If you’ve taken a look at our new website recently, you’ll know that FMXA’s renewed company mission is to humanize technology for our clients. And the key elements of this philosophy come through building emotional connections between our clients and their customers. Whoever and wherever the target audience is, we want to appeal to their emotions, needs, and behavior, forming powerful, loyal, brand-to-customer connections.
When I think about marketing mediums, nothing has been able to capture the essence of human emotion quite like television. TV ads can powerfully convey memorable and affecting stories, making it much easier to build these emotional connections that are vital to humanizing brands.
Emotional connection through ads
We all have TV ads that have stuck in our minds. Whether they’re childhood favorites, catchy jingles, or even controversial approaches, effective ads will tell a compelling story and get people to remember your brand name, and they often don’t need to be hugely specific to your product or service. Take the John Lewis Christmas ad in the UK; each holiday season the retailer creates very cinematic but tear-jerking TV ads that show the power of love and friendship, often without showing a single one of their products. By creating these ads, John Lewis showcases their brand values to a much wider audience in a way that they’ll remember for years to come.
Switching to streaming
While some big tech players have launched large-scale TV ads in recent years, such as Cisco’s ‘Bridge to Possible’, Microsoft’s series of ‘Empowering Innovation’ spoken word-style commercials, and Dashlane’s ‘Password Paradise’ during the 2020 Super Bowl, smaller tech vendors have often steered clear of TV spots because, quite simply, it costs far too much.
But here’s where streaming comes in. Many people are abandoning TV altogether in favor of on-demand viewing, with 1.3 million people in the US canceling their cable subscription in 2020, coinciding with a 300% increase in streaming service consumers. While TV ads are all about mass reach, streaming can be highly targeted based on the shows we watch and when we watch them, taking the guesswork out of ads and giving companies far better value for their money.
OTT (Over the Top) advertising is delivered directly to viewers via streaming services like Hulu, Amazon Prime, Tubi, Paramount+, Discovery+, and Twitch, to name just a few, delivered via smart TV, laptop, tablet, or phone, allowing companies to target people through their favorite shows, wherever they like to watch. There’s also been a swing toward addressable TV advertising, whereby advertisers serve highly targeted ads within a TV show or navigation screen, displayed to specific demographics, jobs, industries, salaries, and tastes. Given that companies only pay when the ad is viewed, media costs are far less, enabling them to go head-to-head with larger players.
Humanizing technology
But as a medium it’s more important than ever to humanize each ad’s message and quickly get to the point of what you offer the customer. Not to mention the fact that you don’t want to annoy customers by heavily encroaching on their free time. To be the next memorable and emotive ad, such as the examples I’ve listed above, you need your ads to be punchy, relevant, and