Humans. We are showing ads to humans.
Humans that have brains to make decisions, eyes to that are attracted to beautiful things, emotions that wash through.
In the end, the success depends on how well we connect with the humans that we work hard to have the honour of calling them our customers.
One of the greatest lessons I had in my advertising journey was a day where we had unexplained poor performance. The day was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, temperature in the high 20’s. After a week of dismal weather, it was nothing but welcome.
We were targeting Melbourne, 10km radius. During the St Kilda Festival.
“So what” I thought.
My mentor said:
“Who is on their phone wanting to buy anything at a festival or when you’re experiencing a gorgeous day?”.
Sales crept up as the sun went down. The next day, after a cool change had blown through, sales were back to normal.
I put myself in a human position whenever I am thinking about ads.
Does this catch my attention?
Would I stop scrolling for this?
When they do click, where do they go and what do they see?
Should we run ads for this considering the current social environment? (e.g crisis’ etc)
In the end my philosophy is to advertise like there are humans looking at the ad and going to our website. I don’t waterboard people with retargeting after a single bit of interest. We have to be clever and treat people with respect and ensure that what we present to people is worthy of their time and attention.