An ad, carried on any medium, is intended to promote a brand, a product or a company; engage current and potential customers to foster loyalty. However, adverts achieve just more than that; they are more than commercials for promoting brands. As an integral part of the mass media, have the potential to promote propagate particular ideologies and belief systems in popular culture and the society by extension. Also, I think ads can be high-efficiency channels that propagate positive energies to people. Also, such energies are from brands’ culture instead of from marketing plan.
Let me ask you a question first. If the brand name or logo is removed from an advert, would you be able to tell what brand the advert was promoting? I think the answers are obvious for most of ads. And, of course, it’s really difficult to leave the great obviousness and impression within few seconds clips. Then what’s the solution? Someone may say that companies can use attractive images and models. However, such solution can’t improve the recognition of certain brand once other brands are using same type of images. When I thought about this question. I was enlightened by Josh Sternberg’s blog post, ‘A Brand’s Cultural Relevance Is Almost as Important as a Strong Image, Study Finds‘, in which he suggested that the brands should align themselves with some existed cause or issues. I think brands should involve what they are believing in into the ads, and such beliefs are so called brand cultures. When consumers’ voices and opinions echo from the ads, they know that they are sharing some similarities with the brand, and they will then get into learn more about the brand.
Is that enough? Nah! I think bringing brand culture into ads is the first step. Then what’s next? I believe is engaging in culture. Culture is formed by community, certain group of people. Products are producing for people. So it’s necessary for brands to engage in culture by the bridge, advertisements. Giving back to the community; putting customers first; being inclusive of a wide audience; supporting social issues that benefit everyone — four top ways for a brand to be culturally relevant reported by E.J. Samson’ study. All these solutions are basing on one theory — brands should listen to customers. Learning customers’ culture is a huge need for brands. If brands can become part of the culture, they have more opportunities to deepen their relevance and connection with customers. The ads, as the most prevalent channel to people’s lives, should be the one that execute such duty, helping brands to become part of the culture.
Satisfying these ‘prerequisites’, the ads maybe closer to success. Information is important, but the belief and culture are even more valuable and memorable for consumers. ‘Just do it’, the slogan from Nike is always encouraging me to make progress and work harder. It’s not only a slogan but a belief that is brought to my mind by ads.
Moonlightmydream 