"Barking Up the Right Tree: Understanding Advertising Effectiveness with Pavlov's Dog"

I was teaching classical conditioning in one of my classes. As an example, to the theory, I showed an ad which was trying to build some association with the brand with the help of a third object. And I asked the students did you see the connection. Student tried hard and few were able to see the connection. One of the students asked me, “We as marketing students are finding so hard to understand the ad how a customer is going to understand?”

Is it necessary for the customer to comprehend the ad in order for the ad to be effective? I don’t think so. My response to the question was “Did the dog understood why he is responding to the bell in this fashion. Through the experiment Pavlov was able to create the link between the food and the bell. The dog was salivating to the bell. He was able to generate a desired response.

I know this analogy might not be completely appropriate. The analogy of Pavlov's dog provided a foundational starting point for discussing ad effectiveness, despite its differences from human behavior. While not comprehensive, the analogy sparked a valuable conversation about creating meaningful brand associations. These association may not always be explicit, sometime they are implicit.

Why is it difficult to measure the ad effectiveness?

?If the ad is creative, is it effective? You remember the MyPay's 'The evolution of money' ad which was very creative but was it effective. If the ad is liked by the people, is it effective? If the ad is able to be recalled, is it effective? If the brand is recalled after the ad, is the ad effective? These are some of the metrics commonly used in order to measure the effectiveness of the ad. If they are present, its great but they don’t clearly measure effectiveness of the ad.

More than a century ago John Wanamaker said, “Half of my advertising money is wasted, I don’t know which half.” The same is true about advertising even today. The purpose of the ad is to sell the product but the problem is that the direct impact of the brand advertising on the sales is very difficult to measure, unless it is the Direct response advertising. In his book How brands grow, Byron Sharp gives two reasons for this difficulty. One, according to him is that the purpose of advertising is to maintain the market share. It’s job majorly is to prevent the competitor taking market share from the brand. Two, advertising effect are spread over time. ?The impact of advertising sometimes cannot be seen in weeks or quarters. It makes it difficult to justify this to CA or the finance guy responsible for the budgets.

So, what makes an ad effective in Brand Building?

Brands are all about salience that is coming easily to the mind when the need arises. One way to create salience is build association. According to the Byron Sharp the purpose of advertising is to build this salience. Salience has a lot to do with our memory structure.

With the new developments in consumer neuroscience, we have much better understanding as to how advertising works in our memory. In his books Consumer Neuroscience, Moran Cerf writes that “Marketing campaigns, especially for established brands, need to create meaning and make those associations salient and accessible so that people can think “fast” and use them easily in decision making.” Will these associations be consciously available to the customers? Not necessarily but these advertisements can provide short cuts in the brain which will fasten up the decision making.

Advertising works in fascinating ways. It refreshes our memory. The incumbent brand, who commands a market share, has to consistently advertise to make sure customers remember the brand. If you don’t advertise, competitor’s brand may interfere with the customer’s memory and the old linkages may be replaced with the new linkages which may be more favorable to the competitor. Advertising makes a brand familiar and familiar brand may look like a safer choice.

Advertising also helps in building new memory structures.

Coca Cola is a marketing genius because they have been able to consistently develop new linkages with the buying and usage situations for the brand in the memory. Remember ‘Chiso’ (common word for cold drink) bhaneko coca cola or No formality for the guest in the house (Competing with tea or coffee) or Momo and coke etc.

Advertisements also help establish linkages with brand assets. Take Britannia, for example. When I say Britannia, a distinct sound comes to your mind. This is the result of consistent advertising around that element. Similarly, the characters Ramesh and Suresh have become synonymous with the Five Star chocolate brand due to strategic advertising.

Advertisement plays an important role in developing the symbolic meaning for the brand. By associating with celebrities and a certain lifestyle, brands can develop some symbolic meaning. However, a caution is needed as the real symbolic character often arises from user, usage and word-of-mouth.

There are several brands, which don’t advertise. Tesla is one famous example for that. But not every brand is lucky to have Elon Musk as their Honcho, to create share of voice for the brand. He once famously tweeted that “Tesla does not advertise or pay for endorsements. Instead, we use that money to make the product great”. Now when the competition is heating up, Tesla had to drop the price, Elon Musk is contemplating advertising. ?

Advertising effectiveness is a multifaceted concept that goes beyond simple metrics like creativity, likability or recall. While these metrics have their relevance, the true purpose of advertising lies in building brand salience and creating lasting memory structures in the minds of consumers.