I have a Master of Science degree in Marketing and an MBA with a concentration in marketing, to go along with an undergrad degree in Marketing; and 20+ years of marketing experience. You'd think I'd know all I need to by now, right?
I don't. Right now, I'm doing a deep-dive, self-study program on Neuromarketing, and in the course of my study, I came across something interesting about branding and advertising.
Do you remember the 1979 Coke TV ad with Mean Joe Greene and the little kid? Do you remember the 2013 Evian TV ad with the dancing babies? (I'll provide the links below).
Both ads were wildly popular. Both ads were wildly ineffective at selling their products. Evian lost market share in the following year; while Sergio Zyman pulled the Coke ad after a very short run. He discussed it in his book, "The End of Marketing As We Know It". People said he was crazy, and asked him why. He said, "It didn't increase sales of Coke".
Why?
My neuromarketing studies shed some light on this. Popularity does not necessarily translate into action or increased sales. Both commercials had some flaws in their branding execution, and as a result, viewers remembered the wrong things. Viewers remembered the babies dancing and thought it was cool. Coke viewers remember the heartwarming interaction between Mean Joe and the Kid. But in Evian's ad, the branding was ignored until the end, implemented as an afterthought, and viewers didn't commit it to memory. Coke did a better job of promoting and incorporating the brand into the ad, but it was still overshadowed by the human interaction. In other words, the ads were so cool, compelling, and interesting, that the brands themselves played second fiddle to the story. The brands were not the story. There is an old marketing rule, the Rule of 7, that says someone needs to see an ad seven times before they'll remember it. So, remembering an ad is important, right? You can't take action on something you don't remember. The trick is to make the brand and the product memorable, not just the dancing babies or the gentle giant. In brand building, it's not enough to achieve brand recognition; we also need to promote brand recall - get the brand to achieve top-of-mind status - which can lead a consumer to action.
Coke Ad with Mean Joe Greene
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