Advertising and the Mind of the Consumer

AdandMind.com. The website of the book published in 8 language editions.

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Neuroscience

Slipstream marketing

Turn-off tactics

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Max Sutherland's book is written for advertisers, agencies & consumers. Used by students of marketing, advertising, journalism and mass communications. Read a sample chapter       Introduction Sample chapter Buy @ Amazon USA Buy @ Amazon UK Buy from Australia What's Unique? Conclusions from tracking the effects of many hundreds of ad campaigns continuously, week by week, over a period of nearly 15 years in America, Asia, Australasia and Europe. Ad campaigns for companies like Gillette, Campbells Soup, McDonalds, AT&T, General Motors, Kodak, Shell and Qantas. Draws on academic research into communication psychology and buyer behavior but reduces the 'fog index' to make the findings clearer and more actionable. This is what readers say. Dr. Max Sutherland is an independent marketing psychologist and consultant in the U.S.A. and Australia, a regular columnist for trade publications and Adjunct Professor of marketing at Bond University. Co-author, Alice K. Sylvester is Sr. Vice President, Account Planning Director at Foote Cone and Belding and a former chair of the Advertising Research Foundation in New York. More ...about the authors.

sutherlandsurvey (weblog) Receive new posting via RSS feed. Click the icon on the left to subscribe. (Or right click the icon to copy and paste the link into your rss reader) 27 August, 2008 McCain Foods Slipstreams McCain The Presidential Candidate When your brand name is the same as a candidate for president, can you resist hitching on to it? If you fear alienating committed voters on the other side perhaps, but this has not deterred McCain Foods taking advantage of John McCain's run for the whitehouse. Since McCain doesn't use trans-fatty oils, a sample slogan is "McCain goes to war over oil." Full story at Ad Age 15th August, 2008 Swear**g Ads: Reader Contributions Further to my August 2008 column on The Swearing Effect in Advertising, Professor John Rossiter of Wollongong University reminded me of "Where the bloody hell are you" campaign that failed disastrously for Tourism Australia. He says: "My bet, however, is that these ads are risky and will turn off more people than they will turn on as "clever (see the fifth principle in my Remote Conveyor Model: Absence of conflicting associations - which also rules out most puns, as alleged in the Percy and Rossiter 1980 book)." Thanks also to Neil Francis (Catalyst2Action) for the reminder of the very successful campaign for 'Fourex' (an Australian beer) using the clever line: "Australians wouldn’t give a XXXX for anything else." He also contributed these two slogans: Dell: Easy as Dell Ikea (Norway): Screw yourself And here's another contribution. Thanks to an anonymous reader for this 2002 billboard ad publicising cheap prices on Australian airline Virgin Blue: 11 August, 2008 The Swear**g Effect in Advertising. This month’s column is prompted by an ad I saw at Brisbane airport recently urging us to fly Air Asia to Phuket, Thailand. It reminded me of another ad for Sofa King furniture in USA. It claimed “Our prices are Sofa King low”. This month's column analyzes the effects of these and other ads that slipstream swearing for attention and impact. Read more.. 15th July 2008 Acceleration of Communication. Destination Competitive Advantage To circumvent biologically enforced, perceptual speed limits, exploit the subtle dimension of time by ‘compressing’ communications into a template. Just as you can build a mind template for your brand, so too can you do the same thing with your ads. Accelerated communications let you cruise along at unrestricted speed enjoying a significant communication advantage over competitors. Read more... 7th May 2008 Mind Bridges When changing messages, construct a mind bridge between the old ad campaign and the new one so that consumers can use it to ‘cross over’ - from one to the other.   When an existing attribute (e.g. ‘the great taste of Pepsi’) is well established in mind, any change of message can face resistance and take considerable time to ‘wear-in’. That’s because the new one has to displace the old.1  However if you use a mind bridge, this doesn’t have to happen. Read more... 11th April 2008 Guidelines for Behavioral Targeting Further to my column "Behavioral Targeting: Consumers in the Cross-Hairs", a group called theNetwork Advertising Initiative, a trade association of companies, like AOL’s Advertising.com and Google’s Doubleclick. have now released their guidelines for Behavioural Targeting. The NY Times says that iff you’ve got AIDS, cancer or erectile dysfunction, this group of big advertising networks "are going to promise not to remember that you read sites about those topics and remind you (or others using your computer) of your condition with ads for related drugs as you surf the net. But if you have Parkinson’s disease, congestive heart failure or warts, the ad companies have decided it may well be acceptable to keep track of your interest in medical subjects and fill your browser with ads for helpful products from pharmaceutical companies." more at NY Times... 9th November, 2007 'Behavioral Targeting' : Consumers in the Cross-hairs Search-engine queries and visits to websites generate a potential goldmine of market research information. It is used to aim ads at us with increasing pinpoint precision. Few people have any idea that they are being tracked, profiled and targeted in this way. The worry is not so much that it is happening as that it is happening in a near-vacuum of regulation. ...more 6th November, 2007 'Subliminal' ads for Toyota, Chupa Chups, KFC & Others. I said in my May column that subliminal ads, like Energizer bunny, just keep going and showed links to a couple of on-air examples. This month during the television presentation of the Australian music industry awards (ARIAS), 'subliminal' flashes for the sponsors including Toyota, KFC and Chupa Chups occurred. Watch them here and check out the 'answers' given to the ABC program Media Watch when it investigated. (These were guaranteed to stir controversy and 'get attention'. Was that the real objective? What else could these people have been thinking?) In a follow up interview, the Channel Ten Network denies that 1-4 frames per second is subliminal and used the defence that it was part of a method called "rapid cuts" commonly used in music presentations. Note that KFC 'has form' with using this sort of controversial advertising. Last year they told USA consumers that there was a hidden password in one of their TV ads. Discover the password and you win a free KFC sandwich. More KFC examples in the earlier column.   29th September, 2007 Curious But Real: Effects From Fast Forwarded Ads. Latest evidence confirms that fast-forwarded TV ads are undervalued. They have some very curious…but real effects. more... 30th August, 2007 Social Contagion: “I’ll Have What She’s Having” Buying, laughing, yawning and graffiti are all socially contagious. Now research says obesity is too. This has nothing to do with the power of suggestion or keeping up with the Joneses. To be influenced by others is genetically programmed in us and is an evolutionary hangover. more... 26th June 2007 Conformity as a Turn-off Tactic: Reducing Energy Consumption. Turn-off tactics used in anti-smoking and road safety campaigns are being co-opted to get people to reduce their consumption of oil, energy, gasoline, water etc. Based on the latest research, here is a very simple turn-off tactic that might help address the energy binge.  Read more... 29th May, 2007 Subliminal Advertising, Like Energizer Bunny, Keeps Going… and Going. Do subliminal ads really work? Like the Energizer bunny, the brouhaha surrounding subliminal advertising just keeps going… and going.  In the last few years, heavyweights such as McDonalds and KFC have been accused of using ‘subliminal advertising’.  As has George W. Bush.  Why? What's behind all this? On cable TV during an episode of Iron Chef America on the Food Network, a frame of the McDonalds golden arches was discovered in the program.  And when George W. Bush was running for President against Al Gore, the Republicans were also under fire, accused of using subliminals in their ads. View these ads and the full story on subliminal advertising... here. 12th May 2007 A Real Ad...What Were These People Thinking? Can you believe that this is a real ad for a fast food chicken outlet?   Well it is real! In my years of tracking many hundreds of ad campaigns throughout the world, I have never seen anything like this. About 50% of the ads that I tracked, didn't work and some even had a negative effect. You can bet this is one of those that sends sales down. If the the communication target, the brand user, is mothers, then they are being asked to identify with this image of an on-screen user who is a table-top dancer! That should enhance their self-image and their image with the family. Unbelievable!! 12th April 2007 Acknowledging a Wart - Profiting from Honest Advertising Sometimes a politician emerges who resonates with voters because he or she is disarmingly frank and doesn’t couch every answer in political-speak.  In marketing too, ads that are disarmingly honest can make a brand resonate with potential buyers. New evidence indicates you can profit from honest ads that ‘acknowledge a wart’.  When we first landed on the moon, Volkswagen ran a brilliant ad depicting the moon-lander with the headline: “It’s ugly, but it gets you there. VW”. Two things made this such a great ad.  First, it gains huge attention by slipstreaming a high-profile event – indeed, the most watched event in history.  Second, it also stands outbecause it is disarmingly honest. It earns points for honesty and gains credibility for VW because it articulates what many people were actually thinking at the time; Volkswagens were ugly. In other words, it ‘acknowledges a wart’. Read more... 21st March, 2007 Neuromarketing: What's it all about? In opening up a whole new world of understanding of the mind, neuroscience will deliver increasingly powerful, marketing insights. Its immediate application to marketing requires businesses to tread carefully and disentangle the scientific substance from the promotional hype. Businesses prepared to exercise this caution and engage with it now, have an opportunity for early-mover advantage - before neuromarketing gets regulated. Read more. 28th January, 2007 New Twist in Turn-off Tactics Here's a new twist. Nicoderm is promoting its skin patch by positioning quitting smoking as a beauty aid. (Original at adrants.) Check out more examples of turn-off tactics here.         4th January, 2007 Symposium on Neuromarketing - Australia On 16th February 2007, the Brain Sciences Institute ( Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne Australia) will hold its 1st Annual Symposium on Neuromarketing - The Neuroscience of Consumer Choice. Click here to download the program details. Back in Feb, 2001, I first wrote about the SSPT brain wave measurement technology developed by Professor Richard Silberstein and his team at the Brain Science Institute. That column, New Hi-tech Ad Testing Method, can be accessed here. What is neuromarketing? Find out here. 3rd January 2007 Mind on High, Thoughts on Fast Forward and Brands on Speed. Ever had difficulty going to sleep because your thoughts are racing and you feel you are on a mild high? Speeding up mental processing generates some weird effects - even for ads and brands – and this has implications for fast-cut commercials. We are often oblivious to the way our mind works because of the speed at which it operates - i.e. faster than our speed of introspection. We make sense of what we see too quickly to be conscious of the underlying processes involved, yet speeding these up can have profound effects. As brands gets recognized more rapidly, some curious things happen. ....Read more 3rd November 2006 Bricks and Mortar Retailers Continue To Gain in Web Search In my September column Web Search Terms: A Window on the Social Mind, I noted that four bricks and mortar retailers were increasingly searched on the web. All seemed to be heavily into product placement in TV shows and had been improving their web search position for months. Their investment in product placement seems to be paying off. Here is the comparison 2 months later and it shows all of them continuing to gain. (Maceys is still conspicuous by its absence.)     Web Search Position Aug 2006 # Web Search Position Oct 2006 # Home Depot 45 42 Wal-Mart 50 46 Target 90 89 Sears 103 97 Source: Wordtracker top 200 list for last 90 days 30th October, 2006 Slogan as a Brand Précis How do you come up with a great brand slogan? Its role is broader and more fundamental than just communicating a benefit claim or an advertising sign-off. A slogan should précis the very meaning of the brand and act as a verbal watchdog to help maintain its future focus. ...more   download pdf . 18th October, 2006 Visual Reinforcement of Verbal Message Here is a clever ad for Ikea. (Thanks to Russian reader, Alexander Repiev who sent it.). You don’t even have to be able to speak the language to get the message as the visual does such a great job of communicating it. Because people are often only half paying attention, visual reinforcement of an advertisement’s verbal message is important to effective communication. It is not what you say but how you say it. And it is not what you show but how you show it. The ad not only reinforces (what I presume is) the verbal message that Ikea’s furniture is strong, it does so in an eye catching way that makes it a two-second hooker. A number of Ikea ads do visual reinforcement of verbal message in a way that grabs attention. Here’s one of their TV ads that does a nice job of visually reinforcing the message that you can “Find Your Style” at Ikea. 15th September, 2006 Web Search Terms: A Window on the Social Mind Web search terms are a window on the social mind; they reveal what the other half of the world is thinking about. The media help agenda-set what people are interested in and this is revealed quickly in the search words that people type into search engines. A regular list of the top 200 search terms is available (free by email) and armed with this list, the task of appearing cool becomes a breeze! ...more download. 26 August 2006 Google of Late Moves to Protect Trademark. Update on my January column, Google: $ Billion Brand in Peril?, about Google's risk of being declared generic and losing proprietary control over its own brand. It is a mystery why the company has been curiously slow in getting off the mark to guard against this. However, this month it stirred and fired off a series of legal letters to the media asking them not to use the expression "to google" generically (to refer to search by any search engine). See "Thou Shalt Not Google". A long line of trademarks have become generic this way, including kerosene, trampoline, nylon, thermos and linoleum. What were once valuable brand names are now just words in dictionaries owned by no-one and available to all. Google must fight to fend off the same fate. 24 August, 2006. "Just Do It'". Did Nike Slipstream Clairol? Further to my August column, Celebrity Slipstreaming: Pop Stars & Pop Expressions thanks to Stephen Holden (of Bond University) who sent in this Clairol ad from 1982 that may have been the first use of something like the Nike ad slogan. It appeared six years before Nike's "just do it". 21 August, 2006 Celebrity Slipstreaming: Pop Stars & Pop Expressions Why not hitch your brand to a pop expression and slipstream it? Like Budweiser did with ‘wassup’. Pop expressions (Yesss!, Duh, Hel-Lo?!) stop us in much the same way that seeing a famous person does. So get your free attention magnet, here! .. more..download (139k)   13 May 2006 Advertising Turn-off Tactics Can advertising turn people off, as effectively as it can turn people on? Click here to view a range of ads that use different psychological appeals to turn people off smoking or stop them from taking it up. New graphic health warnings on cigarette packs are the latest turn-off tactic being used in Canada, Brazil and now Australia. They visually depict risks of smoking. One risk is gangrene and this pack warning is backed in Australia by a TV commercial showing a surgeon amputating a diseased smoker’s foot (See the TV ad here. Read more about the Australian campaign here). Don't forget to check out the range of psychological appeals here.   23 April, 2006 Imagined Actions: Another Way to Create Advertising Impact. Last month we explored the psychology of double-meaning and word-play and how they increase the impact of an ad (see A Pun is its Own Reword). Now, here’s yet another way to engage the audience - using imagined actions. Imagined actions tap into the broader tendency of our minds to use whatever information there is around to self-complete what we are seeing or hearing.. more..download (193k) 25 March, 2006. A Pun is its own Reword What Aristotle called rhetoric, advertising calls creativity. The impact comes not just from what you communicate but how you communicate it. Here's the psychology of how double-meaning and word-play increase the impact of an ad. Just as we appreciate a public speaker for a clever delivery, so ads that endear themselves to us have the potential to wash-over onto our feelings about the brand advertiser. more..download (163k). 10 March, 2006. Spitzer Urges FCC To Act On Payola My Nov. 2005 column showed how, without making direct claims or assertions, people are influenced by payola, product placement, push polling etc. I pointed out how the regulators 'look the other way' if there is no overt claim. New York Attorney General, Elliot Spitzer (March 8) has now urged the FCC to take stronger action, against payola at least . He said: "Almost a year after payola was exposed in significant detail, the FCC has yet to respond in any meaningful way". 12 February, 2006. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): Brain Science Breakthrough. Everyone knows about brain scanning, but most of us have never heard of a new device called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Non invasive and painless, it can temporarily inactivate an area of the human brain to let brain scientists study the effect. A treatment for depression, a tool for war, or a chance for us all to exhibit our more creative side? You decide. However one thing is for certain. TMS is an exciting breakthrough in brain science that you are going to be hearing a lot more about. more...download. 10 February, 2006 Superbowl Ads Evaluated with Brain Scanning 21 of the Superbowl 2006 ads have been evaluated using fMRI brain scanning. Full results are at FKF Applied Research. The Disney ad "NFL Dreamers" and Sierra Mist’s “Airport Security" seemed to perform well on the brain scans while Bud Light’s “Secret Fridge” and FedEx “Caveman” seemed to show little effect. Hmmm. (Thanks to Chris Middleton for pointing this out.) 13 January, 2006 'Generic' Google -Postscript Further to my January column, if Google were to be declared generic and lose proprietary control over its own brand, there could be a touch of poetic justice in it for some trademark owners like Lois Vuitton, AXA and Geico. Google’s ‘Adwords’ market place 'sells' thousands of words (that people search for every day) to advertisers who bid for their ad to show up when people search on that word. The problem is that (unlike Yahoo) Google also includes trademark words. Corporations like Lois Vuitton, AXA and Geico object to Google including their trademarks amongst the search words that Google 'sells' to the highest bidder (including their competitors). A number of legal actions have been launched against Google on this and the issue is working its way through the courts. (Comment Feb 28: listen to a good explanation of the issues from NPR radio 8th Feb.) 5 January, 2006. Google: $ Billion Brand in Peril? The names ‘aspirin’, ‘escalator’ and ‘windsurfer’ were once proprietary brand names, but each one lost its trademark protection because the name drifted into general usage and became generic. Is Google headed the same way? more...download.       Go to Weblog Archive Middle_column

Monthly column The Swear**g Effect in Advertising.- Aug 2008 Acceleration of Communication. Destination Competitive Advantage - July 2008 Mind Bridges -March 2008 Behavioral Targeting: Consumers in the Cross-hairs - Nov. 2007 Curious But Real: Effects From Fast Forwarded Ads - Sept 2007 Social Contagion: “I’ll Have What She’s Having” -Aug 2007 Conformity as a Turn-off Tactic: Reducing Energy Consumption - June 2007 Subliminal Ads, Like Energizer Bunny, Keep Going - May 2007. Acknowledging a Wart - Profiting from Honest Advertising - April 2007 Neuromarketing: What's it all about? - March 2007 Mind on High, Thoughts on Fast Forward and Brands on Speed. - Jan 2007 Slogan as a Brand Précis - Oct 2006 Web Search Terms: A Window on the Social Mind - Sept 2006 Celebrity Slipstreaming: Pop Stars & Pop Expressions - Aug 2006 Advertising Turn-off Tactics - May 2006 Imagined Actions: Another Way to Create Advertising Impact. - Apr 2006 A Pun is its own Reword - March 2006 Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): Brain Science Breakthrough. Feb. 2006 Google: $ Billion Brand in Peril? - Jan. 2006 Messages in Masquerade, Communications in Camouflage - Nov. 2005. Product Placement Accelerating on a Slippery Slope - Oct .2005 Making Clever Ads Work: Overcoming 'Attention Deficit Disorder'. Sept. 2005 False Alarm Theory: How Humorous Ads Work. Aug. 2005 Spot Removal and Whitening of Image: Making Past Messages Fade. July 2005 Worm-holes of the Mind. June 2005 Warfare Strategy in the Battle for the Mind. (Based on a paper published in Admap Jan. 2001) Information Intercourse: Making Messages Penetrate. May 2005 Generating Brain Waves that Pierce Attention. April 2005 Awaiting a 'Rythmic Resurrection' in Advertising. March 2005 Why Product Placement Works! Feb. 2005 Wake-up Call! The Future of RFID is Dawning. Jan. 2005 Bonding Slogan to Brand. Nov 2004 How to Supercharge Your Slogans. Oct. 2004 Erectile Dysfunction & the Da Vinci Code. Sept. 2004 Neuromarketing in Retreat. Aug.2004 See more.....