Dundas Spreads The Love At MRG Conference
Advertisers need to work harder at building emotional elements into their campaigns in order to succeed against rivals, according to Kevin Dundas, chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi.
Speaking at the Media Research Group conference in Madrid, Dundas claimed that “brands are over”, pointing to the increased quality of today’s products making advertising on a particular strength less powerful than ever.
Dundas stated that the differences between products are now so small that advertisers need to endow personal attributes in their advertising campaigns in order to win over an increasingly well-informed audience.
Using cars as an example, he said: “Volkswagen cannot trade on reliability anymore, so they have to find something else.” He then screened an advert for Toyota in which a woman displays obvious affection for her car.
Explaining the decision to capitalise on emotional value, Dundas said: “The car allows women to break free – it really is their ally and partner and that’s why they love them.”
Dundas dubbed those products with emotional worth as having a ‘lovemark’, citing Apple iPods as a prime example of people connecting with a product and taking it to heart regardless of competition or price.
He said: “Having an emotional connection with your target isn’t just a good thing, it’s imperative. Studies show that when the emotional parts of our brain are damaged we don’t just loose the ability to laugh or cry, we lose our ability to make decisions. Emotions are important in the market place, and we’re finding a significant commercial advantage that can be gained if we can get a product to lovemark status.”
Yesterday at the MRG conference, Antony Young, chief executive of ZenithOptimedia, said that media research needs to concentrate more on qualitative research to deliver better return on investment. He argued that industry needs to let go of the “comfort blanket” of quantitative research and instead concentrate on delivering more insightful quantitative data (see ZenithOptimedia Chief Outlines Qualitative Research Vision).
MRG: www.mrg.org.uk
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