Trying something a little different with this week’s newsletter:
First section has an essay I’ve written (it’s not as long as it seems… there’s pictures).
Second section is recommendations for a book, article and music somewhat related to my article.
Why does advertising work? For someone in the marketing/advertising space that question is a little like the David Foster Wallace parable —
“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"
Everyone knows how advertising works, but no one actually thinks about it.
Kevin Simler of Melting Asphalt wrote an interesting post a while back that I still refer to called Ads Don't Work That Way. The gist is that no one actually know how advertising works.
Simler states that ads have a couple ways of working, but the methods we readily think of aren't the big reason. Here’s a couple of the common methods.
Emotional Inception
Most people assume ads works through emotional inception: ads try to subconsciously implant images and ideas in other people's minds. An Atlantic article Simler refers to says that,"
"advertising rarely succeeds through argument or calls to action. Instead, it creates positive memories and feelings that influence our behavior over time to encourage us to buy something at a later date."
This makes it seems like we are worse than Pavlovs dogs. Show us a few happy images of Coke and we'll immediately buy it. Even the dogs got food after their arbitrary stimulus.
(Ah, yes... brown sugary syrup = happiness)
Raising Awareness
A second possible technique is that ads raise awareness in a product, so we know it exists.
These ads are essentially telling customers, "FYI, product X exists. Here's how it works. It's available if you need it." Liquid Draino, for example, is a product that thrives on simple awareness, because drains don't clog all that frequently, and if you don't know what Liquid Draino is and what it does, you won't think to use it.
Every ad work in some way due to this reason, but if that was the real reason there would be no difference between good and bad advertising campaigns.
Overt Persuasion
These ads are easy to spot: "4/5 doctors prefer Camels" or "Verizon: America's largest 4G LTE network". Older ads used this method a lot...
("Your Throat Protection against irritation against cough" — I have no idea what that means)
The viewing public has gotten smarter and wised up to the obvious tricks at play.
Making Promises
Brands make promises about the quality or components of their services.
If Disney says it offers "family-friendly entertainment" consumers take their word and expect that. If they put violence or sex in their movies customers would buy fewer Disney products.
(here's Mickey promising good clean family fun)
Honest Signaling
One last technique is a brand signaling it's intents by the type of advertising it does. A billboard in Times Square signals something different from an ad on TikTok, or a flyer handed out in a hipster neighborhood. We're telling you what type of company we are not by the content of our ads but by the type of ads we're running.
Cultural Imprinting
The real reason advertising works. Simler's big point is that although most ads contain pieces of the above mechanisms the big reason ads work is due to cultural imprinting.
What's going on here? Corona is not trying to raise awareness, overtly persuade you, make brand promises, or signal what type of company it is.
You could argue, as most do, that it's about emotional inception: that showing people having fun at the beach drinking Corona, you will create positive associations that make you want to buy.
But what's truly happening is cultural imprinting. Corona is attempting to change its meaning in culture, which then changes how we are viewed when we drink it.
Whether you drink Corona or Heineken or Budweiser "says" something about you. But you aren't in control of that message; it just sits there, out in the world, having been imprinted on the broader culture by an ad campaign. It's then up to you to decide whether you want to align yourself with it. Do you want to be seen as a "chill" person? Then bring Corona to a party. Or maybe "chill" doesn't work for you, based on your individual social niche — and if so, your winning move is to look for some other beer. But that's ok, because a successful ad campaign doesn't need to work on everybody. It just needs to work on net — by turning "Product X" into a more winning option, for a broader demographic, than it was before the campaign.
Basically Corona just needs to be seen as a "chill" brand, and then people who want to appear chill will buy it.
This technique relies on "the principle of common knowledge -- it's not enough for everyone to know it. Everyone must also know that everyone else knows it."
Here's a personal anecdote on the theory not directly related to advertising... I was down at Brooklyn Bridge Park shooting hoops a couple weeks ago (before Social Distancing) when I saw many of the players there tucking their sweatpants into their socks. It was a warm day so sweatpants weren't even needed, AND at most points in my life that move would've been extremely uncool. You would've got made fun of ruthlessly as middle school recess.
But, anyone who follows NBA has noticed the trend popping up. Here's Kevin Durant and Steph Curry both with sweatpants tucked into socks.
The cultural imprinting story goes like this: NBA players create an association between tucking sweatpants into socks and athletic excellence/coolness. Close followers realize that association is true in the hoop community. Later, they use this information to predict what peers will think when they show up on the court tucking their sweatpants into socks.
It works best in a close knit community where the common knowledge is hard to come by. (Have to follow NBA players on social media, follow them on social media, or share videos with peers.)
Two key aspects make up whether cultural imprinting is successful: audience size and product type.
Audience Size
Cultural imprinting needs to be conspicuous. It needs to be placed in a widely viewed location, where viewers will see it and know that others are seeing it too (billboards, TV commercials, subway, etc).
This leads to non-linear relationship between audience size and ad value, which might account for some of the network effects enjoyed by big national (and international) brands.
This is one big reason why Super Bowl ads cost so much money. Huge monetary returns to having your product in the cultural consciousness.
When I see a Google search or Instagram feed ad, I have no idea whether the rest of my peers have seen that ad or not. Meaning no matter how big the audience is I need to know others have seen it.
Products Type
Cultural imprinting works best for conspicuous products: cars, clothes, food, etc. Simler's example of a product it doesn't work well for is bed sheets. We don't see many ads for bed sheets because it's unlikely that any of your peers will ever see your bed sheets.
(though it seems possible to me that you could buy bed sheets based on what you imagine your peers would say if they saw them)
Personal Marketing
One last example to drive home why emotional inception (associating positive emotions with brands) doesn't work is that we can't advertise to ourselves.
Emotional inception would make it seem like we could show ourselves motivational posters everyday to improve our perceived faults. Maybe a poster like this in our room...
I doubt this works for anyone.
What might work would be an ad like that one (but a much better one) that everyone can see highlighting the value of being disciplined. Then you would know that everyone else knows how valuable it is to be disciplined and would want to be disciplined to impress your peers.
I'm now a little more aware of the persuasive nature of the "water" of advertising, hope you are too. I updated DFW's parable —
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the advertising?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "advertising is cultural imprinting."
Recommendations
📚 Book
My Life in Advertising — This book is a great example of history repeating itself. Written at the turn of the 20th century, Claude Hopkins writes about A/B testing headlines in mail catalogs, using lifetime value to increase his customer acquisition cost, and focusing on the customer. My notes here.
📰 Article
What is Marketing? — Article referred to in my essay for website Melting Asphalt. Melting Asphalt has interesting articles about psychology, human behavior, and software.
🎶 Music
If you like good beats with minimal vocals to work or study to this mix is perfect.
Related to the music recommendation here’s a comic: