Politicians know that anything, fact or fiction, can be made more credible by repetition. In that regard Millward Brown could learn a thing or two. Often we are so busy talking about all the new, cool stuff that we do that we forget to remind people of the basics, and they end up learning about our views from other sources, who may deliberately distort our message or just unintentionally get it wrong.

So to set the record straight, here is our take on what makes advertising work, and by “work” I mean drive sales and strengthen brand equity.

Millward Brown’s research highlights three things that successful advertising must do to create a positive sales response. Advertising must:

• Engage people at the time of exposure
• Communicate the desired impression
• Link that impression to the brand in people’s memories

I will briefly elaborate on each of these key objectives for an ad.

Engagement
The creative execution must engage people at the time of exposure, but what makes an ad engaging varies according to the advertising medium. For TV advertising, we have found that enjoyable and involving content is critical. During a TV ad break, people can focus their attention on a number of things, so you need to give them an incentive to focus on your ad. For advertising in print or on the Internet, the subject matter becomes more important to engagement, because these media are typically processed more actively than television. The product category itself may be enough to cause people to pay attention to an ad, irrespective of the creative content.

Communication
Once people are engaged, the creative must leave the desired impression. For some brands in some circumstances, to simply create awareness may be sufficient. But if an ad is to have any effect beyond building awareness, it must convey something of personal relevance to the audience. While the message does not have to be explicit in order for the ad to be successful, it does need to create some cognitive response. To generate a short-term sales response it is not enough for the content of the ad to be enjoyable and engaging; the idea embodied by the creative must be relevant and motivating to people. The more compelling the idea conveyed, the more likely it is to be remembered, and that is critical to success.

Brand-linked memorability
If the impressions created by an ad are to have any effect on sales, they must come to mind when people are considering a purchase. Specifically, they must come to mind in relation to the advertised brand. This is probably the biggest single challenge in creating an ad: to ensure that the brand is integrated into the elements that people find interesting and involving. Ad impressions must be linked to the brand in people’s minds; all too often, advertising fails to establish this link.

How advertising helps build a brand
In 1994, Gordon Brown published a treatise on the way that advertising affects sales. In this work, fondly known within Millward Brown as “The Black Book,” Gordon described three different ways in which advertising can have an effect on those who view it. What distinguishes the three responses is the time at which the ad’s effect is recognized. When advertising has an effect at the time of viewing, the effect is “Immediate Challenge.” When the effect occurs while people are shopping or thinking about buying a brand, it is “Interest-status.” And when the effect occurs when people are experiencing the brand in some way, the effect is one we call “Enhancement. ”

Immediate challenge (aka persuasion)
When consumers conclude that a brand has a new message that they believe is directly relevant to them, they will be more likely to buy the brand. This explains the relationship that Millward Brown and others have found between persuasion and short-term sales. But this is not the only way in which advertising can work—far from it.

Interest-status
When advertising creates familiarity with what a brand stands for, people will be more likely to recognize the brand when they shop the category. Relevant and motivating ideas will enter their minds more readily.

Enhancement
When advertising frames the product experience in a positive way, people are more likely to focus on the brand’s strengths rather than its weaknesses. Sometimes marketers accomplish this by positioning a generic benefit as if it were one that belonged to that brand alone.

While the nature of the response will differ from brand to brand and execution to execution, the end result should be the same: an increased predisposition to buy the brand.

As I stated earlier, the difference between the three responses lies in when the effect is recognized: at the time of viewing, when shopping the category or when using the brand. However, I do not mean to imply that these effects occur at different times because of the nature of what is communicated. For instance, it is often suggested that persuasion is a function of delivering “new news,” but what people consider new, news, or newsworthy will vary. The “news” does not have to be factual news. It simply needs to be an impression that resonates with an individual, that differentiates the brand from others, and that has personal relevance.

I think this is a fair representation of how most people at Millward Brown think advertising works. As with all generalities, there may well be exceptions (both in terms of how advertising works and what people at Millward Brown think). I would love to hear what challenges, additions or new ideas you have. Please leave your comment below.

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