4 Ways to make your commercial stand above the competition
All businesses want increased brand awareness and just like you need to make your business stand out, you also need your advert to stand out. This is often easier said than done, so here are 4 ways brands have successfully done this.
1. Make your audience feel something
A simple message can further your brand's growth and increase your profits. The key to your brand's success is to utilise a clear message that best represents your brand. But sometimes this is not enough. Incorporating your message into a story that will make consumers laugh, cry or feel some sort of positive attachment to your brand, will translate into trust and further your brand awareness.
This storytelling technique in commercials is highly effective, emphasising a brand's identity in this way is what generates more views, more shares and more sales and companies are always looking for new ways to accomplish this. One company that has used this technique efficiently is Specsavers. The strategy is simple: the advert opens with an everyday, ordinary scene, which is quickly made strange by a character doing something that seems highly out of place. The advert ends with the brand's slogan, "Should've gone to Specsavers", suggesting the bizarreness of the scene was caused by someone's missing glasses. This simple short and funny format provides a great way to connect with the audience and by making an advert memorable, you highly increase the visibility of your brand.
2. The right advert at the right time
Making time-specific adverts can be a powerful marketing tool. Take John Lewis, the famous UK department store. Every year, they produce an exclusive Christmas advert, encouraging shoppers to buy gifts for their loved ones during the festive period.
This Christmas advert campaign has proved to be hugely successful, with people waiting in eager anticipation to discover each year's advert, so much so that there are even events organised to watch the advert for it's first release!
Coca-Cola uses a similar strategy, creating an array of Christmas specific advert, typically featuring Santa or the brand's famous polar bear. These adverts have been capturing the imagination of audiences around the world for decades.
Creating time-specific adverts are not only an excellent way to create a new and unique marketing campaign for your brand, they can also make your brand come across as more relatable. By addressing events as they happen in real time, you provide the consumer with a sense of being cared for and acknowledged. This will translate into increased trust for your brand, which in turn will have a positive impact on your profits.
3. Play with expectations
When you imagine an advert for a high-end perfume, what comes to mind? Cocktail dresses, diamonds, thin beautiful women accompanied by a muscular hunk....
In one of it's most famous adverts, KENZO world presented us with these tropes in the opening images: a young woman in a green gown, at what seems to be an important and exclusive ceremony. However, the cliché is quickly broken when she starts an unexpected dance choreography, characterised by big, bold movements and distorted facial expressions, to an aggressive electronic track.
By taking the way the industry usually advertises perfumes, and turning it on it's head, KENZO world created an advertisement that surprised viewers. The gamble seems to have worked: with over 6 millions views on YouTube, the advert is one of the most viewed perfume campaigns on the web.
The public is bound to notice when something is out of the ordinary. By playing with the standards and expectations of adverts and distorting them, you will create an advert much more likely to stick in people's minds. So don't stay stuck in the same-old, same-old and take some risks!
4. Don’t waste time
Did you know it takes the average human 8 seconds to lose focus? In an advert, time is precious, so make sure you don’t waste any. This does not mean that something has to be going on at all times; just that the use of proper timing is essential. Make sure you are only delivering key information, and not eating up time with unnecessary details.
Apple has understood the importance of efficient use of time, and has played around with the concept in their new Iphone 7 and Iphone 7 plus advert. The advert, lasting 107 seconds, starts by warning the consumer: “Don’t Blink”. It then proceeds to flash words on the screen, leaving barely enough time to take it all in.
The viewer is left with no choice but to intensely focus on the information being transmitted. By using this bold timing style, Apple was able to communicate the great deal of features of its new phones in a time-effective and striking manner.
These are not the only brands who are capable of achieving success by going against the norm there are many more and you can be part of these risk takers also. Simply ask yourself which adverts you can remember, and then ask yourself why? The answer probably isn’t because it’s the same as the rest of them. Observe what they did, learn from it and create something equally impactful yet true to your brand.
