At the peak of the mass media advertising era, a fundamental rule of creative strategy was to look at stimulus and desired response as two separate entities.
The way the principle was explained to newbies in the planning and creative department was that if you wanted a consumer to consider going out shopping for a new refrigerator (response), the messaging needed to evoke, say, the inconvenience of sputtering old refrigerator (negative stimulus) or the joy of opening a spanking new, modern refrigerator and tasting the freshness of an apple bought two weeks ago (positive stimulus).
However, the stimulus-response principle goes way beyond the one-dimensional Pavlovian relationship.
An insight I have garnered over decades of strategic planning experience and working with the best creative people is the ‘Mirror Principle’.
Most advertising works through repetition within limits. The rare ad campaign strikes home the first time a viewer comes across it. Others need repetition to overcome inertia and lead to attitudinal or behavioural change.
However, a consumer pays attention to an ad only if it evokes interest in the first place. Suppose an ad doesn’t provoke the initial attention. In that case, no amount of repetition will make the consumer pay attention; thus, the entire campaign will be like a ship passing in the dark.
So before the stimulus-response paradigm can work, an ad must overcome media clutter and human inertia and evoke interest.
Some creatives take that as the cue to resort to the ‘painted pony syndrome” – a stableboy was madly in love with the master’s daughter and sad that she would not even look at him when he delivered her pony to her every morning. The stable master consoled him and said he must get the girl to address him first. So, when the boy offered the pony the following day, the girl screamed, “Who painted my pony yellow!?”. The boy replied, “I did. Can we meet in the woods this evening!”
The “painted pony syndrome” drives much of the bizarre, supposedly clutter-busting, attention-grabbing advertising. Advertising that is not just ineffective but counterproductive.
The “Mirror Principle” is that an ad campaign grabs an individual’s attention when it mirrors her self-image, aspirations, or beliefs.
For example, most women do not crave to look as beautiful as a film star. On the other hand, most know that looking younger than one’s age is a sign of a well-lived and disciplined life. While few women believe that soap can be the chief instrument in their looking young, the fact that Santoor’s advertising reflects their aspirations has led to Santoor becoming India’s number-one soap brand over the years.
Apple’s 1984 ad mirrored the American angst of the 80s and thus worked even among those who had never heard of Orwell.
The “Hamara Bajaj” campaign worked because it mirrored the need of the first generation of Indians born after 1947, the first post-colonial generation, to discover a modern Indian identity.
When Syska pioneered LED Lights in India, it used the persona of Irfan Khan to mirror the urge to go off the beaten path that is an overt or latent part of every individual.
The other factor that enhances response is when an ad is layered – when a TV or a press ad reveals new facets to the viewer/ reader every time she sees it. All the four ads I have mentioned above are layered. Mirroring and layering are skills that top-rung advertising creatives have in common with their counterparts in films, television, books, and art.
One note of caution about repeat viewing: even the best-layered ads have a limit regarding repeat viewing. Many big brands with mega budgets tend to deliver campaigns to a reader/viewer so often that they become counterproductive.
When the digital and social media advertising era dawned, I expected advertising to reach new heights in mirroring and layering. The expectation was based on the narrowcasting that digital and social media enable that would allow for greater depth of insight. Instead, digital and social media advertising is, by and large, plumbing the depths of the Pavlovian stimulus-response paradigm, focused on the all-important click and like or share buttons.
However, there are signs that Gen Z is tiring of click-bait advertising, and perhaps the coming decades will see a shift back to mirroring and layered advertising.