Overlooked power of media: Enhancing the memorability of brand communications
The success of marketing communication is judged on a variety of factors, and one of the fundamental criteria is that people must remember the ideas conveyed in your advert.
While the variety of ideas that marketing might communicate is endless, the general characteristics of things that people readily remember can be expressed in a short list. People remember things that are:
• Relevant
• Different
• Emotionally impactful
• Recently encountered
• Frequently encountered
Many people assume that the first three qualities – relevance, difference, and emotional impact – evolve out of the creative content, while the last two attributes are functions of media delivery.
But it is not really so simple. The characteristics of the media vehicle used to deliver a message can shape the way people respond to the message itself. A medium can do more than just deliver communications that are relevant, different, and emotionally impactful; a medium can actually play a significant part in making communications relevant, different, and emotionally impactful. Media therefore plays an important role in making communications memorable.
Media effects vary across groups
Cross media research undertaken by Millward Brown globally (www.millwardbrown.com ) has confirmed the value of understanding in detail how different media perform with different groups. Among groups of people who are more or less predisposed to a brand or category, we usually observe different patterns of channel performance. In a recent study, online video had the greatest impact on one group, while cinema had more effect on another group. And both media outperformed TV overall. Because the same creative execution was used in all instances, we know that the difference in performance reflects differences in the relevance of each medium – and the message in that medium.
The case for non-TV options
On awareness and presence metrics, TV regularly outperforms other media per dollar spent. But on more fundamental measures of brand engagement and brand imagery, TV can be less cost-efficient than more targeted media like cinema, magazines, and online. This is a revelation to most people! Yes, TV is often important in creating initial campaign awareness, which can subsequently be reinforced and extended through communications in “secondary” media. But this is not the only effective approach, and it is not necessarily best practice. In fact,
sometimes it is a misuse of non-TV channels—a result of sheer laziness on the part of advertisers. A TV ad can be a powerful communications device. But so can a full-page ad in a magazine, or a provocative or eye-catching poster. We have seen great brand impact from non-TV campaigns over the years, even before the digital explosion.
The careful selection of your media channels will enable you to achieve your marketing
communication objectives. If your product demands demonstration, one should consider TV. The same message in Tell magazine could for instance be more impactful than in one of Nigeria’s many yellow magazines.
Are you getting your media mix right?
Michael Umogun is of Millward Brown
Michael Umogun