How to use the power of advertising to your advantage.

What is advertising? 

To convey a message, spread information, or just get your name flowing across a city, country, or the world, you advertise. This methodology is not limited to businesses or companies alone, the way you present yourself day to day is also how you advertise yourself. 

Advertising. Simple, right? You create a video, a printed flyer, a billboard, etc., quickly describing why your product is the best and why people should buy it. 

Think again. 

Weirdly, advertising became a creative field really quickly. It was swiftly understood that in order to be remembered you had to shock people. 

Advertising became one of the most significant bases to sell an item to a large audience. This indicator came after the general economic growth that began post-WWII.   Advertising always followed it’s economical and political environment, but in the 70s and 80s it became even more encouraged to express any kind of “creative” ideas. Some of them might surprise you.

Why is it so powerful? 

Advertising has always been a part of our society. Ironically, it’s one of the most relevant elements to determine whether the economy of a country is doing well or not. Ironic because advertising costs money, but what you put in is what you get out 🤷‍♀️.

It’s also a good representation of its industries. In San Francisco you’ll mainly see ads for High Tech products, in Paris: Luxury items, in Miami, well, you probably don’t want to know. Even in Tel Aviv today, we see more and more advertising campaigns for High Tech and Software companies (and that makes us really happy!).

Conscious advertising

Seeing an ad in the street can make you say “ah cool, that looks interesting I may buy it”, or it can make you feel nothing. But after seeing it, once, twice, & then 300 times, it may start to have an impact. After conducting  a survey, Kantar Wordlpanel concluded that an advertising campaign can only be effective after being shown more than 11 times to its audience (2019). 

And subconscious advertising

The real impact of advertising often appears in your subconscious. No, we’re not overthinking or conspiring 😉 , but most of the good advertisers will try to trigger some deeper parts of your consciousness. Same as every field, actually. 

Luxury will tell you that you deserve this very very expensive bag, (as if) and the cosmetics industry will try to tell you that you absolutely need mascara to look polished (suuuure). Advertising will try to challenge your deepest needs to make you buy the product. 

Examples: 

The Impossible Brief. 

When advertising tries to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A competition was held in 2011 for agencies and creatives around the world to try and ‘solve’ the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an advertisment. Sounds like a joke, we know.

However, after looking through the submissions, you’ll find that they are quite profound and created with benevolence.

The winning submission, however, struck a chord with us. You can hardly understand that it has anything to do with the conflict without some sort of context. What does this say about advertising? 

‍

Cosmetic campaigns

‍

Here you’ll look like a panther wearing mascara. Everytime your eyes blink, every man on the street will fall for you. You’ll be successful and unstoppable, a real beast ready to conquer everything. Duh.

‍

When here, any woman is able to identify with the french elegant thin silhouette. The perfume will give you this french identity of a woman walking with the highest heels in Paris and being so bold, so chic, wearing only a few drops of her “Petite robe noire” (little black dress).

When advertising teaches you your behavior.

Advertising has the power to create a whole identity and personality from a product. If you wear this bag, you’re trendy, if you drive this car, you’re rich, if you work with this computer, you’re smart… the list goes on.

At BRACT we have a totally different way of seeing advertising and branding. We believe branding is a way to express the personality of its founder and to help him or her reach its audience with kindness, truly. To help them say to their audience “hey, look, I created a product that could really help in this field, I hope it’ll help!

Based on a survey that we conducted on our audience, we were able to conclude that advertising has a profound impact on its audience. We also found that people respond far more to advertisements that target sentimental emotions and make the viewer feel something significant. So, because we hold this ability and power in our hands, we must use it wisely and accept the responsibility that comes with it. At BRACT, we choose to do this with kindness and compassion. 

Advertising is more powerful than we often indicate. It can change people’s minds, convince them of something completely untrue, or even change them as a person. We must be careful with it and always remember to prioritize having good intentions with everything we release to our audience.

Citations: 

June 16, 2011, How long? 5-7 minutes, Promoted July 27, 2021, & Promoted July 22, 2021. (2011, June 16). The impossible brief. Campaign. https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/impossible-brief/1075481. 

Kantar Worldpanel quantifie le Nombre IDÉAL de CONTACTS par média pour Maximiser ses ventes PGC. Accueil. (2019, February 25). https://www.offremedia.com/kantar-worldpanel-quantifie-le-nombre-ideal-de-contacts-par-media-pour-maximiser-ses-ventes-pgc.