Does advertising work? 2016 Review.

I’m an immigrant, just like all New Zealanders.

I arrived here in 2008 from South Africa. Now you most likely have heard about the madness that is South Africa so I won’t go into it any further. Except to say that it wasn’t the deadly bleakness running rampant through the country that made me decide it was time to grab my family and leave. There were so many reasons to leave and just as many to stay. What finally made me leave was an advert.

It wasn’t a beautifully shot television commercial proclaiming that New Zealand was the place to be. Nor a beautiful, full-page ad in a lush magazine. It was a newspaper ad and I can remember it as clearly now as the day I first read it. It was simple. It was one colour. It was one column wide (about 4 centimetres) and 4 centimetres high. Half the size of a business card. In a serif font, perhaps Times, it read: “Thinking of immigrating to Canada, Australia or New Zealand? Contact Network Immigration to find out if it’s possible.” There was a telephone number and a web address.

I got in touch with Network Immigration and after some brief chit-chat I was told there would be a free seminar at a hotel near my offices and if I’d like more info I should attend. Three days later I went to that hotel, and walked into a conference room packed with people, somewhere in the region of 200 stuffed into a room best suited for 50. There wasn’t a seat to be found. I ended up sitting against a wall midway down the room. I took notes and listened intently. Six months later I was living in New Zealand with my family. So yes, advertising does work. Without doubt.

But there’s always a crack in every theory, and this is mine: what truly matters in the wide world of advertising is what you say and whether consumers give a damn to pay attention to it.

Can an Advertising Agency Heal The World?

If you’re feeling a bit down and you can’t quite work out why, it may be because you’ve seen the news recently.

The media thrives on negative stories. Media studies show that bad news far outweighs good news by as much as seventeen negative news stories for every one positive news story. Every day, we are inundated with sinister stories and depressing information fed to us by mainstream media. While learning about the dark side of the world can propel us into making positive changes, in most cases sinister stories serve no purpose but to sell papers to the voyeurs and cynics of this world.

I remember feeling resentment towards the New Zealand media earlier this year when they prolonged coverage of the Charleston shooting. I felt tremendously sad and powerless at the time as there was little I could do but feel deep sympathy for the victims. The media coverage went on and on, obsessing over all the details so that even when I wasn’t reading about the story, I was still thinking about it. I could only imagine that the people of Charleston would have felt twice as upset as me, but also may have been less inclined to leave their house that day.

Negative media stories are not just upsetting the public; they’re also harming businesses. In 2009, economists in the US found a correlation between negative media stories about the recession and consumer spending during the recession. The more fearful people were about the recession, the less inclined they were to go out and spend as usual. There were industries that benefited from the sinister stories such as the drug, sex and gambling industries, but for most businesses, the fearful public spelt bad news. Nothing has really changed.

The New Zealand media seem all too keen to publish a sad or sinister story. With that said, is there an opportunity for businesses to lighten up the mood a little bit when the media have consumers feeling down? Social media is not only a comparatively cheap platform on which to advertise, but it is also the best way to constantly connect with consumers. It’s also how media companies engage readers. What I have noticed is that when people see something bad, they will often look for something good to negate those unpleasant feelings. They’re looking for a pick-me-up and that is where the smart business comes in.

Last week I opened my Facebook account and the first post to appear was a video of ISIS, yet again senselessly destroying something sacred and historic. Without clicking on anything, the New Zealand Herald’s video began to play and I was subjected to a couple of seconds of explosions and flames. Needless to say, my mood was immediately dampened, in fact, I felt violated. I scrolled down to the next post and that’s when life improved. A local café had posted a photo of the most decadent chocolate cake I have ever seen. The cake flaunted three layers of rich chocolate with ebony sauce dripping down the front side. Accompanying the photo was an even sweeter headline “Chocolate fixes everything.” I repeated the line in my head and in my moment of sadness, I agreed, that chocolate was a fix I could do with. That weekend I visited the café and I ordered the cake that was advertised. It wasn’t nearly as delicious as the Facebook photo suggested, but it didn’t matter, the café had won my money due to their timely online post.

Advertising campaigns do not always need to be mesmerizingly clever and original, sometimes strategic placement and good timing will do the trick. Like most things in life, advertising is all about timing. With so many negative stories constantly circulating the Internet, it’s easy to find a good time to advertise your brand and be a contrast to a negative story.

The social media revolution has enabled businesses to reach out to consumers 24/7 and thanks to media sites, there’s a lot of displeasing information constantly crowding the Internet. Perhaps there’s something your business could be doing on-line to help customers forget about all of the negativity?

Is it time to rebrand New Zealand?

How do you know when it’s time to rebrand your business? For that matter, what is the purpose of a brand?

It is a historic time for New Zealanders as the country is in the process of rebranding itself for the first time in over a century.

When the government first brought the flag change proposal to the public’s attention in 2014, it was met with total apathy. It was almost embarrassing how unpatriotic and uninterested kiwis were in the initiative. The only time people started voicing their opinion on the issue was when the government announced that the exercise would cost a hefty $26m. Then New Zealanders were up in arms as lobby groups tried to prevent the expensive exercise from going ahead.

The rest of us hoped that the investment would at least result in a great new design. You might think that with a $26m budget, the government would have commissioned the world’s top branding designers and artists, but no, in typical democratic Kiwi fashion every Tom, Dick and Harry was invited to submit their designs and suggestions to the flag-change panel. Irrespective of your design knowledge or credentials, you had the opportunity to rebrand New Zealand if you were up for it. Unsurprisingly, when the top 40 designs were revealed in August, many Kiwis weren’t impressed. The new designs simply didn’t resonate with most New Zealanders. When we looked at the designs, we didn’t feel a natural affinity with them, they didn’t speak to us.

According to marketing theory, branding is considered to be the “face” of a company. A logo is meant to be memorable and easily recognisable, and most importantly, reflect a company’s principles and philosophy. This idea may provide insight into why the new flag designs have not been well received by the public. Two of the final four designs feature an intricate silver fern pattern, which if we’re honest has really just become a pretty picture. The silver fern and Southern Cross symbolism do not communicate kiwi values or kiwi philosophy whatsoever. Therefore, they are not really suitable to feature on our national flag.

One logo that is undeniably strong and effective is Apple’s logo. The symbolism is powerful primarily because it depicts the company’s core philosophy. In 1977, the US was experiencing a technological revolution. Computers were slowly becoming part of people’s everyday lives and consumers were curious about what the future of computers would hold. When brand designer Rob Janoff was tasked with creating a logo for what would become the largest computer company in the world, he sought a symbol that would ultimately represent curiosity. He took inspiration from the story of Adam and Eve and the tree of knowledge. In this story, Adam and Eve were forbidden from eating an apple hanging from the tree of knowledge. However, they were overcome by their curiosity and temptations and ate the apple anyway. Janoff believed that an apple with a bite out of the side represented boldness and curiosity. Janoff’s considered design would represent a computer company that was always curious and wasn’t afraid to pursue new knowledge and understanding. Rumour has it that when Janoff presented his logo to Steve Jobs, he didn’t need to explain what the symbolism meant, Jobs knew straight away.

Like Apple, many companies rebrand themselves as a way of informing the market that they’re aware of the times and are ready to evolve with them. The rebranding also serves as a symbol that the company is growing and seizing the opportunity to invigorate the brand for both external and internal audiences. Another reason you might consider rebranding is if you wish to appeal to a different audience. For example, Telecom changed its name to Spark in 2014 as market research suggested that younger customers would be more interested in doing business with Spark than with Telecom.

Small branding changes can really make a world of difference if they’re implemented for the right reasons. I suppose the best way to know whether to rebrand your business is if you can stare at your logo and still feel inspired and energised. If you feel that your company’s logo no longer makes a significant impression on you or your customers or you feel that it does not convey your company’s philosophy, it might be time to update it.

Advertising for charities

Last week as I left the supermarket, a young man in a sky blue uniform approached me.

Having just finished my weekly shopping, I was lugging a couple of full bags. It would have taken an absolute miracle for me to drop my bags, put my life on hold and listen to someone tell me about problems in a country he’s probably never visited. So I continued walking like the other shoppers before and after me.

It is rare to see a street-corner collector signing up a new donor. I once spoke with a UNICEF clipboard collector who explained that he’d been ignored for three days and could lose his job. The reality is most people just aren’t interested in conversing with a random stranger on the street, especially one who asks for money and professes to be morally superior. Surely the organisations that employ these people know this? Perhaps the street-corner clipboard collectors are on the street for advertising purposes? In their one-colour outfits, they stick out and for only $18 an hour, they're a highly economic advertisement in busy areas.

But let’s not pretend that social awkwardness is the only reason why people aren’t donating through street collectors. Humans are inherently selfish. Most of us need a good incentive to do something selfless, and the feel good factor isn’t enough of an incentive to be generous. Although this is an obvious insight, many charities continue to produce clichéd emotive advertising campaigns that ask us to dig deep and donate out of the goodness of our hearts. Time and time again we see television commercials depict scenes of suffering and a voice over telling us we can make the suffering stop by donating just a dollar a day. Eventually viewers become desensitised to the graphic pictures in these ads and the advertiser’s message completely loses its potency.

Charitable organisations are infinitely more successful when they offer a reward that mitigates the cost of the outlay and compensates the giver for not winning. If charities can offer some type of consolation prize, people have a stronger incentive to give and it’s a win-win for all parties concerned.

There are a number of major charitable organisations in New Zealand that operate this way, and it is no surprise that they’re among the most generous groups in this country. Pub Charity raises funds through gaming machines in hotels and taverns for distribution to grassroots community causes throughout New Zealand. Similarly, Lotto New Zealand donates its proceeds to a range of social, community, arts, heritage, sports, health and recreational activities as well as research programmes across New Zealand. Sanitarium, which is owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, donates all of its profits to charitable purposes.

When it comes to advertising a charity, the approach should be no different to advertising a commercial enterprise. The goal is the same - to engage the market and sell the product or service in the most compelling way possible. Banking on the public to find their altruistic self is usually not the best approach. It’s better by far to invent a clever win-win situation. Red Cross’ Charity Arcades are a perfect example of a win-win idea. The gaming machines currently stationed in Stockholm Airport accept coins of any currency and all the funds raised are used for charitable purposes.

The Children’s Museum in Holon Israel houses interactive and experiential exhibits such as Dialogue in the Dark (an interactive seminar on being blind) and Invitation to Silence (simulating the sensation of being deaf). All of the museum’s proceeds are donated to the Blind and Deaf Foundations in Israel.  The exhibits were opened in 2001 and have become internationally famous. The museum is now one of Holon’s major tourist spots and it’s all thanks to some clever interactive ideas.

Whether you’re involved with a local community group or an international charitable organisation, it’s important not to lose sight of your organisation’s main objectives. For most philanthropic groups, the main focus is fundraising and when pondering marketing ideas, this should really be at the fore. Producing emotive campaigns that hope to evoke guilt, sympathy and compassion is not a long-term marketing solution for any charity group.  Instead, the focus should be on innovative and effective fundraising ideas.