just some of the many examples.
Multiple gates are open
You might have surmised that ads can have multiple “gates”. They can be wonder, family and work all at the same time, right? Yes I think so too. In fact, the best ones I think have multiple ones that’s why we have so much more emotional connection with them.
For example, the Apple Christmas Ad (I really love that ad!) I categorized under Family because the story basically is a family story. But if you deep-read it, it’s also about the boy’s expression (self-image), and his skills which can be telling of what his career might be.
Another combination ad is Always’ Like a Girl. While the ad’s surface-level message is that girls are strong and must be proud of themselves (self-image), the campaign also wishes to empower womanhood (belongingness).
So what do you think? Do you think you open these gates with your campaigns?
Happy brainstorming!
