Marketing leaders often focus on creative execution as the key to advertising success. But the most effective campaigns don’t start with creativity; they start with strategy. The brands that achieve long-term impact don’t just sell products; they embed themselves into consumer psychology, cultural conversations, and purchasing behavior. When executed well, advertising becomes a force that shapes how people think, feel, and behave. This article is part of Branding Strategy Insider’s newsletter. You can sign up ..read more

Attention matters. Marketing doesn’t work unless and until consumers pay attention. As the Advertising Research Foundation summed it up, attention is the “crucial bridge” between ad delivery and ad impact. How attention works and how to measure it are front and center nowadays, with big initiatives by trade groups like the ARF, WARC, IPA, MRC, IAB and, unsurprisingly, The Attention Council, and by practitioners such as Kantar, Dentsu, Infillion, Microsoft, GroupM and Google, among others ..read more

Another season of Super Bowl advertising has passed, and with it has come criticism of the lack of creativity exhibited in the advertising. More than 50% of the 2024 Super Bowl commercials featured one or more celebrities, continuing a trend that began a decade ago. To be fair, celebrities can be a great vehicle for attracting attention and can increase the entertainment value and liking for a commercial. Entertaining and well-liked ads can also increase “buzz”, talk about ads among consumers and in the media. On the other hand, it is less clear that celebrities sell more product, create great ..read more

Do ads wear out? The short answer is no. If they do, it takes a lot longer than most brand/agency teams think. Creativity is the biggest variable when it comes to ad effectiveness so if an ad works well, it should be used for as long as possible. Coca-Cola’s ‘Christmas Caravans’ ad has been used every year since 1995 in many countries across the globe. Yet very few ads are used for more than a few months. What a waste! Why does this happen? Is it to do with licensing issues? If so, how could this problem be addressed? Research data indicates that advertising ‘wear out’ is a rare occurrence ..read more

The results here come from a 2016 Kantar Knowledge Point report about five situations in which Kantar data show bad advertising can help competing brands. In other words, spending your ad dollars on behalf of the competition, not yourself. The five situations: Similar brands. (When your doppelgänger gets all the credit.) Similar branding devices. (Imitation is sincere flattery but bad branding). Parent/sub-brand confusion. (Too much family resemblance.) Misattribution to market leader. (The big wheel gets all the grease.) Misattribution to everyone. (Shining a light on everybody.) To put it ..read more

Brands and businesses are talking more than ever about the environment. The percentage of ads tested by Kantar LINK with some sort of social or environmental message (SEM) held steady at 2 percent or less from 2010 to 2019. From 2020 to 2022, it tripled to 6 percent, and is at 5 percent year-to-date. That small percentage is large for a single theme across tens of thousands of ads for a wide diversity of brands. This parallels other communications trends. For example, the Governance & Accountability Institute reports that 96 percent of Fortune 500 companies now publish reports or disclosu ..read more

Does anyone remember a time before BMW? Unlikely. The German import has been on American streets since before most people were born. But in 1973, two advertising guys named Martin Purvis and Ralph Ammirati ditched Carl Ally Advertising and the Fiat account to rent a hotel room in midtown Manhattan. They gave themselves four weeks to get a paying advertising client. After three weeks, they had no one. On week four, they got UPS. The very next year, BMW followed. At the time, BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke) was an upstart German automobile manufacturer trying to follow Volkswagen’s enviable lead ..read more

I met David Ogilvy twice when I was 19 years old. Both times, the great man looked at the work I was doing at that moment and gave advice (which actually wasn’t advice, but criticism). Nonetheless, it felt like an honour to have my work panned by such a legendary adman. ‘Ogilvy on Advertising’ was the first book I read about the business. It polarised the advertising world. It was a bit like the Stones v Beatles debate. You either followed the wisdom of Bill Bernbach or you followed the wisdom of David Ogilvy. (I follow both). Even though Ogilvy’s book is prescriptive in many ways, when you l ..read more

There is an image of an advertising campaign poster making the rounds on social media that has been marked with comments that question the motives and manipulative methods behind the design. (See Below) It is a good example of social and cultural commentary being added onto a commercial poster, but it is far from a new idea. The first time I became aware of this type of movement was in the 1990s, by a group called Adbusters. As a graphic design student, and taking great interest in designers such as Jonathan Barnbrook who were very social and counter-cultural in the work they did (and it turn ..read more

John Wanamaker, a successful retailer and merchant, is reputed to have said that “half of my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half.” Such sentiments have oft been repeated in the years since Wanamaker’s death. There is no doubt that advertising, with its strong focus on creativity and the use of ever evolving media technology, remains a bit of a mystery. Yet the things that make advertising effective are well known. They have been well documented in academic literature and articulated by creative directors with remarkable clarity. This is not to suggest that there is a “formula ..read more