Emotion. It's what drives human action. Advertising 101: hook consumers emotionally and then give them a reason to validate their desire to purchase. Emotion first. Intellect second.
In fact, new scientific research being conducted at the HeartMath Institute is validating what advertisers have known forever: our emotional responses to inputs are faster than our cognitive responses. Someone cuts you off in traffic and you're angry before your intellect can talk your emotions down. Emotion governs our actions more than we realize, and good advertising appeals to our emotions.
Emotional associations also are critical building blocks of brand development. But it's a real challenge to make those kinds of emotional connections through online advertising. That's why so many online brands -- like Progressive.com, Geico.com, Priceline.com and Lendingtree.com -- are turning to offline advertising to build brand and drive online sales.
eHarmony.com is perhaps the ultimate example of this because the benefit of eHarmony, in its most basic form, is love. The TV and Radio ads use testimonials telling highly emotional stories of eHarmony members finding their soul-mates. eHarmony founder, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, is inter-cut with these testimonials to build credibility and establish the scientific basis for the reason to believe. In the two and a half years that eHarmony.com has been advertising on television it has become one of the fastest-growing brands in America.
But what makes the eHarmony story so special from an advertising standpoint is that the company has harnessed a fusion of brand-building advertising and direct response. This hybrid is called "brand-building direct response" and it is the secret weapon of the new generation of dot coms that want the branding power of offline and the accountability of ROI positive advertising. In this new hybrid, brand advertising and DR are no longer mutually exclusive, rather, they are inextricably linked.
How ROI positive DR advertising drives brand
If for every advertising dollar spent you are receiving $3 to $5 in return, your budget is limited only by the amount of media that you can purchase that delivers that yield. This means that you can out-spend competitors who are limited to a finite branding budget where there is no revenue stream directly attributable to the advertising. With more media budget available through ROI positive advertising, your brand gains greater exposure -- therefore DR is driving brand growth.
Conversely, emotionally authentic advertising that connects the brand with trust and credibility makes the media more effective and reduces customer acquisition costs, resulting in a positive ROI. If given a choice, consumers will go with the brand they trust. As an example, eHarmony published the findings of a recent brand awareness study that shows eHarmony is preferred by a substantial margin over its closest competitor in terms of "site I trust to match compatible singles." And eHarmony is the preferred brand in its category in terms of "a highly credible site" -- an incredible feat, especially considering the name recognition already enjoyed by eHarmony's competitors prior to the launch of its own advertising. And this was all achieved using brand-building direct response.
It's the successful use of emotion that makes eHarmony's advertising pay out. "Brand," in this example, is one of the key drivers of response. "Brand" is driving positive ROI through the use of emotionally engaging advertising that fosters consumer trust and higher response rates.
Ultimately it all boils down to the numbers in any business. Whatever the means, the lower the customer acquisition cost, the higher the margin. That's why so many online companies are turning to this hybrid of offline advertising to connect emotionally with consumers, while generating very tangible and measurable ROI -- precisely the winning combination that was missing before the supposed dot-com bubble burst.
Indeed, what the success of eHarmony's television campaign demonstrates is that advertising that seeks to build a brand does not have to abandon the concept of accountability and numbers-driven advertising. Traditional wisdom might dictate that the more immediate form of accountability in advertising is to be found online. Online ads can drive click-throughs to a website, instantaneous sales, and site registrations, for example. But it's a myth that accountability only exists online -- and can't exist alongside brand-building advertising campaigns.
A thorough advertising strategy will embrace both online and offline tactics -- adapting each approach to its particular strengths. But nothing drives trust and credibility like an authentic emotional connection between brand and consumer -- and nothing accomplishes that like offline television and radio advertising. And when you can figure out how to make that offline advertising have a 5 to 1 ROI directly attributable to your advertising, you'll have a very positive emotional response indeed. And that is my wish for any advertiser (as long as they're not directly competitive with one of my clients!).
Lucas Donat is a founding partner of Donat/Wald, a leader in direct response advertising. The agency has helped move more than a billion dollars through the economy while building nationally known brands using DRTV, with campaigns for eHarmony.com, Register.com, Stamps.com, eDiets.com, Mattel Toys, Columbia, MGM/UA and more.
