Rise of Purpose Driven Marketing

Cause related ads seem to be everywhere. There’s much industry debate about what works, what doesn’t and whether it’s even worth the risk. Brands are tackling a wide variety of issues, ranging from safe driving to equality and healthy living, but there are certainly a few issues that brands seem to gravitate toward more than others.

Over the past year, among all cause related videos created by the top 100 brands, women’s empowerment took the cake. In Fact, 24% of the top 100 brands purpose driven videos were about women’s empowerment. From Nike to P&G, brands are finding a way to create empowering ads for women that don’t just generate impressions, but leave them. Purpose driven ads garner more views; they also drive more results in the form of engagement rate.

Dove is a great example of a brand that employs purpose driven marketing. Their mission is to improve the self-esteem and confidence of women around the world through their #speakbeautiful movement – a campaign that highlights the concept that beauty is skin deep. They want to be seen to be making a commitment to women’s wellbeing and for consumers to see them as so much more than soap and moisturizer.

We all like to feel a part of something bigger and we like to feel we’re making a difference in the world. We’re in the midst of a major change in how and why consumers connect with brands, and those that are driving social change are bang on trend. Today, brand values are equally as important to consumers as the functional benefit they can offer, and meaningful brand action is vital for building relationships and gaining customer loyalty.

When purpose driven ads are done well, brands have the opportunity to not only stand for something they believe in, but also deeply connect with an audience. I believe this will become an increasingly important method to build brands at a time when people are increasingly choosing brands that align with their values.

IPL 2017: New Ad Campaigns

Completing a decade of revolutionizing Cricket in India, the Indian Premier League (IPL) continues to attract immense advertiser interest. Brands pay hefty fee to air commercials during the sports extravaganza making the event similar to the Super Bowl in US, which is known for Brands showcasing their biggest campaigns of this season. Let’s take a look at the five brands which aired new campaigns during the ongoing league.

Amazon – The online marketplace along with its advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather created a fictional cricket team called Chonkpur Cheetahs for this IPL season. Through a series of films, the campaign portrays the journey of this aspiring team to reach their goal of playing T20. It also communicates how in various small ways Amazon enables them to get a step closer to their dream of playing T20. The dreams of the Chonkpur Cheetahs is a metaphor for the dreams of millions of Indians and how Amazon can enable them by providing access to different products.

Vodafone – The telecom company, which has been associated with the league since its inception, brought back animated character ZooZoos in the new campaign made by Ogilvy & Mather. First introduced during the second season of IPL in 2009, the cute animated characters are shown in three different ads celebrating Indian team’s famous huddle, run outs and boundary moments.

Pepsi – PepsiCo India’s cola brand launched its summer campaign during the IPL, featuring Indian cricket team’s captain Virat Kohli made by Advertising agency JWT India, the spot features Virat Kohli giving it back to Australian fans by stopping a boundary during an intense match. Pepsi has been associated closely with IPL; it has been the league title sponsor for three years between 2013 and 2015 and was eventually replaced by Chinese handset maker Vivo.

Maruti Suzuki – The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI), which is also the associate sponsor of IPL, has rolled out a new campaign for its compact SUV Vista Brezza. The television campaign, made by Dentsu Creative Impact, highlights the stylish built and advanced features of the car.

Parle Products – To establish the wide array of products the company has to offer, IPL’s associate sponsor Parle Products has launched a new ‘Naam Toh Suna hi Hoga’ campaign along with its advertising agency Taproot Dentsu. The films are a humorous take on the daily lives of Indians stuck in awkward situations – an employee being questioned by his boss, a school principal complaining to a student’s mother and two women bragging about their lifestyle.

Native Advertising

Advertisers and publishers are not new to ad blocking. It has been in existence since the time of desktop publishing. Over the last couple of years they have rushed to native advertising primarily because of the sharp rise in ad blocking. It works with the theory that if an ad is harder to identify as an ad, it would perform better against ad blockers.

Take fashion brand Lifestyle promotional campaign that highlighted its end of season sale. For the announcement ad, the company tied up with popular content site, and created a fun and engaging article on the types of people on average shopper would meet during a sale. The good thing is publishers are actively handholding advertisers to get around entry hurdles.

Twitter India, for instance offers brands the know to how to leverage native advertising through a host of products such as Promoted Tweet, Promoted Trend, and Native Video, that surface in the form of content that the user is familiar with. Brands need to be where their customers are, but that is increasingly a challenge as consumer’s consumption of content today takes place across multiple platforms from TV to online to mobile apps.

There are few things to remember while using native ads. Always add value for users. If users find the branded content informative and in line with their interests they’ll read and share it. Native content that is identified as sponsored and has a clear call to action performs the best. Being transparent is important to retaining the user trust and leading to engagement. Since native ads look and behave like the content around it, strive for quality content that’s good as the editorial content.

While consumers transition between devices they expect the content to be consistent whether on desktop or mobile and that goes for advertising too. Native ads are especially effective for cross platform campaigns, from PC to mobile. The look and feel of the native ad should be in line with the content on the page. Native ads flow in with the user content experience. With digital video consumption is on rise, and the user love for short snacky content, brands need to explore native video as well as stretch the creative boundaries on content genres.