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The project will delve into four main points: what makes a commercial memorable, the effects of Tivoli on commercial advertising, information lost in translation when products are introduced into the global economy, and what factors should be researched and altered when entering a new market. What makes a commercial memorable? Recent studies have been conducted that change the ideology of this factor. Sex may still sell, but there is more to consider with today’s consumer.
A few elements worth researching and employing when creating advertisements are: invoke emotion, adapt from previous material, “shock and awe” the audience, interject minimal counterrevolutionaries, and avoid playing commercials during sexually explicit and violent shows. The introduction of Tivoli (Digital Video Recorder (DVD)) to the marketplace was feared to be the end of 30 second commercial spots as Tivoli allows users the ability to fast forward through commercial material. Eight years later, the highly coveted mass market achieved through television commercials has not been eliminated.
Advertisement executives through sheer ingenuity have been able to overcome some of the obstacles introduced by Tivoli. When marketing and advertising in a foreign market, much more scrutiny needs to be given to a product on a more basic level. Does the product name and marketing plan translate correctly or will it be lost in translation? The culture of the country needs to be reviewed. There are many examples where not everything was reviewed before introducing a product in a foreign market ND the product’s image and awareness suffered.
In addition to the aforementioned, the following research questions need to be answered when entering a new market: what are the advertising practices in a foreign country; are there local laws that have to be abided by that will have an impact on the marketing campaign; what are the interests of local consumers; and what is the norm for advertisement length, intervals, and show times? When expanding to the global market, it is important to conduct the appropriate regional research to ensure laws, customs, and courtesies are properly observed.
CHAPTER I WHAT MAKES A TV COMMERCIAL MEMORABLE One can draw upon several focus areas to help make a commercial memorable. An advertising agent can choose to play on a person’s emotions (sentimental, laughter, etc. ), adapt from previous material, “shock and awe” the audience, or use sex appeal (L am, 2008). New research has led to the ideology that the level of counterrevolutionaries posed in a commercial can also effect how memorable the advertisement is (Opal, 2007). While each of these strategies enhances memorabilia, they are not usually utilized alone but rather in combination.
Aside from the material of the advertisement itself, the genre of the television show or movie also has an effect on the memorabilia of the commercial that follows (Bushman & Fibonacci, 2002). According to Pope’s and Dewitt (2006), the most crucial aspect of creating commercials is appealing to consumers’ emotions. Neuroscience studies conducted within the last 20 years show that emotion is directly correlated to cognition. Emotions come first and then play a key role in establishing rational thinking and behavior. “Emotional reactions function as the gatekeeper for further cognitive and behavioral reactions” (Pope’s and Dewitt, 006, PA).
Therefore, it is important for an advertisement developer to create a means to trigger an emotional response before the audience is expected to process the stimulus. Before employing emotional triggers in advertisements, it is important to note the difference between types of emotions and their role in the cognitive process. For instance, emotions and how they occur vary greatly at the ends of the emotional continuum spectrum (Polls and Dewitt, 2006). The first, at the far left of the spectrum, are lower- order emotions like pleasure and arousal, which occur automatically.
The second, at the far right of the spectrum, are higher-order emotions. Complex emotions are placed at this end and occur through cognitive processes. Basic emotions like fear, anger, and happiness fall somewhere in the middle. These emotions take place at different points along the spectrum. They can occur automatically or after cognitive appraisal. For example, you can be filled with fear automatically if you accidentally come upon a grizzly bear in the wild. Fear can also take a while to build. An experienced sky diver Can jump out Of an airplane without fear.
However, if they realize their parachute won’t open, hey can be filled with fear. This fear occurred after an appraisal of the situation (Polls and Dewitt, 2006). Therefore, if an ad exec was trying to jumpstarted a commercial, they would need to focus on lower-order emotions or those basic emotions that occur more automatically. Higher-order emotions would develop as the commercial progresses after the advertising stimuli lust was provided. Figure 1 . The emotional continuum. Note. From “How to Capture the heart? Reviewing 20 years of emotion measurement in advertising,” by K. Polls & S. Dewitt, p. 7.
One of the best commercials of all time used the main principal adapt from revises material. The ad was developed in 1 984 and promoted the Macintosh, the latest addition to Apple. Lam (2008) summarizes the Macintosh 1984 commercial with the following paragraph: The commercial paid homage to George Rowel’s book “1 984″ as it depicted a woman in a colorful outfit running with a sledgehammer inside an underground facility while evading darkly clad police officers. As people in grey outfits and shaved heads mindlessly watched a dictator spew fascist propaganda on a giant screen, the woman destroyed the screen with her sledgehammer. P. 1) This commercial only aired once during the 1 984 super bowl. Apple then received tons of free advertising as the commercial was replayed repeatedly on news and entertainment shows (Lamћ 2008). This commercial was ultra effective. It tapped into people’s memory of the book 1984 but also invoked Other emotions. The commercial touched upon the most critical feelings and fears of 1 984 Americans, as stated by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) . . An anti-government upswing, women’s liberation, Middle America’s (2006): ” fears of factory closings, the rise of automation, and the ubiquity of Big Brother”.
Approximately 200,000 people visited Apple stores the day after the immemorial aired. Consumers bought 72,000 Macintosh computers during the first 1 00 days after airing the commercial exceeding Apple’s goals by 50% (ANA, 2006). This commercial is still alive today 24 years later. Most recently the commercial was revived for the Democratic Party competition between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. The dictator was replaced with Hillary Clinton and clips of her speeches. The ending phrase was redone to read, “On January 14th the Democratic primary will begin. And you’ll see why 2008 won’t be like 1984” (De Villas, 2007).
A new variable being added to the methodology of what makes a immemorial memorable is counterrevolutionaries. Cognition and culture researchers have recently studied the idea that minimal counterintuitive advertisements are more effectively remembered than intuitive and maximum counterintuitive ads. For instance, a commercial that violates one rationale can be remembered quite easily like a flying pig. However, a flying talking pig would be more difficult to retain because it violates multiple notions. Researchers have concluded that it is easier to learn minimally counterintuitive schema.
There is just enough information being added to increase cognition without hampering the integration of new and existing knowledge (Opal, 2007). While memory is not directly correlated to advertising effectiveness, it is a crucial part of advertising strategy. If a consumer can not remember what differentiates one product from another, brand identity and awareness is lost. Bushman and Fibonacci (2002) in their study entitled Violence and Sex Impair Memory for Television Ads state the following: Shims and Gresham (1983) outlined eight stages of processing advertising.
Individuals first must be exposed to the advertisement (Stage 1) and attend to it (Stage 2). Next, they must comprehend the advertising message (Stage 3) and evaluate it in some way, such as favorably or unfavorable (Stage 4). Individuals then encode the message into their long-term memory (Stage 5), so they can retrieve the information at a later time (Stage 6). Once the message is retrieved, individuals decide among the available options, such as what brand to purchase (Stage 7). Finally, they take action based on the decision they made, such as buying the product (Stage 8).
Note that some aspect of memory is involved in four of the eight stages (i. E. , Stages 1, 2, 5, and 6). P. 557) A significant breakdown in the stages of processing advertising can occur at stage 5. Consumers often fail to encode the advertising message into their long-term memory (Bushman & Fibonacci, 2002). Lang, Nineveh, and Reeves (as cited in Bushman & Fibonacci, 2002, p. 558) found that people have a limited amount of attention to apply toward television shows. If consumers focus more on the television program, they will have less ability to absorb advertising stimuli presented during breaks.
There have been numerous studies conducted on the effects of memory and violent and sexual media. The results show that more energy and attention is expended on violent and sexual content versus neutral content. It was then concluded that individuals have less attention left to remember commercials. Researchers also hypothesized that during commercials breaks from sexual and violent shows people may still be thinking about the sexual and violent material they just viewed, thus hampering their attention for commercial encoding and long term memory.
This conclusion brings about an interesting problem. Many companies choose to focus their advertising on the younger generation, individuals 18-34 years old, because they believe their views on product brand are still malleable. While overall less viewers in total watch sexually explicit and violent shows, the target audience of 18-34 years old most often watch these types of programs. So, there is a bit of a catch-22. If companies choose not to support violent and sexual shows for fears of their commercials not being remembered, they risk losing their target audience of 18-34 year olds.
However, if advertisers as a whole did not back these programs, perhaps the amount of sexual and violent shows would be significantly educed for lack of funding. The cards are really in their hands (Bushman & Fibonacci, 2002). If sexual and violent content is paid more attention to, there are benefits to including sexual and violent tactics in advertising strategies. The key is to know when to draw the line and not offend viewers or have viewers lose sight of what product is being introduced or advertised. An old but true strategy is sex sells.
However, a company doesn’t want the consumer to pay sole attention to the sex or violence of the commercial and not retain brand identity and awareness. A great example of combining sex and violence in a immemorial is the Jawbone Boo Boo commercial. The viewer’s attention is immediately grasped by the opening shot of a gorgeous woman sunbathing by a pool who is quickly disrupted by a group of teenage boys that begin loudly rough housing. The boys continue to create a noisy scene in the pool when the lovely lady takes a phone call on her blue tooth ear piece.
From the moment she puts the earpiece in, all background noise disappears and the violence begins. A great white shark is in the pool with the boys and begins attacking. The woman is on a phone call with her nephew and is oblivious to he commotion in the pool because her blue tooth capability is phenomenal. The pool scene becomes a little graphic and probably should not be shown to kids. However, there are many horror movie trailers that are far more violent than this commercial. The commercial ends with the words Jawbone Eliminates Noise appearing on the screen.
The word Eliminates then become a set Of jaws and chomps away the word Noise. This commercial was very Intuitive. It combined sex, laughter, fear, and violence for a very long-lasting effect on the viewer. There are many factors advertising agencies should take into consideration o make ads more memorable to consumers. A few to note are: invoke emotion, adapt from previous material, “shock and awe” the audience, utilize sex appeal, interject minimal counterrevolutionaries, and avoid playing commercials during sexually explicit and violent shows.
Advertising agencies should not focus on one aspect of the aforementioned but rather utilize a combination of the tools to maximize memorabilia, which in turn helps achieve a greater return on their customer’s investment. CHAPTER II TIVOLI DOESN’T MEAN SKIPPED COMMERCIALS Tivoli was founded in 1997. From Sunnyvale, California, they developed the iris commercially available digital video recorder (DVD). (Anonymous, 2008) 1999, Tivoli was presented at the Lass Vegas Consumer Electronics show. Marketers thought their 30-second spots would become a thing of the past.
Tivoli allowed viewers to skip past commercials. (Miller, 2007). Eight years aft its introduction, DVD’s have not been the total devastation commercials advertisers Once feared. However, the development by other companies using DVD technology has increased competition with Tivoli. Time Warner Cable has two services, Start Over and Look Back. Charter Cable also has started to offer video-on-demand services. The ability to fast forward through commercials is a feature highly liked by many consumers and a nightmare FCC any company Wing for attention.