Advertising For The Human Brain 

How & Why Your Customers Remember You 

 This article presents a very brief overview of how advertisers use psychology to increase advertising effectiveness.    

Turning ON the Human Brain

 The human brain does not have endless storage capacity. Most of the time your brain just scans its environment. It scans, but it does not memorize.  

 You want your customers to remember your advertising. But what you’re really asking is for them to create a memory of your message in their brain. You want their brain to click OFF from “scan environment”, and ON to “create memory”.

 But for the brain to click ON and to create a memory takes a lot of effort. It’s harder than most people realize. The human brain will not create a memory unless something significant occurs. You must create that something significant with your ad to get your customer's brain to pay attention and create a memory of your message.

 There are three things that can get your customer's brain to click ON: Significance, Involvement, and Intrigue. If you want your customer's brain to actually remember your advertising, it must be significant, involving, and intriguing.

 Look at your advertising and ask yourself, “Is it significant to the customer? Does it get them involved? Is it intriguing to them?”

Commitment and the Human Brain

 How committed are your customers to their current brand? The level of their commitment is very important to how you will approach them, and to how much money you will need to spend to win them as customers.

 The commitment level of your customers to their current brand has a big impact on your entire marketing program. If 90% of the market is strongly committed to your competitors, you need to know it. Your mass marketing campaign will not work under these circumstances.

 If the prospects are committed to another brand, your incentives will need to be larger, and your offer will need to be stronger.

 More than this, the higher the level of commitment in the market, the better targeted your advertising needs to be. Professional Advertising is about saving you money with your advertising. Any advertising directed at the committed faithful will be completely wasted.

 The human brain can be a little funny once a commitment is made. People can be fiercely loyal, and attempts to win them away can only backfire. There is no room in their brain for any other brand. You don’t want to keep sending your direct mail piece to this customer.

 On the other hand, if the level of brand commitment is low, you may be better positioned than you think. The lower the commitment in the marketplace, the more effective your long-term advertising will be.

 And – How committed are your customers to your company? There is often a substantial time gap between when a customer loses commitment and when they actually change companies. If you let it get that far, it’s probably too late to win them back. Read Why Follow Up Works and The 5 Best Marketing Strategy Ideas for some ideas on increasing customer commitment.

Gender and the Human Brain

 Men and women process information differently in their brains. Research indicates that men respond better when text is reinforced by visual product demonstrations or visuals that show benefits. 

 If your audience is mostly male, you want very strong visual reinforcement in your advertisements. In addition, some research suggests that messages directed to males should be fairly simple and have a single theme.

 If women are your main audience, then the text in the ad becomes more important. Women process verbally descriptive information better. The text should be richer and more descriptive.  In addition, ads for women should contain more written product information.

Words and the Human Brain

 Words are the tools of the advertiser, and some words are better than others. Research has shown us that the brain responds differently to different words.

 Some of the strongest and most influential words in the English language are You, Free, Money, Sex, New, Easy, Guaranteed, Save, and the list goes on. But don’t get caught thinking that a magic word in your headline will get you a lot of new customers. Your advertising must do much more than just use words that get attention.

 Words are strongest when used abstractly. Words that capture emotions are stronger than words that capture logic. You simply can’t argue away emotion with logic. So if you can connect your product with words like “beauty” or “truth” or “love” or “faith”, then the prospect's emotions about these words take over. If you can connect on an emotional level, your competitors’ logic won’t work against your more emotional ads.

 You will find much more about using words in the Copywriting chapter.

Advertising and the Human Brain

 Effective advertising can actually trigger the same physical reaction that a real situation would. A photo of an attack dog can cause real fear. The opposite sex can cause real lust. A picture of a new baby can cause real joy. The stimulus from the advertisement triggers a person’s instincts, and they experience real feelings.

 The advertiser hopes to attach those instinctual feelings to their product. The product would enhance the positive instinctual feelings, or decrease the negative feelings. The pictures in the ad reinforce the product benefits. The advertiser links the psychological appeal of the ad's visual presentation to the product or service. The prospect then relates the product to the positive instinctual feelings.

 This is the underlying reason why your visuals need to match and reinforce your product benefits. A visual that gets attention but does not match your message won’t work as well as a visual that shows and demonstrates product benefits.

 A visual that creates lust when you are actually selling a product that decreases fear is a mismatch. The mixed messages will confuse all but the most persistent readers. One of the best ways to fail in advertising is to send mixed and contrasting messages in your ads.

Ask For Help

As always, we strongly recommend that you hire a quality graphic design firm to create your ads, and ask a marketing professional to review your advertising strategy. Understanding and using human behavior to create really effective marketing materials for your company is what Professional Advertising is all about. Please contact Professional Advertising for graphic design and marketing consulting services.  

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