"Genuine Human Connections" can now be heard in advertising meeting rooms. As brands strive to make these connections with their consumers, an important piece of the puzzle remains hidden from view.
Advertisers and brands must also understand that authenticity and connections cannot be forced, but are the result of flexible and carefully crafted marketing strategies.
Competition for concentration.
4000+. This is the number of ads that the average person sees per day. However, for those who live very close to urban areas, and with the growth of media consumption, this number is increasing. For example, the average New Yorker receives over 10,000 marketing messages per day.
As competition for consumer attention intensifies and audiences experience “ad fatigue,” the reflex response of most brands is “more.” Post more content, do it louder and more often, contributing to what some call “global ad pollution.”
Consumers are juggling up to 4 screens at the same time... and ad receipts are steadily declining. The average attention span of millennials is eight seconds, while with Gen Z you have all three seconds to successfully present your brand offering.
Triple Threat: Cookie Apocalypse, Privacy Restrictions, Economic Pressure
Data and insights are the foundation of any marketing strategy and are critical to understanding your audience and predicting consumer behavior. But as privacy laws tighten around the world and third-party cookies disappear from the Internet, extracting this important information will become a major problem.
According to Statista, 40.4% of respondents in South Africa admitted to using online ad blocking software. This provides advertisers with a more disinterested consumer audience that essentially "knows the ad when they see it".
Retail data also shows that consumers are more likely to change prices at the point of sale as economic pressures continue to weigh on them. Brands that continue to sell are those with which consumers have an emotional connection, or those that are more affordable. Price competition is a race to the bottom that is bad for any company's bottom line.
Trust. the most important factor in creating a good rapport and emotional connection with a brand
Historically, leads have been excluded from the marketing funnel with increased attention to the bottom of the funnel, conversions. Brands must now strategically target them and constantly measure and track the level of engagement with our content.
The buyer journey and the marketing funnel should intertwine in a double helix. When we do this, we begin to better understand the consumer audience and select the most appropriate messages for each of their needs.
When we tailor these messages and build that familiarity, familiarity builds trust and consumers are more likely to form an emotional connection with a brand.
Neuromarketing research shows that messages with emotional content perform twice as well as messages with rational content. This can be seen in Bentley's emotion recognition app, which used facial expressions to determine what a potential buyer was reacting to.
Result?
Especially for Bentley users. “Using micromuscular facial modifications to achieve this goal, Bentley has used innovative technology to better serve its customers and go further,” Forbes communications committee member Brandi Hassell said of the campaign.
The brand saw over 10,000 app downloads in the first three months that the Bentley Bentayga hit its sales targets.
Fumelela Mtskhali is a brand strategist at RAPT creative agency.
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