Unlocking Success: The Power of Common Sense in Modern Marketing

Can you believe it’s almost the end of the year already? As usual, marketers are once again faced with the familiar challenge. It’s all about cutting through the clutter to connect with your audience in a meaningful way. But how? It turns out, common sense often becomes the missing ingredient in effective marketing toolkits.

Want to create experiences that truly resonate? In a landscape filled with distractions, embracing common sense can be your North Star – it will help your brand stand out and forge lasting connections with your customers.

Ready to cut through the fluff and dive into actionable solutions? We’ve got you covered! Here’s a valuable collection of practical tips from top industry experts, grounded in the latest research. By implementing these insights, you will not only achieve measurable results, but will also deliver better marketing:

• Overcome the increasing resistance to ads. According to a recent post from Dr. Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy, Founder and CEO of Neurons, the world’s leading applied neuroscience company, studies suggest that the so-called “attention-irritation gap” is widening: consumers are paying less attention to ads but feeling more irritated by them (based on the work by Simone Misser-Pedersen). Neurons’ own data support this: ads receive less attention, engage less emotionally, and generally are worse at producing ad memory and especially brand memory – the so-called “consumer ad immune response” reflecting resistance to ad saturation and intrusive formats. What seems to be a few major drivers of this effect, according to Dr. Zoëga Ramsøy: ad overload, intrusive formats and misalignment with interests. How to create ads that capture attention respectfully and resonate with consumers without triggering irritation? He suggests the following:
  • Use non-intrusive formats. Choose ads that blend seamlessly with content, like native or story-based ads, to reduce disruption.
  • Enhance targeting for relevance. Focus on showing ads aligned with user interests to make them feel less invasive and more engaging.
  • Provide real value. Create adds that inform, entertain, or resonate emotionally to foster a positive connection instead of irritation.
• Create inimitable on-brand experiences. Advertising is important, but let’s not overlook what truly makes an impact: the brand experience. According to Mary Kyriakidi, Global Thought Leader at Kantar, “experiences contribute significantly more to brand equity than paid media, with 75% of brand equity growth stemming from product/service experiences and word of mouth”. What does it mean for your brand? Literally: Treat “every interchange as a high-potential moment in time, a moment where a customer’s need (the human-centric) would meet the brand’s expression of its own personality (the brand-centric)”- the “magical place of on-brand experience”. To further emphasize the importance of this approach, new evidence from Kantar revalidates the commercial power of experience: brands that improve their experience are 2.5x more likely to significantly improve their market share. As per the latest article from Kyriakidi and Peter Aiken, Head of Customer Strategy & Insights at Kantar, experiences play a vital role in creating brand-relevant memories that get brands bought. But not all memories are equal, nor do they all stack up well against competition. For the two Kantar experts, it’s the inimitable on-brand experience that makes the difference. Their data shows that if your encounters transcended functionality and recommendation to imprint in people’s memories, your brand will be chosen more often.

Experiences fuel brand memories, ‘the thing’ behind our decisions.

Mary Kyriakidi – Global Thought Leader, Kantar

• Stand out from the noise by harnessing total attention. It’s a noisy world we live in. As bestselling author Greg McKeown puts it: “it clatters and chatters all around us, far more now than ever. A good deal of this noise demands attention and, more curiously, insists upon our reaction.” The famous entrepreneur, investor, author, podcaster, and lifestyle guru Tim Ferriss goes even further: “I’m going to propose that you develop an uncanny ability to be selectively ignorant (…) – learn to ignore or redirect all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable. Most are all three.” Earning your audience’s attention in these conditions could be a nightmare for you as a marketer. The way out? In a recent conversation with agency leaders, among which Dr. Karen Nelson-Field, and CMO’s on “The Power of Total Attention” hosted by the Australian Association of National Advertisers, Pinterest released their research report on the roles of both Active and Passive Attention in driving business outcomes in partnership with Amplified Intelligence. Some of the key takeaways of the event include valuable insights such as:
  • Passive Attention is key to unlocking incremental attention. Because people are switching in and out of Active and Passive Attention constantly, it’s a missed opportunity for brands not to consider both.
  • The “Attention Flywheel” refers to a balanced attention strategy of Active and Passive Attention working together to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of campaigns.
  • Combined, Active and Passive Attention forms “Total Attention”.
• The above is backed up by data from a comprehensive study that Amplified Intelligence conducted with Pinterest based on 59,000 ads across 40 brands to uncover the impact of different types of attention on various business outcomes, including Short Term Sales Lift (STAS), Site Traffic (measured using a 7/7/7 attribution window), and long-term brand equity (assessed by Mental Availability). This study encompassed brands of varying market sizes across six countries and industries such as food & drink, retail, beauty, financial services, hospitality, fashion, auto, and household goods.
• “Solve a problem” rather than “sell more stuff to more people”. According to Paolo Provinciali, VP Marketing Growth, Performance, & Operations, LinkedIn, there is a huge arbitrage opportunity in the advertising industry and we don’t talk about it nearly as much as we should: the ability of a media channel or format to actually drive impact is determined by 4 factors:
  • The ability to reach the desired audience, also known as on-target reach
  • The frequency at which it reaches that audience
  • The predisposition of that audience to listen to the message you are delivering, also known as contextual relevance
  • The ability of that media or format to capture and retain the audience attention so that you can deliver that message.
• According to Provinciali, only 3 of those 4 factors are considered when pricing the media for the most part, which is: reach, frequency, and contextual relevance. His advice? “If you can actually focus on the media that has high level of attention and relatively low price, you can get a great deal and drive outsized returns from it.” Kantar’s Mary Kyriakidi advises on a similar strategy. At the first ever Better Marketing Conference that took place recently in Greece, she explained that brands grow by being meaningfully different to more people and shared three growth accelerators:
  • Predispose more people
  • Be more present
  • Find new space
• This approach helps brands build long-term, sustainable success while contributing positively to society and the planet. As Kyriakidi wisely puts it: “Ask yourself ‘am I solving a problem’ rather than ‘can I sell more stuff to more people’. If the answer to the former is a resounding YES, then you’ve got your green light to move forward. Our data shows it will be good for your bottom line too.”
• Strive to influence the P (Product). Even though some current trends seek to downplay the classic 4Ps of Marketing, they remain as relevant as ever. According to Mark Ritson, the famous former marketing professor and founder of the Mini MBA in Marketing, marketing is still a product game. Product oriented companies launch big new things and then grandly move to the next big thing. In his opinion, market-oriented managers stick around after the party and start asking consumers, often for free, what would make the product better. And those incremental tweaks, over time, turn good products into great ones. This process starts with marketers ignoring the ignorant voices telling them marketing is now just about demand gen and performance and accepting that product is part of their job. As per Ritson, the product P is clearly outside of the tiny social bubble marketers inhabit, far more important than the stories we tell each other and occasionally consumers. In his opinion, as marketers we should not get upset about this fact. We should celebrate it and ensure we are doing our part to move our respective products ever closer to consumer desires.

As Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman at Ogilvy UK, says: “Marketing is a process of experimentation and discovery about what unmet human needs might be in a world that we don’t and will never fully understand”. So, we would add, you need some common sense and a trusted partner in order to navigate the process successfully.

Novelty Media, via SmartAdd, offers an innovative mobile media channel that is straightforward, non-intrusive and offers real value. It respectfully captures attention in carefully curated micro-moments during people’s daily lives. Featuring compelling video content tailored for mobile devices, your brand can effectively engage consumers and cultivate loyalty among all demographics.

Interested? Join our global advertisers who consistently choose our platform for their content needs. SmartAdd is fully supported by Mobile Operators, ensuring that brands connect solely with verified human subscribers. By choosing SmartAdd, you can focus on delivering impactful content while we handle the rest. Reach out to us today to discover more about our solution and make a meaningful impact!