Advertising has changed…but has it changed for the better?

Hey, you there sir. Yes you. Well, there’s no-one else around, so I must be talking to you right? Okay then, now that I have your attention…do you want more success in life? Date beautiful women? Drive a car fancy enough to impress the neighbours? I can see you’re nodding your head. Well then, buy this chewing gum and all your dreams will come true. It really is that simple!

Come on, seriously?

Once upon a time, adverts were 30 seconds of unbridled consumerism, the product was king and the most important thing in life was to own it. However, the modern world of advertising has seen a monumental shift away from the hard sell mentality, in favour of building brand awareness and creating an open dialogue between the advertiser and the audience. Why? As we have explored in an earlier blog here at LoveLove, How Advertising Uses Touching Storytelling, audiences increasingly want to be emotionally engaged, and dare we say, even have their heart strings pulled by adverts.

For instance, lets look at LYNX. In their original adverts:

all a guy had to do to attract a women (or even a stampede of them) was just to spray some anti-perspirant on his pits– not very realistic is it?

However, if you see their latest advert, Tommy Hugs, in which a lovely chap called Tommy enjoys nothing more in life than hugging everyone he meets, it shows LYNX has begun to take its advertising down a different direction.

Instead of making the grand claim that LYNX makes you irresistible to all women, LYNX is now showing you that its body spray can solve a simple problem, wanting to smell nice when you hug people – how very sweet. The sentimental approach is also reflected in LYNX’s Find Your Magic campaign, which encourages costumers to be more content with who they are on the inside and owning their individuality, rather than aspiring to be six-pack wielding, impossibly gorgeous supermodels.

In some adverts you don’t even see the product at all. For instance, lets take a look at the legendary Dairy Milk’s Gorilla ad of 2007; do you remember seeing a single ounce of chocolaty goodness in the entire advert? Definitely not, why? Because we saw something a whole lot more satisfying, a gorilla killing it on the drums. Not a single mention of the Cadbury’s brand? Surely that’s advertising suicide? Nope, far from it, it was pure genius. The Dairy Milk ad wasn’t 30 seconds of Cadbury’s shoving chocolate down our mouths (I can do that myself, thank you very much), instead it was fun and random in away that made you want to talk about it with your friends and share it across social media afterwards.

Speaking of social media, correlating with its growing influence, younger generations have increasingly become more sceptic and less loyal to any particular brand. Now advertising companies have to work a heck a lot harder to convince Millennials and Generation Z to open up their wallets, then they ever had to do for the baby boomers and generation x before them. As explored by Goldman Sachs’ piece: Millennials: Coming of Age, ‘When marketing to Millennials, a strong brand isn’t enough to lock in a sale.’

Young people are now in the market for authenticity and would rather browse blogs and Instagram before committing to a purchase, in an attempt to get a real-life feel for the product before spending. Just look at the rise of the ‘haul girls’ on YouTube, their job is to literally buy the products (or have brands give it to them for free) and test them out for you so you don’t have to – almost as if they try before you buy. Going back to the piece by Goldman Sachs, ‘If brands are shrinking in importance, social media is growing. Millennials are turning to their online networks when making purchasing decisions.

As we have seen in the recent influx of Christmas advertising released by big retailers, its obvious to see brands like John Lewis are opting to sell its customers a feeling and lifestyle, rather than just another product. When you see a John Lewis advert now you think about happiness and spending time with loved ones,

and not just another pair of socks or a coffee machine. It has become apparent that it’s far more effective for companies to engage people’s hearts rather than just their greed.

At LoveLove, we fully support this new trend – too long have we felt uninspired by generic ‘buy, buy, buy’ ads and have grown desperate for something more creative and memorable. Fortunately for costumers (and LoveLove!), now advertising and market campaigns are better at making us feel more valued as individuals, with needs and thoughts that actually matter to the business brands. Instead of just buying a product, we are increasingly being invited to become part of a company’s culture and way of life. That feeling of belonging can make a customer more likely to part with their hard earned money and most importantly, feel good while doing so. Why encourage customers to buy a product, when you can sell them a lifestyle instead?

As explored by LUTH Research, ‘both millennials and Generation Z want to connect to brands and companies they can believe in, and brand stories that they can contribute to. Their buying habits are not so much about the product, but also about the participation.’