Total Ad Recall

Despite having great expectations for entertaining ads, most people only remember 10% of the ads they’ve seen in the past 24 hours. The implication? Be interesting, and consider video to capture attention.

Who will love this

• Anyone who can’t remember a single ad they’ve seen in the last 24 hours

• Anyone who’s ever gone to bat for a risky ad idea

• Creatives

Today

Happy Friday 🥳

Let’s play a game. Think back over the past week: how many ads can you remember?

If you’re like most people - it’s not many.

Today’s case for brand is a piece of research on ad recall. Ad recall is the likelihood of a consumer spontaneously remembering an advertisement from your brand when a related topic arises. Remember: brand building is about generating future demand so that when someone is ready to buy, they choose your brand.
As it turns out: most ads are forgettable.

Of note in the research: YouTube and TV are the most captivating platforms, with TV, instagram and TikTok coming in 3rd, 4th, and 5th respectively. Video is an emotive medium so this makes sense, but it’s always nice to see hunches born out in the research.

So if most ads are forgettable, which ones aren’t?  Off the top of my head, these are some ads that I remember from the past few months:

• SKIMS: The Ultimate Nipple Bra

• Grey Days: New Balance History

• Michael CeraVe

Which ads do you remember? (hit reply - I read every email!)

TLDR: Attention is scarce and people are busy. As Martin Weigel has written, being interesting might be more important than being different. Let’s build interesting brands.

Community shoutout

I guest curated Dawn’s Three Curious Things newsletter today - thank you Shachar for having me (and for indulging my takes on Kamala’s brat summer, the shift from serious to surreal brands, and Olympic Tiktok hauls). ✨

The research

🧐 The rule:

On average, a person will recall no more than 10% of the ads they’ve seen the day before.

➡️ Implication

Be interesting.

❌ Avoid this common mistake

Being interesting without being clear about what you’re actually selling.

🏆 The case study

A survey of 1500 Americans age 21-65 showed that people typically remembered only 10% of ads within 24 hours. However, ads influence purchasing decisions for 44% of respondents, while 42% remember ads while shopping, and social and TV have better recall than other channels. 

💰 Bottom line

Be useful, be interesting - be anything but boring.

👨‍🔬 The OGs behind this research

Carly Fink, Provoke Insights.

Summary

Successful advertising is memorable. People are inundated with hundreds (thousands?) of notifications and distractions every day: it’s a tough job to capture attention, but it’s necessary for building a brand. If I had to take this research and distill it into one practical tip, I’d ask myself “Would someone remember this ad?” after writing briefs. 

👀 Brand Scoops Catching my Attention

• VFC (Vegan Fried Chicken)’s brandjacking of this KFC ad

• This advice to not persuading CMOs of the importance of brand

• Oatly crashing a dairy lobby event in Washington, D.C. - hat tip to Robyn Young for sharing this!

That’s it!

Happy weekend,

Amanda

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