Mars has just shared with the world the results of its latest research at the intersection of business, technology, and psychology. Want to be noticed? You have only 2 seconds to do so… This discovery could forever change how brands promote their products. Will it shake the marketing world?
The American food industry giant Mars has just published the results of its latest research analyzing how internet users perceive brands online. Its conclusions may alarm hidebound marketers. Why? - Banners, pop-ups, and other virtual ad creatives have become the equivalent of banners and advertising signs in the real world. The process of handing over the baton has been underway for years, but because of the pandemic, the changes have accelerated. That is why any news about the declining performance of this form of communication is very bad news for promotion specialists. - says Tomasz Sokół, board member of Online Advertising Network, an agency belonging to the Cloud Technologies group, which specializes in Big Data marketing, based on using online data to create communication.
A spell for attracting customers
Mars is a global company whose annual revenue exceeds $30 billion, roughly the annual GDP of Estonia. The American company's portfolio includes brands such as M&M’s candies, Wrigley’s gum, and Snickers bars, so it is no secret that the food giant is growing in strength thanks in part to spontaneous purchases. The main problem for the company's global consumer marketing team is finding the answer to the question: what makes us choose these products and not others when shopping.
- You don't go to the store with gum on your shopping list. - says Sorin Patilinet, the company's global consumer marketing director, in an interview with The Drum, adding: - We want to reach as many people as possible to build that memory structure that will be activated at the moment of purchase, especially since half of our categories are mainly impulse purchases, such as chocolate and gum.
Product tested on customers
Patilinet's team spent the last six months working with RealEyes, a company specializing in the use of artificial intelligence to track human behavior online, to develop something it calls the “future of pretesting.” It is a type of software using AI intended to help the company understand what customers like and what they do not.
This anonymous reading of “facial code” involves analyzing the recipient's behavior and emotions in order to detect their interest. When the program was ready, the team of researchers left the laboratory environment. They examined 130 ad formats in different regions of the world. The spots varied in duration - 6, 15, or 30 seconds - and longer forms on YouTube and Facebook were also tested. All of this was done to understand how an advertising creative affects the viewer's attention.
2 seconds for attention
This tool was developed as part of one of the largest neuromarketing studies in the world, now in its fifth year. One of the main conclusions of the study is that for some advertising creatives, the time customers spend viewing them is only… 2 seconds.
- This information is not surprising to us, because two years ago, citing research by Lumen, we warned the industry about the negative effects of continuing the current form of communication. At the time, it was treated as a curiosity, and many brands ignored the advantages of machine learning and Big Data technologies that make it possible to create personalized ads. Today we are seeing the consequences of that neglect. - says Tomasz Sokół of Online Advertising Network, which runs marketing campaigns based on Big Data analysis.
Advertising attention research: 2 seconds to be noticed
The aforementioned Mars director Sorin Patilinet shares a similar view, claiming that marketers must remember that attention does not decrease on its own. It is the result of too many ads, which create too much clutter on websites, and that has caused ad awareness to be removed from consumers' lives.
Customers increasingly less responsive
Attention vs. sales
In addition to developing the new tool, Mars collected 4,000 campaigns and used them to identify their direct impact on sales. They did this in cooperation with leading research organizations: Nielsen, Catalina, IRI, Kantar, and GfK. Out of those thousands of ads, 250 were selected and tested for various elements of the cognitive process, attention, emotion, and memory. The key conclusion: the attention the viewer gives us is strongly linked to sales performance.
Attention alone is not the answer. - We look at it like a ladder. The first need is attention, because we know that attention is declining. Once you capture that attention, you can begin to evoke emotions. We have proven that by building emotions, you can encode your distinctive assets in the consumer's brain much better. And then those assets can be used. So the ultimate goal is not emotion. The ultimate goal is memory encoding. And this happens faster through emotions than through rational messages. - says Patilinet.
A new beginning
Online advertising is growing
Does this mean a retreat from online advertising? Not necessarily, because the problem is not the method of communication itself, but its ineffective use. The Digital Ads sector is growing rapidly, and the conditions for its development are getting better every year. The global coronavirus pandemic has meant that we spend more time online, which in turn favors the dynamic development of online advertising. It is estimated that by 2024 the global digital advertising market will be worth more than $460 billion, according to an analysis by Statista. That is $100 billion more than in 2020.
One factor behind such a favorable climate is, among other things, the growing amount of data we generate. Artificial intelligence “extracts” information crucial to a company from sets of anonymous data that internet users leave behind while surfing the web. As a result, businesses can communicate with their audiences more precisely. Determining chance has become a forbidden word in the marketer's lexicon.
- You just need to use this tool skillfully. Enormous potential lies in personalization. The point is to reach the consumer in the right place and at the right time. A customer is not a number in a spreadsheet, but a living person whose nature and preferences must be taken into account in the area of communication. – notes Grzegorz Kosiński, president of Audience Network, which specializes in executing precisely targeted online advertising campaigns.
It is becoming clear that without technology, modern communication does not exist. Advanced tools from the world of marketing technology and truly personalized messaging are the key to successful promotional campaigns. Contextual real-time interactions are no longer optional extras for marketers, but should form the basis for building advertising creatives.
Summary
Mars conducted neuromarketing research showing that internet users devote on average only 2 seconds of attention to an ad. This is the result of page overload and the declining effectiveness of traditional banners.
The key to success is becoming personalization and building emotions that lead to brand recall. The digital advertising market is growing – by 2024 it is expected to be worth more than $460 billion, and modern tools such as artificial intelligence help reach consumers at the right moment.
