Have you ever wondered about how to be more persuasive or influential? Certainly, an important question if you are in the marketing profession, isn’t it? It is certainly a secret to word of mouth marketing … emotion as the secret. Let me explain how.
Emotional word of mouth conversations is sparked when consumers are highly aroused. Have
you noticed that people choose emotionally and then justify logically?
Before
we continue, let me ask you a question.
What
works best for word of mouth marketing design in your business? We would love
to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? Be the one who starts a
conversation.
Then it stands a far better chance of being
talked about by more people.
The higher the degree of emotion created the more differentiation and the easier for your brand to project uniqueness and its word of mouth messages.
And telling stories are an excellent way to get
to emotion most easily. Let me share a few examples
Creating smiles
Fleur, a florist shop in Chicago, puts a bucket full of bright balloons by the door of their shop both inside and out, with a handwritten sign that says: “Take a balloon.” That’s all. No logos, no catch. It is just a small action to make people smile. Inside the store, it makes a pretty display, and outside the store, people are likely to ask where you got the balloon.
Creating smiles.
That’s
a simple, fun way to create some emotion and get a conversation started without
a marketing message. A bucket full of balloons is a bucket full of the word of mouth memories waiting to happen. It
doesn’t have to be branded or a part of a
larger campaign — in fact, the simpler you make it, the better.
Surprise people
Surely
you have seen the tear-jerker commercials for abused or abandoned puppies or
kittens. Not something you’ll often share with friends, is it?
North
Carolina’s Wake County SPCA tried a very different approach to this problem.
They made a lip-synching music video to ABBA’s song “Take a Chance on Me”, with
the entire shelter staff and most of the adoptable animals.
A
success? It was watched on YouTube over
3.4 million times the last time we looked. Just because others do the standard tear-jerking videos doesn’t mean they are
popular.
Surprise
your audience with original things that are fun and approachable like this SPCA
did. It may even surprise you.
Emotional influence
The
Zillow real estate company has built an entire marketing campaign on
influencing home buyers with emotional influence. Have you seen any of them? We
like them so much that we have searched for them on YouTube frequently.
“Homecoming”
is Zillow’s sixth TV spot, one of the latest in the company’s highly successful
national advertising campaign. You cannot beat these ads. There are no better means of influence or the power
of persuasion than emotion. Hands down the best, in our opinion.
Experiences
that trigger our emotions are saved and consolidated in lasting memory because
the emotions generated by the experiences signal our brains that the
experiences are important to remember.
The
homecoming commercial ending message says it all:
You are not just looking for a
house; you are looking for a place for your life to happen.
This commercial focuses on emotional appeal in grand fashion. It is the secret of this commercial’s success. It creates strong persuasion in our opinion. A great example of using emotion for successful advertisement design.
Storytelling
Have you seen the remarkable branding video design from this South African business? The Bell’s TV commercial features a father whose intrepid spirit demonstrates just what it takes to be a true man of character.
The video was created to market and build the brand. It is a very simple story. It advocates learning to read no matter your age or status in society. To us, it creates pure magic with the story, the visuals, the music, and the emotion. It certainly finds and puts emotional triggers to work.
If you haven’t seen it, watch it now, it is only 2 minutes, and it will inspire you. It is certainly easier in our top 5 of all time.
Likewise, have you ever wondered why movies like Toy Story
are so compelling and successful? The best writers in the world speak to universal human themes—the things that drive every one
of us no matter what our worldview is.
Compelling storylines work because we see ourselves
reflected in the characters. Their story is our story. A great script looks us
right in the eye and says, “I see you.”
Contrast that feeling with the one you get when you’re speaking to someone at a
party, who is looking over his shoulder for the next most interesting person to
enter the room.
That’s exactly how you don’t want your customers and clients to
feel.
Great storytellers make us feel like they’re speaking
directly to us. And so it goes for great brand storytelling. The best brand
stories make you feel like the company understands and is speaking just to you.
The goal is to be more like Pixar and nothing like that guy at the party. You achieve that by remembering ‘the rule of one.’
Speak to one person at a time. Make that person feel like
she’s being looked in the eye.
That’s the foundation of a winning emotional story.
The bottom line
Emotion is the secret language of the brain… works on emotion if you want to improve your persuasion or influence.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight
gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improve your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More
reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
We recently posted a blog on the meaning of customer experience and the value of improvement in customer experience design. We elaborated on learning to view the design from ‘inside out’ and ‘outside-in’ simultaneously.
When considering why convenience has become a key differentiator in customer experience, the answer is right in our faces: We all have busy lives; we’re all pulled in multiple directions all day long. Given an alternative, does anyone want less convenience or to spend more time on their to-do list?
This idea isn’t really new. Corner markets and convenience stores aren’t just competing with the big-box superstores, they flourish. Why? The reason is in their names: They’re right where their customers are, and they’re convenient.
They don’t usually have lines, and they don’t have aisles and aisles of choices to sift through. They’ve established just what their shoppers want to be able to run in and grab, be it a hot snack, a cold drink, or gas for the car and ice cream for the kids.
Taking this one step further, let’s consider the downside of limitless choices. In quick and convenient customer experience, the customer doesn’t want to wander around, get lost or distracted, or hit a dead-end on their way to achieving their goal for the transaction; in fact, getting in and out easily with exactly what they need is an integral part of the goal.
The industry disruptors like Amazon are the ones who latch onto this reality and work to not only be proactive and easy on their customers today but to look ahead and implement what will be quick and convenient tomorrow.
For instance, the most effective chatbots are programmed to recognize when a customer is struggling and to effortlessly deliver that customer to a live customer service agent.
Changing your approach so that each part of the customer experience is created around your customers’ definition of what is convenient is what creates loyalty today. Have you gone through your own company’s customer journey recently? If you were a customer, would you feel your company is easy to do business with?
Our team at Digital Spark Marketing often gets
asked why emphasize customer experience design. The answer we believe is pretty
simple. Customers remember and value great experiences that demonstrate deep
understanding and respect for their needs.
When businesses learn how to deliver and evolve
differentiated experiences, they are able to build strong and enduring customer
relationships that enable business growth.
We have defined 10 laws of customer experience design that we use in the process of improving the design of our clients’ customer experience. Today we examine the 10 laws of customer experience design. We give a short discussion of these laws here:
Consistency
The idea is to make things more user-friendly by aesthetic consistency of style and appearance. We recommend defining and implementing a set of standards here.
Co-creation of Value
Customer experience innovation is a bottom-up process we believe. Employ your customers in the ideation and design process.
Frame the experience design in the context of
your customers’ actual use. You will receive fewer ideas by asking what they
want.
Storytelling
Create better imageries, emotions, and
understanding through sharing of stories with your customer communities.
Hierarchy of needs
Customer experience features must serve the lower-level human needs before the high-level needs can begin to be addressed.
Expectation effect
This law refers to ways in which expectations
affect perceptions and behavior. When people are aware of a probable outcome,
their perceptions and behaviors are affected in many ways. Expectation
management should be a key component of the design process.
Exposure effect
To obtain a good exposure effect, find the best
stimuli to repeatedly present. Find the ones that are best liked, accepted, and
shared. The strongest types of stimuli to consider are photos and meaningful
phrases
Immersion
This law states that the time required for a customer to make a decision is a direct function of the number of available choices. Too many choices are not a good design.
Try immersion.
A state of customer mental focus so great that
the awareness of the ‘real’ world is lost … resulting in happiness and
satisfaction.
Customer life cycle stages
All customer experiences progress through life cycle stages of existence … all of which must be understood and designed for. These stages include awareness, consideration, acquisition, service and warranty, and reconsideration.
The bottom line
Our job as marketers is to do the hard work of finding and nurturing charismatic ideas on customer experience we can be proud of. One place to start is to look at the ideas you’re trying to spread.
Consider whether they’re charismatic enough to earn the effort you’re putting into them–and if not, how to replace them with ideas that are.
In this blog, we will define important Neil Patel design examples we rely on to create effective advertisement messages and the best examples of each that we could find. These are social media design examples.
If you wanted to learn more about building the best advertisements, how would you go about it? For us, the answer is pretty simple.
We learn best by studying and analyzing awesome advertisement design examples.
The secret of all effective advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships.
Related: What Makes These Extraordinary Commercials so Captivating?
It is a great way to learn and stimulate design ideas. Let’s get started:
Neil Patel design examples … generate fan togetherness
Biltwell makes motorcycle accessories, and they also make great engagement happen on their Facebook page with some fantastic helmet art.
Check out this example of the fan helmet art they routinely highlight, which encourages fan submissions and generates a feeling of togetherness around the brand. It seems to be an ongoing campaign of Biltwell’s.
Grab and hold the attention
Did you see Nike’s Re2pect … a Tribute to Yankee Shortstop Derek Jeter? As most of us know, future Baseball Hall of Famer Derek Jeter recently retired.
So, one of Jeter’s long-time sponsors, Nike, released a commercial paying tribute to him. The ad’s name “ RE2PECT” is a tip of the cap to Jeter’s jersey number – and a host of athletes and celebrities can be seen paying tribute to the Yankees captain.
Watch this cool commercial here.
Social media design examples … use extraordinary prizes
I think tickets to the World Cup are the single best prize that marketers could offer this year, how about you?
Hyundai teamed up with YouTube channel Copa90 for a contest with the World Cup of prizes. Check out their video.
The Zillow real estate company has built an entire marketing campaign on influencing home buyers with emotional influence.
Have you seen any of them? We like them so much that we have searched for them on YouTube frequently.
“Homecoming” is Zillow’s sixth TV spot, the latest in the company’s highly successful national advertising campaign. You cannot beat these ads.
There are no better means of influence or the power of persuasion than emotion. Hands down the best, in our opinion.
Experiences that trigger our emotions are saved and consolidated in lasting memory because the emotions generated by the experiences signal our brains that the experiences are important to remember.
The homecoming commercial ending message says it all:
You are not just looking for a house; you are looking for a place for your life to happen.
This commercial focuses on emotional appeal grandly. It is the secret of this commercial’s success. It creates strong persuasion in our opinion. A great example of a successful advertisement design.
Neil Patel design examples … photo contests
If you are going to compete in a photo contest, why not compete in a grand way? National Geography launched a contest on Facebook where fans can experience the thrill of having their photo on a National Geographic magazine cover. Wow, now that is a great incentive, yes?
Fans simply upload their photos through Facebook, caption it, and they are entered to win a travel package. Seems like a great image generator that fans will also want to share on their own Facebook pages.
Neil Patel design examples … Four Seasons’ company page
Neil Patel knows one in three professionals online is on LinkedIn. How many of those are making hotel reservations around the world and spending company money? Plenty.
That’s why it’s so smart for Four Seasons to build a helpful, engaging LinkedIn presence.
They feature great videos and readable content, and they also post job listings. It’s a great example of a LinkedIn company page done well (and they were also selected as one of LinkedIn’s top company pages of 2013).
Customer end state needs
Focus on customer needs end state and not the means. The end state is the only priority.
Here is another excellent example:
That is this Prudential’s billboard ad. This commercial considers the end state needs of its customers … the retirement needs of target customers are the commercial’s objective. A great interactive graphics drives home the objective.
Neil Patel design examples: simple messages
Neil Patel makes the message as clean and simple as possible. You cannot overachieve on the simplicity of the message. A message that the reader will quickly understand.
Now … keep in mind that pictures are far more valuable than words.
This Guinness “Empty Chair” commercial salutes the character of a community as they honor one of their own who is out of sight, but not out of mind. The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character. Guinness proudly raises a glass to those who are #MadeOfMore.
Neil Patel design examples … relevant to your target market
You might be wondering …
Misty Copeland is only the third African American female soloist ever to dance for the American Ballet Theatre. But her route to the top was anything but an easy one. She only danced ballet for the first time at the age of 13, a full eight years later than most ballet pros start training.
And when she started to grow into a woman, she developed muscle tone, large breasts, and big feet – not exactly the accepted shape for a ballerina.
However, her refusal to give up on her dream is celebrated in this awesome new campaign for sports brand Under Armour, called ‘I Will What I Want.’
Have you seen this commercial? If not, take the 60 seconds to review it. It will certainly create a topic of discussion for you and your friends. That is certainly Under Armour’s objective, isn’t it?
Visual elements
Neil Patel uses pictures/visuals to convey the message much better than words. “Seeing is believing” and “actions speak louder than words” are two common sayings that reflect a bias and preference for visual presentation.
Here is a four-minute Samsung ad with 15-20 new features shown for their iPhone. No talking. And so simple that you quickly grasp the features and don’t lose interest.
And the coordinated music has a way to keep you tied in emotionally. Creating customer interest doesn’t get any simpler than this, does it? A very simple, yet entertaining design, don’t you think?
Letting the visuals totally carry the messages.
Microsoft’s company page
Sometimes overlooked as one of the big social media channels, LinkedIn is the third most popular alongside Facebook and Twitter, according to recent research.
If you’re looking for ideas on how to kickstart your LinkedIn efforts for marketing, take a page out of Microsoft’s book.
They include behind the scenes looks at the company; question-and-answer posts; blogs and thought leadership; and more.
What does Neil Patel feel is the single most significant factor in the design of an advertisement? Being the most authentic advertisement design is probably not the top factor, but it is certainly in the top 5, don’t you think?
It certainly influences the action taken considerably.
Neil likes to examine advertisements to learn what drives the best ones to be the best and the terrible ones to be that bad.
Today he will examine one of the best we have seen in a while. Perhaps one that is the most authentic we have ever seen.
Here is the commercial for you to judge for yourself:
Terry Bradshaw Talks Shingles
Integrated campaign
Your ads should be integrated components of an integrated marketing campaign.
Remember; stop interrupting what people interested in, and be what people are interested in.
It was in early 2009 when IBM began its Smarter Planet marketing campaign strategy. At the time, the strategy seemed very ambitious … maybe even a bit risky, even for IBM.
But their success was based on a strategy to build out a long-term campaign.
To do this, they defined a theme around their vision (Smarter Planet). They used the theme to craft a marketing strategy connecting and integrating many smaller marketing objectives and tactics as they could.
They also linked their core competencies to this theme, vision, and challenge.
This very successful campaign continues today, six years later.
Here is the bottom line
Building a positive social media community engagement is very similar to making friends. Keep it simple and be genuine.
Being social with a great positive engagement isn’t a new way of marketing; it’s a way of doing business. Follow these simple initiative examples, and you will be leading the way.
Remember, it is not what advertising does with the consumer; it is what the consumer does after reading the advertisement. After looking at these enablers and Allstate’s mayhem ads … how do you think they did?
What are some of your experiences with advertising as a component of an integrated marketing campaign?
Do you have an advertising design experience to share with this community?
Need some help in capturing more customers from your advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your advertising design?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
More related reading from Digital Spark Marketing’s blog library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
We hear lots of talk these days about the examples of marketing storytelling —and why it’s so critical for businesses and brands. This is as we continue to rush forth in the digital marketing age.
More on storytelling: Stories and Storytelling Examples: 8 Simple Things You Should Improve
Stop interrupting what people are interested in, and be what people are interested in.
But like so much of this other stuff that is discussed in the marketing and branding realm, storytelling hasalwaysbeen important. It has been the essence of the greatest and most successful communications since the beginning of man.
If you want to effectively build your personal brand, you have to center everything around a story. And not just any story, yourstory.
For decades, marketers plied their craft according to a simple formula: Advertising creates awareness which in turn produces sales. This was not, as many would argue, a mistaken belief. Virtually all of the great brands of the 20th century were built using that model and many still prosper with it today.
However, it has become incomplete. A variety of trends, including community marketing, storytelling, digital technology, social media, and mass personalization—just to name a few—have conspired against the traditional view that message and media are sufficient to create sales.
So today’s marketers have a serious challenge. If the old model is broken, what should replace it? Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. Media budgets continue to play an important role in successful marketing programs, just as many of the trendy new tactics often fall short. What we need is not a new model, but a more strategic way of thinking.
It can be daunting for a marketer to plan out a piece of brand storytelling – and yet it looks so natural when it is done right. The five companies below range in popularity but the lessons in there apply to all brands; there is so much to be gained from examining exactly why the stories were so useful.
Examples of marketing storytelling … Guinness I
Guinness is no stranger to effective brand storytelling. This video reached three million views within four days of online release. This is another exercise in concise brand storytelling with a big heart – the concept sees a group of guys playing wheelchair basketball.
A simple plot; a game of wheelchair basketball followed by a pint of Guinness. The twist is that only one of the men in the group is an actual wheelchair user – the rest, it seems, are his friends who are playing wheelchair basketball so that they can all play together.
So what on Earth does this story have to do with Guinness? It is when the voiceover kicks in that the storytelling ramps up, though: “Dedication, loyalty, friendship – the choices we make reveal the true nature of our character,” says a gravelly voiced chap.
The choice the men in the ad make to play wheelchair basketball is a testament to their character, and so is the choice they make when they are at the beer taps. It almost tells viewers to be the best person they can be, and drink the best quality drink they can get their hands on.
You just cannot argue with that as a memorable and evocative piece of brand storytelling – and the image of the group walking (and wheeling) away from the court will stick with you.
Examples of marketing storytelling … Guinness II
Have you noticed that the world of marketing is changing? And rapidly. Traditional media vehicles are losing effectiveness as people communicate in new and different ways. Mass audiences are fragmenting into small segments.
Developing a point of difference is harder than ever. This Guinness marketing story demonstrates that Guinness marketing has certainly noticed.
And Guinness marketing has adapted and come up with some fresh new marketing stories. This new ad from Guinness proves that beer commercials can be so much more than guys and bars.
“Empty Chair,” tells the story of a bartender who leaves a pint of Guinness at an empty table every night amongst birthday celebrations and sports team’s victories. No one sits at the table, and the woman shoots a dirty look to anyone she catches eyeing one of the empty chairs.
Without fail, the frosted glass is there each and every night. It’s a powerful image that serves as a sign of hope for the bartender. But we aren’t exactly sure who the beer is for until the very end. Everything comes together when a soldier finally returns home to claim his Guinness.
The spot finishes with the tagline “The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character.”
A simple yet powerful way to add meaning to the story.
If you haven’t seen this Google story, you can watch it here …a short 3+ minutes.
The story is this: a man in Delhi tells his granddaughter about his childhood friend, Yusuf. He hadn’t seen Yusuf since the Partition of India in 1947 when India and Pakistan became separate countries, and the two friends were forced to separate. The man’s granddaughter arranges for the two to meet again.
This story is about as emotional as it gets. Stories like this provide a chance to experience a variety of emotions without the risk of those emotions themselves. Emotions like wonder, fear, courage, or love can be tested out in the minds of those as they listen to a story.
If you listen to your customers, as Google has, you can leverage their stories to drive your creativity. By analyzing their stories of how your products and services fit into their lives, you can gain valuable insight into their needs and desires, which can be hugely beneficial to other aspects of your business. Like product design and development and ongoing marketing strategy. The reunion has done that well don’t you think?
Examples of marketing storytelling … Dawn brand storytelling
We recently viewed a Dawn Liquid Detergent story told in one of their advertisements that caught our eye for several reasons.
An effective TV ad that combined traditional advertising with advocacy advertising and creative storytelling. Something you don’t see very often.
Have you seen this recent Dawn story in their TV commercial? If not, you should invest 1 minute now and check it out. It will prove beneficial in reviewing their great story.
Interesting information, well presented, showing emotion, always holds attention, yes? Keep in mind that people don’t watch ads … they watch what interests them. Your stories must be interesting to your target communities.
This story message certainly grabs and holds attention based on emotion, superb visuals, and great issue advocacy.
Examples of marketing storytelling … New Bell of South Africa
Have you seen the remarkable branding story from this South African business? It was created to market and build the brand. It is a very simple story. It advocates learning to read no matter your age or status in society.
To us, it creates pure magic with the story, the visuals, the music, and the emotion. If you haven’t seen it, watch it now, it is only 2 minutes, and it will inspire you. It is certainly easier in our top 5 of all time.
What makes this story so remarkable? Of course, the whole thing was staged. Who cares? It certainly accomplished its objective to build on the brand. Over 1 million views so far for business from South Africa that most of us have ever heard of.
Of course, you can’t design a story for going viral. But you can target for being remarkable and engaging.
There is no better story example I have ever seen than The Lego Movie. As I sat in the theater to a packed house along with 3 of my grandchildren, I marveled at what I was witnessing. Kids laughed. Everyone was thoroughly entertained.
All because a brand had managed to create a powerful story, using their product as the star, and at the same time created what is the most effective 90 minute commercial for a “toy” we’ve ever seen.
But the reaction of my kids is no surprise. If one analyzes the film, it’s quite apparent what makes it so very useful:
It’s a good movie—incredibly well written— for kids and adults.
The product is the entire movie. Every scene is masterfully created with Legos.
There are profound messages within the movie, all of which are uplifting and easy to get behind:
-There is a “builder” within each one of us if we only believe
-We’re only as limited as our imagination allows us to be
-You’re never too old to create magic
The bottom line
Can you see why these brands have hit such huge home runs with their tales? They are quickly becoming the mecca of “storytelling is done right” for brands big and small going forward.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing created by remarkable customer service. And put it to good use.
It’s up to you to keep improving your creative marketing strategies. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
