Why can’t it be April Fool’s Day every day?
In this guest post Simon Veksner says April Fool’s Day is like the Super Bowl; it’s the one day each year when brands make the ads they should be making all the time.
I’m not talking about the pranking part. I’m talking about the high levels of entertainment and relevance that marketers will be aiming for (and often achieving) today.
Let’s start with the entertainment factor. There’s an analogy with the Super Bowl here: it’s the one day a year when brands make the kind of TV ads they ought to be making all the time – big, emotive, entertaining.
April fools day every day – I’m gonna send that one to Adamn Sandler.
I couldn’t agree more, Simon, especially if you believe Dave Trott:
‘We know that 4% (of advertising) is remembered positively, 7% is remembered negatively, and 89% isn’t noticed or remembered’. That’s a frightening statistic but how much has changed since 2014 when he made those comments?
Whilst technology has opened up ways to engage the consumer, it has also opened up ways to distract the consumer and more importantly, the way to ignore advertising. OMD found that the ‘average person shifts their attention between their smartphone, tablet and laptop 21 times in an hour’. Combine that with the known fact that the consumer receives more advertising messages than ever before and it makes you wonder if the ‘tried and tested’ really can cut through anymore?
Too often impressions, reach and return on investment are the main campaign metrics without any focus on something which should be deemed critical; engagement. But what’s the point in reach or impressions if no one is engaging with the marketing?
As you say, I think our industry needs to be bolder with our approach and look to engage and entertain the user. The brands that are doing this are reaping the rewards. As Seth Godin says, marketing should be about ‘creating something worth talking about’.
Too right mate.
Such a good perspective – in marketing we always look to the superbowl ads as something special and it’s not because of the price they pay for the ad slot, it’s because of how the ad conveys the product and the brand