"authentic advertising"

good morning media folks ??

Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity just winded down, and it sounds like a lot of good came of it. The overall sentiment is that earned and organic media is making a comeback.

What I mean by this, is that there is growing distaste for digital advertising. Not the tools and platforms themselves, but how they’ve shifted our mindsets. Smashing buttons, A/B testing nonstop, aggressive KPI goals, tracking clicks, views... blah blah blah.

Now folks are taking a step back, and saying wait a minute... we need to think about connecting with our audience better. Building relationships. Not focusing on numbers.

I’ve been saying this for a while, but what it looks like is brands are realizing they don’t even know who their audience is. Matter a fact, if they do know who their audience is... they know nothing about them.

So today we will talk about how to make advertising authentic. We’ll talk about the importance, strategies and some examples of brands that are doing this and doing this well.

authentic is important

It’s tough to gain trust from customers. Meta and Twitter have made Ads feel like going to the car dealership. And that’s because audiences are being oversold... seeing too much shit. The messaging doesn’t feel natural, even though the Ad products are native to the apps.

And i’m not the only one saying this. According to Gallup’s annual trust measure, the public’s trust in big business has declined. And not by a small amount. Gen Z and Millennials are dragging these businesses. Only 28% trust brands they do business with, while 57% of boomers trust those same businesses.

The reason why this is happening is because we have access to social proof right at our fingertips. We can easily sift through online reviews, Reddit forums and more to find out about the companies we do biz with. And if we see something we don’t like, we will never spend money with that business.

Of course, it’s not just the businesses fault. It’s media in general. Misinformation is rampant, and now our flags are raised before a business can even get a word in. Not to mention data privacy. I myself have been exposed in data leaks (Experian) and that has really grinded my gears. Add on top of the fact that there are concerns around how AI handles data... which is going to make gaining our trust even more difficult.

tactics are important

So what are the true tactics to attack this head on? Honestly, it’s not that difficult. It’s using strategies of old.

The first is changing the mindset, and thinking from the lens of building long term relationships with your customers. How well do you know your audience? And if you don’t know them well, find ways to understand them deeply. Because it will make your job so much easier to connect with them.

You also need to be creative in your approach. How can you story tell, create emotional feeling, talk about actually solving the problems that your customers have. You need to do this while being honest and transparent. Don’t be a home insurance company and provide false promises. Be like Scrub Daddy (i know you’ve seen those TikToks). Talk about real situations in a demeanor thats also real.

Social proof is your best fucking friend. I’m telling you. And not fabricated social proof. Real stuff from real customers. Reviews, testimonials, short form videos... so many brands don’t do this and I still have no idea why. Get your happy customers to build the trust for you.

One thing that doesn’t get talked about is consistent communication. What I mean by this is having a conversations with your customers. Open lines. All the time. Seek feedback, but also use this to build community. Get them involved outside of spending money with you. It’s also about listening. Brands like Chewy have done such a good job of this.

Don’t be afraid of admitting mistakes. Being radio silent when something goes awry... that’s not being authentic.

Another approach is focusing on brand. Yes I know it’s a buzzword, but it’s like bees to pollen. You can build strong affinity if you do this right. It starts with understanding your audience, and how your company values can align with them. Talk about your values religiously.... and be consistent about it. This shouldn’t be a one off campaign, it should bleed into how you work, and how you present yourself to your customers.

The last thing is to be available. Your customers should be able to talk to someone whenever they want. And this is something that most brands struggle with (slandering Cox Communications here, they suck). One conversation can make a customer for life.

The point here is to give, give, give then ask. I posted about this the other day. About how I became a Zapier customer. It took me two years, but they gave gave gave and I finally took the plunge. And that’s because I followed their founder, their content, their use cases, and it finally made me a customer.

examples are important

a really good example. Tony's Chocolonely .

Tony’s is a huge chocolate company in the UK. And for most of their existence, they never spent money. Ever. But they decided to take the plunge in 2021 and their campaign was a hit.

In 2021, they wanted to increase brand awareness. So they focused on highlighting the issues of illegal labor on cocoa farms in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The only goal was to introduce new customers to their mission in a very targeted way.

They focused on two different audiences. “Chocofans” and “Tony’s Serious Fans.” Chocofans was focused on your typical chocolate buyers, and Serious Fans was focused on consumers who buy ethically sourced foods.

They used two channels to focus on. OOH advertising and social media to boost OOH reach. And the execution was flawless. They used banners with very personalized messaging... like “Bristol, we need to talk.”

Then they did a sample roadshow where people could take free full size bars which had messages like “there’s no such thing as free chocolate.” And they picked very targeted spots like public transportation and roadside Ads where there was a ton of traffic.

Then they used social to really expand on the story. Talking about issues of illegal labor, how it affects the cocoa market, and what they are doing as a company to stop it.

It really shook up the chocolate market in England. And if you know about England, Cadbury rains supreme. But it established Tony’s as a serious contender. And all they did was expand on their mission.

You can find the case study from Talon here.

See? It can be done. Even if you’re a small publisher, a media website, or a brand itself, make your advertising unique and resonate. It all starts with knowing your audience and being mission focused.

see you next week,

shaan

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