Ben Parr mentions in his book ‘Captivology’ that consumers these days are forced to process the content of nearly 174 newspapers in a day. And what makes it worse is that we are more distracted than ever before.
At Kantar, we often challenge our clients to consider three pillars of a strong brand with the first and most critical starting block being ‘is your brand salient?’ Can consumers recall your brand amongst not only your category but the multiple messages that they are faced with daily? Then once we crack saliency, we would challenge the brands unique meaning for the people that it serves.
The TV adverts that South Africans have chosen as their best liked for Q1 and Q2 demonstrate expertise in all three areas. In first place for Q1 we see the hilarious Heineken “Unmissable” advert which demonstrates a common experience for many of us - it’s when you’re not looking that your team will score the goal! The distinctive creative style as well as brand placement throughout the advert makes this copy unique to Heineken. The bonus of using a common human experience such as this, is that, more often than not, it allows the ad to “cross borders” and deliver a great ROI.
We were delighted to see Sasol at the top of the Q2 list, with the renewed take on ‘Glug Glug’. Brands that take advantage of these historical brand assets and cues are placed favourably within consumer’s minds as they don’t have to work hard to know what the ad is about. Interestingly, the legacy Glug Glug ad from 1991 still tops Kantar’s Best Liked ads of all time, highlighting that difference plays a critical role in a brand’s personality.
It’s worth repeating that ads that are emotionally engaging, and build memorable and lasting impressions are more effective. By working with people’s brains engaging advertising can seed ideas, associations and feelings that are triggered during the purchase process, even long after the ad was last seen. But whatever the format used, it is essential for the brand to be integrated into the story of the ad.
Emotional meaningful difference often comes from dramatising a brand’s purpose – what the brand stands for, its point of view, and its values, and it’s wonderful to see a sprinkling of purpose driven adverts from Nike, McDonald’s and OMO appearing in the Best Liked Ads, demonstrating the brands’ commitments to long term brand building vs short term sales. Ads that deliver an explicit message won’t benefit brands to the same degree as an ad focused on building impressions.
When there is a need to reinforce functional benefits, deliver the message in a creative way. In general, ‘show’ don’t ‘tell’, the Samsung PowerShare ad is a classic example. People tend not to remember explicit messages without lots of repetition but a creative demonstration will help improve memorability. We aren’t advocating ‘dumping’ the message in ads altogether; there will be situations, such as product launches, where specific product messages will be beneficial but in the majority of cases, they may be a hindrance rather than a help.
Congratulations to the following brands and agencies:
| #1 AD Q1 2019 | | #1 AD Q2 2019 |
| Heineken: Unmissable
| | Sasol: This is more than fuel, this is #GlugGlug |
| Publicis Milan | | FCB Joburg |
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To view the PDF of all the ads for Q1&2 2019, click here.
Adtrack™ is Kantar's proprietary advertising testing system, evaluating the impact and liking of all brand advertising in South Africa for over 35 years. The resultant database stands at over 100,000 TV adverts tested, and more than 1.1 million interviews conducted, making this database one of the largest of its kind in the world. Find out how your creative and media benchmarks against the competition! Adtrack is the most comprehensive and sophisticated post launch evaluation and planning efficiency tool available. A commissioned Adtrack study offers deeper insight and understanding on the performance and effectiveness of your ads. Through the use of Kantar’s Media Optimiser tool, we are able to recommend the optimal future flighting of ads, to maximise your return on investments. Adtrack studies are available across all media channels.
For enquires about Adtrack contact
Monique Claassen
Director Media & Digital
moc.ratnak@nessaalc.euqinom
