Search for pop culture
“Consumers don’t wake up in the morning saying, I will look at these 5 ads today, but will only look at what they think is interesting,” says our guest on this episode Gordon Euchler, Head of Planning at BBDO in Dusseldorf. Share of search can be of great help as a barometer both before and after the campaigns.
Capturing consumer attention as a brand is crucial according to a study done by McKinsey. After having researched over 125.000 consumer journeys, they concluded that consideration in the early stages of the purchase cycle was the most important driver. This means companies need to make themselves known to the consumers even before the consumers realise the problem to which their brand can provide the solution.
This completely changes the game according to Gordon, as the competition in order to grab the consumers attention just became: everything! To stand out, companies must therefore dare to break out of their traditional advertising prison that makes them look only at their direct competitors and instead approach their potential consumers with a pop-culture mindset. This means sometimes going completely off-piste when it comes to traditional advertising, and doing something entertaining that is not in direct line with the product or services offered, but still in line with brand values.
One example Gordon mentioned during the conversation was the move from O2 to the heart of the entertainment industry – utilizing all the content people search for. Carmaker Smart decided to do a dance video on TikTok leading to more than 940M Video views. Meanwhile Unicef got global coverage naming a deepsea fish after the plastics it encountered even at great depth, and using this to bring attention to the trouble of plastics.
One of the big challenges with this approach, is determining what exactly you are up against and which possibilities there are. This is already an area in which share of search can help. Once you have selected a couple of topics, you can look at the search volumes and associated search trends as inspiration for your creative brief.
Once the campaign is over, share of search can also help with measuring how effective the campaign really was.
Was there an increase in the search volumes?
Was the right messages picked up, based on the combination of search terms used?
By continuously then using the outcome of the campaign as input for the next, the brand can stay on the top of the pops.