Using facts for effective advertising
All marketing campaigns cannot be categorized as either rational or emotional. That would be a gross oversimplification. Marketing professionals are sometimes criticized for writing straightforward headlines without any rhetorical nuances. However, sometimes facts are so compelling that they don’t need rhetorical twists. While building brands during the pandemic, one thing has to be kept in mind: that facts should inform the full customer journey. Using facts shows a mature approach. It shows that a business is drawing attention to itself by not using clever visuals or complicated strategy, they are just stating a compelling reason to buy.
Facts are often used in charity and public service campaigns. A South African campaign for the Endangered Wildlife Trust focused on the plight of endangered species such as the northern white rhino by printing photos of all the remaining individuals on the planet. These facts were not softened by using an emotive tone of conventional charity advertising.
It is vital to build relationships with customers founded on trust. When a brand makes a promise, it is the responsibility of the service or product to deliver on that promise. COVID-19 has put a new focus on relationships. For new customers, an evolved set of skills are needed. Headlines with facts resort to a logical route and take advantage of the reader’s desire to get something of value. This helps to build loyalty, and a business can differentiate itself by being transparent. Bing, with its ‘let the facts do the talking’ slogan, allows facts to speak for it, and substantiates the claim with original sources.
Ads with truth obtain their power by selling consumers hard facts. However, using facts does not mean having to lay all the cards on the table. Customers do not want to be hoodwinked, but they might still want to speculate on how a product might improve their lives. Using Nike might not turn one into an athlete but it is fun to imagine that you may be as good as one.
Finding the balance- With essential components of media today being bytes and memes, it is important to strike the balance between imagination and reality. Facts have to be used in a way that consumers feel at ease with them . With consumers likely to look into reviews and investigate brands, it is important for a business to be honest in order to gain trust. For instance, consumers are always more than willing to invest in health and wellness devices and supplements. It is quite common to find a lot of these products not living up to their claims. To avoid such gaps in communication it is important to include factual statistics in campaigns. That includes compiling data without bias and presenting the result to potential customers.
