After four years of collecting data about Aotearoa’s favourite adverts, The Research Agency has analysed the results and can reveal a few pointers about what drives sales. Carl Sarney, Head of Strategy at TRA, talks us through the findings.
TRA is now in its fourth year of tracking New Zealand’s favourite ads. During this time, we’ve collected more than 12,000 responses to the open-ended question: “What’s your favourite ad on TV at the moment?”
Now, with so much data at our fingertips, we’re taking a moment to uncover patterns – with a little help from our friend AI.
The insights from our AI analysis provide valuable lessons for marketers aiming to balance the dual objectives of long-term brand building and short-term sales activation. The most interesting pattern AI identified? What drives sales activation.
Long-term brand building
Our analysis found that creating positive associations with your brand will build future demand over time – making people feel ‘Good’, ‘Happy’ and ‘Positive’ were among the top emotions linked to favourite ads. The findings indicate that emotional warmth strengthens positive brand associations, fostering long-term preference.
“It made me feel good about the bank.”
“It made me feel happy, warm hearted, positive about life.”
“It made me feel warm and fuzzy.”
Financial institutions, including ASB and ANZ, consistently reach the top spots in our rankings. When we look closer at these ads, we see that they match the pattern of creating emotional warmth and then use this warmth to reinforce associations of reliability, confidence, community connection, safety and trust. Ads that evoke these feelings cater to a fundamental human need: security. As noted by one respondent: “I feel secure and reassured by what I see and hear.”
By using emotional warmth to strengthen positive associations, these financial institutions are creating memorable campaigns that build a brand advantage over the long term. But there’s a catch. While emotional warmth is effective over the long term, a passive emotion is less likely to prompt immediate action.
Neutral emotional responses like “it made me feel warm towards the brand”, is a more common emotional out-take among those who did NOT take action. This indicates that, while emotional warmth does prime people to favour your brand, it’s unlikely to drive short-term sales.
Short-term sales activation
Ads evoking strong, visceral emotions are more likely to prompt immediate action. Descriptions such as ‘very positive’, ‘very good’, ‘more positive’ and ‘very happy’ are unique to those who took action. For an ad to evoke these strong, visceral emotions, it needs a bold idea that stands out as more remarkable and rewarding than anything else in the ad break.
Another interesting pattern surfaced in AI analysis – favourite ads that made people feel ‘hungry’ are strongly correlated with taking action. McDonald’s and KFC have frequently appeared in the top 10 favourite ads list. They make people feel hungry, and prompt action from TV viewers.
While this might seem like an oversimplified explanation for the success of these ads, there’s a broader lesson for marketers. The simplicity of the viewer’s ‘hungry’ reaction demonstrates the effectiveness of tapping into core human needs. Triggering core human needs like hunger is particularly potent in driving immediate action.
Thinking laterally, the concept of ‘hunger’ extends beyond the literal want for food. Can advertising create hunger and appetite for other core human needs such as safety, social connection, achievement, purpose and sexual desire?
We pointed our AI prompts to search the data for mentions of these core needs in answers from people who did take action after seeing their favourite ad.
Here are some examples of advertising creating ‘hunger’ for products and services beyond food.
“It’s about escape, and I haven’t travelled in quite some time. It made me miss travel.”
“We have so many goals and dreams, seeing them fulfilled is motivating.”
“I’d feel a strong sense of satisfaction at achieving the goal of having one.”
“The look on people’s faces when the smash-up is described really did make me think about safety ratings with cars.”
The takeaway
Ultimately, brands need to strike a balance between long-term brand building and short-term sales activation. Together, the two activities work in synergy.
The data tells us that to drive future demand, adverts should incorporate emotional warmth to foster positive brand associations.
Then, to convert this soft brand love into hard action, ads should aim to generate a strong visceral ‘hunger’ for core physiological, social and aspirational needs that your product or service will satiate.
In other words, the best campaigns warm people’s hearts then make them hungry to buy.
This was first published in the 2024 September-October NZ Marketing Magazine issue. Subscribe here.
