OK, don’t laugh, but over the last couple of months I have been taking ballroom dancing lessons. The fact that my travel itinerary does not let me practice as much as I would like has resulted in the growth of my appreciation of mental rehearsal – imagining what it would be like to dance certain steps in the “comfort” of my airline seat. Reading the new Point of View on Neuroscience by Graham Page made me realize that effective advertising does something similar. It gets you to rehearse what it is like to recognize, use and desire a brand, even if you have never heard of it before.

Believe me, learning to dance is no laughing matter. Take the waltz, for example. First you learn a set of steps, and then you are required to execute them while turning 135 degrees at a time and avoiding your partner’s feet. I find skiing moguls to be much easier. Interestingly, however, the dancing and skiing have one thing in common. Mental rehearsal of the moves involved seems to improve my ability to execute them.

You may not think that you need much rehearsal to recognize a brand, but the latest scientific evidence suggests that we do not store coherent “images” of brands (or anything else for that matter) in our heads. Rather, every time we encounter something to do with a brand, various types of stored associations “bubble up” from different parts of our brains into our mental workspace and form an image of it. The quicker this mental representation forms, and the more vivid and complete it is, the more likely it is that we will consider the brand for purchase. (Graham expands on this in the POV.)

Implicit in the use of the word “rehearsal” is the concept of repetition. Although we do not have a convenient rule of thumb for how many exposures an ad should get, we do know that repetition matters, and now we have a scientific rationale for why it matters. The evidence suggests that the more frequently we draw on our mental associations to form a representation of a brand, the stronger and more complete the representation becomes. So this repeated mental “rehearsal” of what the brand is about helps to build clarity and maximize the chance that the brand will be recognized and found desirable.

Brand representations are formed from three different types of information: 

1. Cues that help us recognize the brand 
2. Knowledge about how we are meant to interact with it 
3. The emotional value it holds for us.

Exposure to the brand – through use, exposure to advertising, or word of mouth– has the potential to strengthen, add to, or modify our existing associations. In his POV, Graham points out that while marketers have always valued the first type of association, (brand cues), and have come to appreciate the latter, (emotional values), often they still ignore the importance of the second one - experience. And yet, some of the most effective advertising is effective precisely because it creates expectations of the brand experience.

Advertising has a unique value to the marketer in that it can portray a positive view of the brand, without any of the negative associations that invariably accompany real-life experience. It can do this in a variety of ways, e.g., by ensuring that potential customers have a clear idea of what the brand looks like, by setting up expectations of what it will be like to use, or by establishing a positive impression that makes the brand more desirable.

If the advertising portrayal is believable, brand users are likely to focus on the aspects of the brand experience that justify their belief in the brand, and as a result, will find their predisposition toward the brand strengthened.

This process of framing peoples’ expectations of brand experience is what Gordon Brown termed “Enhancement.” Speaking of product categories with little differentiation, Gordon said,

Vivid advertising memories powerfully enhance perceptions of the product field benefit which in reality all brands would deliver!  A woman who tries a brand of furniture polish with vivid advertising memories demonstrating that it gives a deep shine will see a deep shine.

Of course, as Gordon goes on say—all polishes are designed to shine. But the advertising manages to condition the buyer’s encounter with the brand, to focus her attention on the shine produced by that particular brand.

Gordon goes on to talk about categories where different brands offer different benefits. He uses the example of laundry detergents, which may work in cold water, be fragrance free, or be effective at removing stains. In categories like this, Gordon says ” Advertising memories cause consumers to “test out” the attributes that are in reality the product’s strengths, diverting them from the weaknesses!”

Gordon also confirmed the importance of creating memorable and enduring brand associations, stating that, “Consumers make up their minds when they think about brands. This is mainly when they experience brands.”

In other words, advertising can cause people to anticipate (or remember) what it is like to use a brand, and the reality of the experience – shaped by the advertising depiction - will determine their lasting impression of it.

Findings from our Link pre-tests confirm the importance of advertising rehearsal. We often find the “bite and smile” shot in food advertising to be a powerful device when it comes to reminding viewers that this is a product they like. Of course, you do have to be careful that the advertising portrayal is believable. Many years ago in the UK, the now defunct company British Rail introduced an advertising campaign which lauded their new commitment to on-time arrivals. The campaign featured the tagline, “We’re Getting There.” Unfortunately, passengers who continued to experience frequent delays responded with, “No we are not!”

So what do you think? Does the concept of an ad exposure serving as a mental rehearsal of a brand encounter make sense to you? Can you think of other examples where an ad might have worked by creating expectations of the product experience?

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Brands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Print this Page