How Does Advertising Actually Work?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Marketing Architects – "How Does Advertising Actually Work?"

Release Date: July 8, 2025

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Introduction

In the episode titled "How Does Advertising Actually Work?" from The Marketing Architects podcast, hosts Laina Jasper, Angela Voss, and Rob Demar delve into the fundamental questions surrounding the effectiveness of advertising. They explore various theories grounded in marketing, psychology, and economics research to uncover how advertising influences consumer behavior and drives business results.

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1. Memory Nudging Theory

Overview: The conversation kicks off with a discussion on the Memory Nudging Theory from the Ehrenberg Bass Institute, based on the research titled "Measuring Advertising's Effect on Mental Availability" by Kelly Vaughn, Armando Corsi, Virginia Beale, and Byron Sharp.

Key Points:

• Mental Availability: The ease with which a brand comes to mind during a buying situation.
• Memory Structures: Consistently refreshing the connections between a brand and relevant needs or usage occasions.
• Presence Over Persuasion: Advertising's primary role is to ensure that a brand is recalled when needed, rather than directly persuading consumers.

Notable Quotes:

• Angela Voss (00:00): "Emotional campaigns don't just outperform rational ones, they build stronger, longer-lasting brands."
• Laina Jasper (01:10): “This study makes the case. It's not by changing minds. It's by making sure your brand shows up in memory and at the right time.”

Discussion: Angela acknowledges that while memory nudging is valuable for long-term brand building, it isn't the complete picture. She emphasizes the importance of balancing mental availability with direct response strategies that drive immediate results. Rob adds a critical perspective, cautioning against marketers becoming complacent by relying solely on memory techniques, urging for creativity and relevance in advertising efforts.

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2. Persuasion Model

Overview: The hosts transition to the Persuasion Model, championed by advertising legends like David Ogilvy, which posits that advertising should convince consumers through rational or emotional arguments that a brand is superior.

Key Points:

• Changing Minds: Effective in high-consideration categories or when consumers are actively researching.
• Examples of Success:
  • Avis: "We Try Harder" campaign successfully increased market share by persuading consumers to switch brands.
  • Volvo: Safety-centric messaging that convinces consumers of the brand's superior safety features.
  • Mac vs PC: Iconic campaigns that persuaded consumers to favor Macs over PCs.

Notable Quotes:

• Rob Demar (09:22): “If an ad doesn't sell, it isn't creative.”
• Laina Jasper (10:15): “Advertising can work hard, right. And help sell your product, persuade consumers, and build your brand at the same time.”

Discussion: Angela and Laina agree that while persuasion has its place, especially for challenger brands aiming to steal market share, it shouldn’t overshadow the foundational aspects of mental availability. They highlight that successful advertising often seamlessly integrates persuasive elements without neglecting brand presence.

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3. Emotional Priming Model

Overview: Next, the podcast explores the Emotional Priming Model, supported by IPA research and influenced by Daniel Kahneman's concepts of System 1 (fast, emotional) and System 2 (slow, rational) thinking.

Key Points:

• Emotional Impact: Emotional ads are more memorable and build stronger, longer-lasting brands.
• Behavioral Influence: Emotions drive quick, automatic decisions, making emotional advertising a powerful tool.
• Integration with Memory: Emotion helps in creating meaningful memories that enhance brand recall.

Notable Quotes:

• Angela Voss (12:31): “Emotion is often how you get remembered. You know, a lot of what we talked about before.”
• Rob Demar (13:23): “Rational ads are boring to consumers and they're also just boring to make.”

Discussion: Angela emphasizes that emotion is not just an add-on but a fundamental component that makes advertising memorable and effective. Rob shares his appreciation for campaigns like the iPod's "A Thousand Songs in Your Pocket," which cleverly blend rational features with emotional appeal. Laina concurs, noting that emotional elements can simultaneously persuade and reinforce brand memory, citing successful direct response campaigns as examples.

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4. Cultural Branding Model

Overview: The hosts examine the Cultural Branding Model introduced by Douglas Holt, which suggests that great ads embed brands into cultural narratives, creating identity value.

Key Points:

• Cultural Iconography: Brands like Nike and Apple have become culturally iconic by associating with empowerment and creativity.
• Challenges: Achieving cultural relevance requires timing, creativity, and inherent brand credibility.
• Skepticism: Most brands may find this approach aspirational rather than practical due to its high-risk nature.

Notable Quotes:

• Angela Voss (17:55): “Cultural branding requires timing. There's a lot of risk. There's real, I would say, creative courage.”
• Rob Demar (18:45): “It's like, I mean, when you were reading this, I'm like, wah, wah. Come on. Who can actually do this?”

Discussion: Angela and Rob express skepticism about the feasibility of the Cultural Branding Model for most brands, highlighting the significant creative and strategic challenges involved. They agree that while embedding into cultural narratives can be transformative, it remains an elusive goal for the majority, suggesting that brands should first focus on more reliable advertising strategies before attempting to achieve cultural icon status.

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5. Signaling Theory

Overview: The episode also covers Signaling Theory, often attributed to Rory Southern, which posits that advertising serves as a signal of brand quality and legitimacy.

Key Points:

• Perceived Quality: High-investment advertising (e.g., Super Bowl ads) signals that a brand is serious and credible.
• Cost vs. Efficiency: While effective in building credibility, such high-cost strategies may not always be efficient for every brand.
• Alternative Signals: Beyond major platforms, brands can signal quality through consistent messaging across various channels like TV, radio, and influencers.

Notable Quotes:

• Rob Demar (20:32): “When you can drop 7 million on 30 seconds, you're a legit company.”
• Angela Voss (21:43): “In a world full of noise, showing up with confidence and craft might be a really great, clear signal you can send your consumers.”

Discussion: Rob and Angela agree that while signaling through high-profile advertising can effectively establish brand legitimacy, it isn't the only method. They discuss how consistent and quality-focused presence across different advertising mediums can also serve as powerful signals without the prohibitive costs associated with events like the Super Bowl.

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6. Integrating Theories and Best Approaches

Overview: Towards the end of the episode, the hosts share their personal preferences and synthesize the discussed theories to recommend optimal advertising strategies.

Key Points:

• Angela Voss: Prefers focusing on mental availability and signaling as foundational elements.
• Rob Demar: Leans towards the emotional priming model, valuing the power of emotion in creating impactful ads.
• Laina Jasper: Advocates for combining mental availability with emotional strategies, emphasizing the importance of being noticed and remembered through emotional engagement.

Notable Quotes:

• Angela Voss (22:57): “Every brand category, context is different. The real art is knowing when to nudge memory, when to persuade, when to tap into emotion.”
• Rob Demar (23:50): “My personal favorite is the emotional priming. I just think that's such an interesting lever to be able to pull.”
• Laina Jasper (24:19): “If you're not easy to notice, if you're not recognizable, if you're not recalled, you're going to be in a tough spot.”

Discussion: The hosts concur that a multifaceted approach, leveraging multiple theories as appropriate, is essential for successful advertising. They emphasize the necessity of understanding the brand's unique context, audience, and competitive landscape to effectively balance mental availability and emotional impact.

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Conclusion and Final Remarks

To wrap up the episode, Laina introduces a playful segment called the "Mandela Effect Showdown," highlighting the importance of memory in advertising. They engage in a light-hearted game, reinforcing the episode's theme that consistent and memorable advertising can shape collective perceptions and influence consumer behavior.

Notable Quotes:

• Laina Jasper (25:35): “With enough advertising, with enough word of mouth, people can remember your brand and want to buy you in a certain situation.”
• Angela Voss (21:43): “Confidence can really shape perception in powerful ways.”

Closing Thoughts: The hosts encourage listeners to build great marketing strategies that combine remembrance, emotional engagement, and credible signaling to drive both immediate and long-term business success. They invite listeners to connect with them on LinkedIn and leave reviews to support the podcast.

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Final Takeaway: Advertising works through a complex interplay of making brands memorable, emotionally engaging, culturally relevant, and credible. Successful marketers must judiciously apply these theories based on their specific brand contexts to effectively influence consumer behavior and drive revenue.

Transcript

[Angela Voss]

Emotional campaigns don't just outperform rational ones, they build stronger, longer lasting brands.

[Laina Jasper]

Marketing Architects hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions. I'm Laina Jasper. I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects, and I'm joined by my co hosts, Angela Voss, the CEO of Marketing Architects. And Rob Demar is the chief product architect of misfits and machines.

[Rob Demar]

Hello. Hello. Excited to have Angela back here.

[Angela Voss]

I'm going to be all rusty and then we're going to debate and argue over marketing theory. I'm so excited.

[Laina Jasper]

Good, good episode to come back with, I think.

[Angela Voss]

Yeah.

[Laina Jasper]

Well, we are back with our thoughts on some recent marketing news. Always trying to root our opinions and data research and what drives business results. Today, we're diving into one of the biggest questions in marketing. How does it actually work? Does it persuade it? Does it make you feel something? Or is it simply about getting you to remember a brand when you need it? We're going to unpack some of the leading theories and the evidence behind each. Of course, we can't cover all the theories, but I picked some popular ones for us to debate. Let's start with a big one from the Ehrenberg Bass Institute. As always, we're going to ground this conversation in some research and I found a study. It's called Measuring Advertising's Effect on Mental Availability. It comes from researchers at the Ehrenberg Bass Institute, including Kelly Vaughn, Armando Corsi, Virginia Beale, and Byron Sharp. The idea here is something often called the memory nudging theory of advertising. It's based on this principle of mental availability, which we talked about a lot on the show. This means how easily a brand comes to mind when a consumer is in a buying situation. And according to this view or this theory, advertising doesn't need to persuade or educate. It just needs to consistently refresh the memory structures that link your brand to relevant needs or usage occasions, AKA category entry points. In the study, the researchers tested different mental availability metrics across multiple campaigns. These included brand recall, recognition and the strength of associations with buying situations. The findings were clear. In most cases, simply being aware of advertising for a brand significantly increased its mental availability. In other words, just being reminded of a brand was enough to improve its chances of being chosen. So if you're wondering how advertising really works, this study makes the case. It's not by changing minds. It's by making sure your brand shows up in memory and at the right time. So it's not so much about persuasion, it's about presence. So we are going to cover a few different theories today. Not just that one, but I wanted to start with this Ehrenberg Bass school of thought because we love the work that comes out of Aaronberg Bass. What do we think stands out about this nudging theory of how advertising works? Some critics of this might say it's too simplistic, maybe it's too mechanical. Ang, what do you think? Think those critiques are fair?

[Angela Voss]

I would like to think that I have to be more than nudged to buy something.

[Laina Jasper]

Like I.

[Angela Voss]

Maybe it's because we work in advertising, but I'm like the idea of nudging I think is valuable, but to me it's not the whole story. It's more focused on long term brand building. And that for sure is essential. If people don't think of your brand and buying situations, you're just not even in the game. But as someone who also comes from a direct response background, I push back on the idea that advertising only works over time. We see channels like paid search or retargeted video drive immediate results when the message and the timing and the intent align. And I think that's why I've always loved Bennett and Field's two speed model. Right. They show that advertising works both in the short and long time frames. Brand building drives that future demand by growing mental availability. And then sales activation captures that existing demand right now. And you need both. I think if all you do is activate, you eventually run out of demand. And if all you do is build memory, you miss out on today's revenue. So I think the strategy is balanced there.

[Rob Demar]

I completely agree with you, Ange. I think that I thought you were.

[Angela Voss]

Gonna say you completely disagreed.

[Rob Demar]

I think, I think this research is a permission for laziness. I mean, of course you have to be in someone's mind to be chosen. That's table stakes, right? But it really allows lazy marketers and creatives to go look it. I can just put a danc chicken with your brand logo on it and we're good because it's in people's brains now. And I love William Bernbach. I can never say his name quite right. The co founder of ddb, he had this quote I heard years ago and I had to look it up on perplexity. So if I have this wrong, blame perplexity, but the spirit of it is there. Be provocative. But be sure your provocativeness stems from your product. You are not right if in your ad you stand a man on his head just to get attention. You are right if you have him stand on his head to show how your product keeps things from falling out of his pockets. And I think that's the idea of great marketing, is how can you be incredibly provocative, relevant to your product, and, dare I say, persuasive?

[Angela Voss]

What do you think, Alaina?

[Laina Jasper]

I would agree with both of you, but, Rob, I disagree with you a little bit in saying that it's lazy thinking, because one, they do talk about category entry points. Yeah, they have some language in there about reminding, but they're also saying making sure your brand comes to mind at the appropriate moment. So I would think they wouldn't agree with the dancing chicken either, because chances are people aren't going to see a dancing chicken and think to buy your. Buy your brand. So they are saying it matters in the right moments. And I think that subscribing to this theory is also not necessarily lazy, because it's. If you actually practically think about it, you end up having to figure out, how can my marketing reach a broad audience? How do I be top of mind? That's not necessarily easy to do. Sometimes it's easier to just compete at the bottom of the funnel, Right. When someone's ready to buy something instead of trying to make sure your brand is mentally available in a future buying situation. So I don't know if I would call it lazy, but I agree with both of you that it's not enough to just think, oh, all I need to do is remind people that my brand exists.

[Rob Demar]

Yeah, I think it invites laziness. I don't think what they're saying is necessarily. I think it invites marketers to go, hey, it's really surprising and creative, and I can put it on my reel and impress my friends at cocktail parties is more where I think the philosophy can be pointed to. To go, hey, it's just about making sure we're in the customer's head at the right time. So I think we're probably in violent agreement. And I'm not saying they're lazy. I just want to be clear. I'm not saying they're lazy. I'm saying a lot of marketers are lazy and will point to someone as scholarly as Ehrenberg Bass and go, look, we're good. We're memorable, we're wacky, our chicken dances, and it's wearing a T shirt with our logo on it. So we're good.

[Angela Voss]

But if it's only about presence and not at all about persuasion, then something like offer strategy is like null and void, which we just have so much data that that matters, you don't want to be led that way. And I would argue that presence is probably more important, ensuring that you're in the minds of the consumer. But also persuasion matters too. At the point when a consumer is ready to make a decision, agree.

[Rob Demar]

It doesn't matter how persuasive you are if you're not seen or remembered. So I agree with you.

[Laina Jasper]

I think covering this first is nice because I see it as sort of the base to the rest of the strategy.

[Angela Voss]

Yes, I agree with you there.

[Laina Jasper]

Also, I would say it's not that common to see brands with clear, distinctive assets that hold true over time. All the time we see brands where each new campaign it looks different. It's not that easy to do because people come in, they want to change things, they want to make it fresh. So I think that part actually takes a lot of effort. Even though it might look, quote unquote, lazy from the outside. Like, oh, you're maintaining your logo and your colors and your mascot and your audio mnemonic. It's so easy to come up with concepts that just erase those things. So I think there is a lot of effort in practice that goes into being mentally available.

[Rob Demar]

Touched a nerve with this laziness. I like it.

[Laina Jasper]

Well, we are going to talk about the persuasion model next, which is perfect because both of you are bringing that up. This is championed by people like David Ogilvy and the idea here is that ads should convince people through reason or emotional argument that your brand is better. The nudging memory theory would say that advertising rarely change minds. But what do we think? Are there times when advertising can change someone's mind with the right medium and message?

[Angela Voss]

I'll go first. I do think advertising can change minds. I think I just already said that, so I can't go back on that now in the right context, I think especially in high consideration categories or when someone's actively researching a great story, a powerful demo, an emotional narrative, can, I think, shift perceptions or. Yeah, just lead someone down a path that maybe they wouldn't have considered otherwise. And that's what David Ogilvie was so good at. Just that clear, persuasive argument that made you kind of rethink your choice. Perhaps. But where I agree with Aaron Burke Bass is that this isn't how most advertising works most of the time in low involvement categories or when people aren't paying close attention, persuasion just might not land or they're just not ready to buy, you know, so nudging memory and building familiarity might be the only thing. Thing you can do in that moment. Yes, Persuasion, I think, has its place, but it's not the default. You have to earn the right to be persuaded, which we were just saying 100%.

[Rob Demar]

I'm. I must be in the quote mood right now because David Ogilvy. Come on. The OG right there for sure, the og. And he said, if an ad doesn't sell, it isn't creative. That's. At the end of the day, I think what an amazing way to honor creativity is by giving it the level of persuasion that it has the power to achieve. So hats off to David. He's out there somewhere in the. In the advertising verse. I mean, he's dead, but.

[Laina Jasper]

Okay, say, is he. Is he out there?

[Rob Demar]

Oh, he's. He's very dead. But. But his. His book. I got his book in high school, though, and it was so great because it's so filled with wisdom and naked pictures. There's a lot of naked photos in.

[Laina Jasper]

You've made this joke before, and I feel like we've cut it out of the podcast before, but it's gonna get.

[Rob Demar]

In there at some point.

[Laina Jasper]

He is great. It's one of the first books that I was told to read when I started in advertising. So if anyone hasn't read Oakland Advertising, it's amazing. I would agree with both of you, not with what Rob said, but with what Ang said. Actually, I agree. I agree that advertising can persuade, and it's especially important if you're trying to enter a new category, steal market share. If you're coming up as a challenger brand, you're going to have to persuade some people to move from their brand to yours. And I was thinking that there are some great examples of this with brands that have done this well, like Avis, they had their we try harder campaign because they were number two that grew their market share. They had to persuade people to use Avis instead of competitors. Volvo and their safety message. I know I'm obsessed with Volvo, but I think that's been a great lesson in persuasion. They are persuading you to buy a Volvo because of these characteristics. And then the famous one, Mac versus PC, I think is a great example of a campaign that persuaded people. And I think sometimes this comes back to not the laziness thing Rob said, where you think that a. I wouldn't call it lazy, but you think a brand campaign has to just be pure emotion, showing your brand, like all the, you know, and it can actually persuade and still build your brand. That's what we found with clients. Like, your ad can Work hard, right. And help sell your product, persuade consumers, and build your brand at the same time. So I think that also might be a reason why some people avoid certain types of persuasive or selling messages.

[Rob Demar]

I persuaded you with this laziness thing.

[Laina Jasper]

I hate that I brought it up again. We need a different word. We need a different word than lazy. But all right, we started talking about emotion a little bit there. So it makes sense to go into this next model, which is the emotional priming model. This theory has been supported through IPA research. It shows that advertising works best when it elicits emotion, which leads to long term business growth. That work suggests that emotional ads outperform rational ones significantly over time. Not because they persuade or remind, but because they form strong emotional memory structures. And this lines up with some thinking from behavioral science, like from Daniel Kahneman. He has this idea that most decisions are made using system one, thinking fast, automatic, emotion driven, rather than system two, which is slower and more rational. So what do we think? Is tapping into emotion a more powerful strategy than simply reminding people that your brand exists?

[Angela Voss]

Well, isn't it the way by which you create that memory, like the IPA data is hard to ignore. We have our own data. Emotional campaigns don't just outperform rational ones. They just build stronger, longer lasting brands. In our view, our own data. A lot of research out there, but I don't think it's emotion versus memory. Emotion is often how you get remembered. You know, a lot of what we talked about before. This nudging memory wouldn't work if the ad didn't also make us feel something. That could be humor. I think about the work in the insurance category. My gosh, there's so much humor. And yet warmth also works, recognition work. So it's not just about being present. It's about being meaningfully present in a way that creates that memory. If your brand shows up often but never moves anyone, that's just noise, right? Emotion is what makes it stick.

[Rob Demar]

I totally agree. And rational ads are boring to consumers and they're also just boring to make, you know, like, nobody wins. We go into this business to have fun and to tap into emotion and uncover that story that's within the product. One of my favorite print ads, print ads are these things that they used to have in these things called magazines. Elena. And it would just, you know, have this, it have a headline in it and with a visual and one of the ones that I always look back on and go, man, it's such a great threading of the needle between Doing the job of speaking into rational thinking but tapping into an emotion. And that's the ipod. And we've talked about this headline in the past. A thousand songs in your pocket, right? You're like, well that's a rational headline, Rob. That's like a nerd wrote that. That's not an emotional one. But if you think about it, a rational argument for that print ad would be a 1 gigabyte hard drive that can fit in your blue jeans and hold all kinds of stuff like music versus a thousand songs in your pockets. Like defying the laws of physics and empowering you as a human to be like a wizard. That's to me the magic when you can tap into both, like anchoring it in some level of rational thinking because when you do that you it can become irrational and emotional and magical.

[Laina Jasper]

I agree with both of you on this one. I don't think it means that there's never a case for rational advertising. Like sometimes you're at the bottom of the funnel. You just need to remind people marketing architects does TV advertising and not every advertising message has to be emotional. Maybe you don't need that for some of those short term sales. But the data is clear. And I liked what you said Ange, about how emotion is persuasive and emotion is memorable. So this one sort of builds on the other theories. It's like not all you need but it can help you be persuasive and it can help you be remembered in a buying moment. It reminds me of one of our like direct response TV campaigns we did for stuffies where you had a little kid talking about their stuffy with their grandparent, giving them a stuffy and it was cute and memorable. But it's like it's persuading at the same time. And it's a part of the reason why it persuaded so well was because it was emotional.

[Angela Voss]

We've had such a wide range of creative messaging work since 1997, from radio to TV and our own journey into the awareness around the empirical data and marketing research. And I think this topic is so crucially important. Like you can't get this right if you don't understand the long and short of advertising. Because rational boring messaging will absolutely drive sales. It will direct response like rob how much data we have on phone calls, web visits.

[Rob Demar]

Absolutely.

[Angela Voss]

But if you don't understand the long, you have a gap in your awareness of what marketing can do in general. And if you just go out with a highly emotional ad, maybe little to no vo a ton of music, you've got this awesome narrative happening in a 30 or 60 second AD and then you turn around and go, that didn't make the fall phone ring or it didn't drive web visits. That's where it falls apart for people if they don't get how this works.

[Rob Demar]

I think, Elena, you would agree with me on rational advertising is the other side of laziness. So if you were to go, okay, well, I just am going to put all the features and benefits of this particular product in an ad for 30 seconds. I've done my job. No, you haven't. So it's the other side of the coin to the dancing chicken.

[Laina Jasper]

I agree with you there. And I think you see that a lot in B2B. You're thinking, if I just tell them about all the great speeds and feeds they're going to buy, that could work in certain circumstances. But if you want to. You're right, Andrew. If you want to balance it with the long, you need that emotion as well. The next theory I want to talk about is called the cultural branding model. This one comes from Douglas Holt, and he says that great ads work by embedding the brand into a cultural narrative. Instead of nudging memory, persuading or inspiring emotion, they create what he calls identity value. Think Nike and empowerment, Apple and creativity. It's less about reminding you, it's more about making your brand culturally iconic. So this theory is definitely not without its skeptics. I wanted to bring one up. It's a little more controversial. Do we think this is realistic for most brands or. Ange, what do you think? Is it just an interesting idea that applies to maybe certain circumstances?

[Angela Voss]

I mean, it's hard to argue that for a handful of brands it's been transformational. But I would say that for most brands, this is aspirational at best. Cultural branding requires timing. There's a lot of risk. There's real, I would say, creative courage, not to mention a brand with the credibility to say something culturally relevant. You know, it's not impossible, but for me it's hard because it's not a playbook you can just copy. For many brands, it's more practical to, to maybe borrow elements of this model, like, I don't know, tapping into cultural tension or symbolism or something like that, without trying to become the next Nike. But it's just not universally able to be replicated very easily. I don't think you, you have to kind of earn that cultural relevance. And for most marketers, there are probably more reliable levers to pull first. I would Say dang it.

[Rob Demar]

I'm so frustrated with how, how in sync I'm with Angela in this podcast.

[Laina Jasper]

Probably a good sign for the agency.

[Rob Demar]

It's like, I mean, when you were reading this, I'm like, wah, wah. Come on. Who can actually do this? Yeah, great. In theory, almost impossible in practice. Brands try to do it. They usually smell of it and everybody rolls their eyes. So, yeah, I think it's. Sure. Wouldn't everybody want to be culturally relevant? But that's a. That should not be on your brief.

[Laina Jasper]

No. And I think brands have moved further away from this model recently. It got sort of popular. But I always come back to marketers should stay close to revenue. I think there's a lot of other theories of advertising you can apply before you do this. When brands are trying to do it inauthentically. Right. It comes across as like marketers just getting on our high horses and thinking that advertising is more important than it actually is. So I think there's plenty of other theories you can apply to your brand before you try to become a part of a broader cultural narrative. I think the risk is fairly high, too, that you're going to. You're not going to meet the mark. And you're right, it happens naturally rather than trying to force it. All right, I've got one final theory for us. It's signaling theory, and this one is typically attributed to Rory Southern, at least the discussion. He brings it up a lot. He's a fan of behavioral economics, and he argues that advertising often works not because of what it says, but because of what it signals. For example, we spent a fortune on this ad, so we've got to be legit. That's why brands buy things like super bowl airtime. It can be a sign of quality. Do we think that advertising can actually shape how people perceive a brand just by the fact that it exists and shows up in a certain way?

[Angela Voss]

Rob, why don't you go and then we'll see if I'm aligned with you.

[Rob Demar]

All right. Well, one, I definitely think it's effective. I'm not sure it's efficient, but I definitely think it's effective. When you flex on something like the super bowl, you're obviously real, you're obviously big time. You're Budweiser, you're Coca Cola, but you can afford, afford to do that. So it is definitely a luxury. So I don't think it's necessarily always the most efficient way for someone to break through, but it absolutely leads to credibility. When you can drop 7 million on 30 seconds yep. You're a legit company.

[Angela Voss]

Yeah. I would say you don't have to be on the super bowl to signal and get the payoff, like just being on TV in general. I'll never forget when one of my girls brought me. I think it was before they actually had the Temu app, but wanted to buy something off Te Boo. And I was just like, heck, no. I never heard of them. That was like, my credit card is going to be stolen for sure. This is not happening. And then they grew and their advertising grew. I don't even know that they were on TV yet, but. So I think there's a lot of ways to signal, but TV for sure is one that helps create that credibility in the space, whether it's valid or not.

[Rob Demar]

Right?

[Laina Jasper]

Right.

[Angela Voss]

I think it could be argued, but in a world full of noise, showing up with confidence and craft might be a really great, clear signal you can send your consumers.

[Laina Jasper]

Agreed. I think in an ideal world, this theory is something that you can take into account. And when you're choosing where to invest your advertising dollars, maybe you decide to prioritize something like tv, even if perhaps the immediate result from it is less than something like digital. You're thinking, while this is helping with things like signaling and cultural imprinting, just another reason to invest in it. But I agree, if you're only pursuing advertising for signaling, it's going to become not super efficient. And I also agree that the super bowl is not the only way to signal. We know that. Yes, we talked about TV being high up, but also radio's up there, prints up there, out of homes. There are a lot of different ways that you can invest in advertising channels and signal. I bet some influencers can help with signaling. Maybe just something to take into account. All right, so we covered a couple different theories here. We covered memory, nudging, persuasion, emotion, culture, signaling. Which theory do you personally subscribe to the most or maybe what feels the most true to how you think brands should approach advertising?

[Angela Voss]

This was hard for me. If I had to choose, I'd probably lean most towards just mental availability and signaling. I think mental availability in my head is just foundational. If people don't think of your brand when it matters, then it's hard to win. But I also love the elegance of signaling, too. Just showing up consistently with quality. And like I said, confidence can really shape perception in powerful ways. That said, I would say that every brand category, context is different. What is your competitor doing? I think the real art is knowing when to nudge, memory, when to persuade, when to tap into emotion. Are you a brand that can play into that culture? Maybe, maybe not. I think the best advertising doesn't just follow a copy paste playbook theory. It follows the customer. It finds the simplest way to matter in their world and takes into context their environment, their industry, and their competitors.

[Rob Demar]

Those are all really good. My favorite, I'm not going to say it's the most effective, but my personal favorite is the emotional priming. I just think that's such an interesting lever to be able to pull. I mean, Ang mentioned we had many years in direct consumer advertising, which can be both logical and emotional and trying to understand what drives people to act out of emotion. So being able to play with that lever is just super fun and interesting.

[Laina Jasper]

As a marketer, I agree that this is sort of an unfair question, because the answer is you probably should use all these theories in some way if you can. But I would agree with Ange about mental availability being first, because if you're not easy to notice, if you're not recognizable, if you're not recalled, you're going to be in a tough spot. But then my second one I would agree with Rob is emotion. I think we've learned from the cost of dull research that so many ads are so dull and you can increase your effectiveness by bringing in emotion. I think it's something that more marketers could do. So I had to focus on two of them. I think I would pick those two. Also the most fun. So agreed there.

[Angela Voss]

Yeah.

[Laina Jasper]

All right, we're going to wrap up with a game that I'm going to connect to this episode somehow because I really wanted to do it as soon as I thought of it, that I'm like, does it connect? It's about the Mandela effect. I'm calling it the Mandela Effect Showdown. So I'm gonna give you a brand or phrase, and you have to guess, like, what's real versus what has been misremembered. And now I'm connecting this to the episode because it shows how important memory is and how whole groups of people can remember a whole different thing. That's not even true. It's not even a fact. And so maybe your brand can. This sounds bad now, but I'm just saying that with enough advertising, with enough word of mouth, people can remember your brand and want to buy you in a certain situation.

[Rob Demar]

Why Mandela effect?

[Laina Jasper]

Do you know what that is, Rob?

[Rob Demar]

Is it Nelson Mandela?

[Laina Jasper]

Yes. So it's a phenomenon where a big group of people share the same false memory about an event or detail. So it comes from Nelson Mandela. A lot of people think that he died in prison in the 1980s. He actually died in 2013. So it got called the Mandela effect. It's just one big group of people remember something different.

[Rob Demar]

Interesting. All right.

[Angela Voss]

Smart.

[Laina Jasper]

Okay, so the first question is, does the Monopoly man wear a monocle?

[Rob Demar]

No.

[Angela Voss]

I have to be honest. I was gonna say yes.

[Laina Jasper]

You have to be honest about what you actually think it is.

[Angela Voss]

I was gonna say yes, so I'm gonna say yes.

[Laina Jasper]

Yeah. The answer is no.

[Angela Voss]

Okay.

[Laina Jasper]

He just has a top hat and a mustache, but a lot of people think he wears a monocle. I would have said monocle. All right, can either of you describe the fruit of the loom logo?

[Angela Voss]

Grapes, isn't it?

[Rob Demar]

Boy, I would have gone with the whole cluster of fruit.

[Laina Jasper]

You're both right. A lot of people say it's a cornucopia with fruit, but it's just fruit on its own.

[Rob Demar]

No cornucopia.

[Angela Voss]

No cornucopia. No.

[Laina Jasper]

All right, how do we spell the Berenstein Bears? Is it B E, R, E, N, S, T, E, I, N or B E R, E, N, S, T, A, I, N, E?

[Rob Demar]

I would have gone with E, too.

[Laina Jasper]

Yeah, so I. This one really bugs me. It's actually, like, Baron stain. It's with an A. What? I know. I do not remember it that way at all. This one really bothers me. But, yeah, it's B E R E, N, S, T, A, I, N. God.

[Angela Voss]

That was the best book series.

[Laina Jasper]

So in the classic Disney intro, does Tinkerbell. Does she dot the I in Disney or does she draw the castle? Is she a part of that intro?

[Angela Voss]

She draws the castle?

[Rob Demar]

Neither.

[Laina Jasper]

Yeah, you're right. Never happened in the original intros. But we remember it for some reason. Okay, okay.

[Angela Voss]

I think I'm over, like, a hundred.

[Laina Jasper]

How do you spell. Angie's a better example. You're doing the game right.

[Angela Voss]

How do you spell Febreze? How do you spell Febreze? F, A B, R, E, E, Z.

[Rob Demar]

E. No, it's F, E. Oh. T, R, E, E, Z, E. You're both wrong.

[Laina Jasper]

It's F, E. B, R, E, Z, E. Oh, goodness.

[Rob Demar]

Wow.

[Laina Jasper]

All right. Does Mickey Mouse wear suspenders?

[Angela Voss]

I'm gonna say no.

[Laina Jasper]

No, never has. What does Pikachu's tail look like?

[Rob Demar]

Pikachu. Oh, I didn't even know Pikachu had a tail.

[Angela Voss]

I'm not a. I'm not up on the Pikachu character. I gotta pass on this one. A triangle.

[Rob Demar]

Pikachu does have a tail.

[Laina Jasper]

Yeah, he Does. What does it look like? Can you take a guess?

[Rob Demar]

Is it, like, triangular?

[Angela Voss]

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. It was a little triangular thing.

[Laina Jasper]

No, it's okay. A lot of people get confused about thinking it has a black tip at the end, but it doesn't. I would have thought that. All right, not fans of Pikachu. This podcast.

[Rob Demar]

I have one. I have one. All right, all right. So Beatles.

[Laina Jasper]

The Beatles.

[Rob Demar]

How do you spell Beatles? The band?

[Angela Voss]

Oh, God, I'm so scared to answer. Yeah, Beatles. B, E, A, T, L, E, S. Right.

[Rob Demar]

How many people know that? It's spelt the way that you would say beat, not the way you would spell the bug. Oh, because that's actually interesting. Sorry, I'm stealing this from Smart List. They were talking about how you spell the Beatles, and I actually fall into the weird majority. Apparently, that never made the connection that it was like the sound beat and the Beatles.

[Angela Voss]

I don't know that I made that connection, but I knew how to spell it for some reason. I've just seen it enough.

[Rob Demar]

Yeah, so you did two Ange.

[Laina Jasper]

No, I. I knew it was B.

[Angela Voss]

E, a T, but I didn't tie it to beat. Like a music beat.

[Rob Demar]

See, I. I butchered that because I'm with you. I knew how to spell it, I just never made the connection with the beat. Yeah, maybe that has nothing to do with the Mandela effect. I'm just.

[Laina Jasper]

You know, we can't all host fun wrap ups at the end of the podcast. It's a hard job. It is a hard, useless things.

[Rob Demar]

You do a better. You do a much better job. You do a much better job. Javelina.

[Laina Jasper]

That's it for this episode of the Marketing Architects. We'd like to thank Taylor De Los Reyes for producing the show. You can connect with us on LinkedIn. And if you like the podcast, please leave us a review. Now go forth and build great marketing. Marketing architects.