Let’s face it: broad TV audience coverage alone won’t work for you, your brand, your sales. Moreover, high rates lead to high risks: purchased GRPs can result in the audience not remembering your ad or your brand or, worse, confusing it with a competitor.

The success of the commercial, according to Nielsen research, is mainly influenced by two factors – creativity and placement. If we take all the variables that affect advertising performance, 100%, the significance of the first factor – creativity – is estimated at about 26%, the second, which includes placement and programming factors – at 43%. Therefore, first, it is important to find out what you will show. Second, it is important to decide where and how you will show it.

Today we will focus on the first element – creativity.

Some commercials are created by Russian companies themselves, some are brought from foreign headquarters. Be that as it may, advertising of any brand can be effective – that is, one that brings additional sales – with the right approach to working on the creative. The coordinate system for evaluating the success of a commercial is set by three metrics: emotional involvement, activation of attention, activation of memory, which can be measured by Nielsen neuroscience. The intention to make a purchase is derived from these three metrics.

We analyzed one of the chocolate dragee commercials, which was shot for foreign markets and then presented for use in other countries, including Russia. The video was highly acclaimed by audiences in the United States, and there was little doubt that its appearance in other markets will bring comparable success. However, a study of this video in Russia showed that the adapted 30-second commercial could not boast of similar metrics.

First, neurological studies have shown that the audience’s attention for the first 15 seconds is steadily declining and only by the end of the video reaches high values. If half of the video does not work for us, it makes sense to optimize its timing. Secondly, frame-by-frame analysis showed that some situations in the video are alien to the Russian audience and even cause rejection at the cultural level. Such shots are not effective, so they can and should be parted in the Russian version.

Finally, an analysis of audience associations after watching the video revealed that viewers did not remember the advertised brand enough, but with a fairly high frequency mentioned a competing brand or category in general. Unsuccessfully adapted video is just one of the topics of great conversation about creativity. In many cases – for example, in the pharmaceutical industry or in the self-care industry – there are other difficulties: common videos with such identical plots that viewers can not name the advertised brand the day after watching the ad.

Some universal recommendations for creating a more effective creative:

1. Try to use logical errors, slight ambiguity, and motion effects to attract attention. Use simple puzzles to ensure engagement, but don’t make your brain spend a few seconds looking for a solution.
2.  If you want to be remembered – try to be close to life situations, be relevant to the viewer.
3. The idea should be clear, simple and properly predictable, but new and should be different from everything else.

In the next article in the series “Marketing re-mix” we will talk about the placement of TV commercials and assessing the effectiveness of investment in marketing. Download the full report to learn more in Russian.