Most people view brands as a balance between dualities:
Meaningful vs Differentiation
Relevance vs Resonance
Leading off a campaign with soft, big picture content focused on the meaning of the brand can be a benefit before a wave of more specific content with increased calls-to-action!
The Halo Effect is another wrinkle on Repetition, and works hand-in-hand with the Amplifier Effect to create situations where 1+1=3.
- The most common medium used to explain the Halo Effect is TV. But that doesn’t mean TV is the only thing that can do this!!!
- TV is used as the example because it is most likely to combine sight, sound, use high levels of emotion, and include a big picture concept of what the brand is, what it stands for, etc. Plus, it can do this in a length of time that works with the human brain – 15-60 seconds.
- It is a common resonance medium, compared to others that provide relevance (like social media).
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So the Halo Effect is probably more likely to be explained that resonance (what the brand stands for) drives the bus, prior to relevance.
of the Halo Effect
#1
Searching/Exploring/Chasing
- Website traffic during months with TV advertising was more than double for a new or young brand (less than 3 years old).
- Up, for older, established brands, but not double.
- So the “Halo” is more prominent for new brands, or brands you’ve just discovered for the first time.
#2
Increased Attention
Leads to increased time, recall, and intent.
- Study participants spent 3x more time with ads when they first aired on TV vs. digital-only.
- Brand recall more than doubled (2x) when a digital ad was preceded by a TV ad.
- Found a 15% lift in purchase intent when ads aired on TV plus digital, compared to digital alone.
#3
Increased attitude, less annoying.
- Digital advertising has a problem with consumers. It annoys them.
- But the study surprisingly found that digital ads become more appealing and less annoying when accompanied by, or preceded by, a “normal” TV ad.
- 12% lift in brand attitude when a digital ad was preceded by a TV ad and overall (on a scale of 1 to 10 how do you feel about Brand X?).
- That’s actually huge! – Most awareness campaigns in PR or advertising often only end up with a 5% (or so) brand awareness improvement.
- Digital ads were perceived to be less annoying and intrusive after TV exposure.
The amplifier effect is another way you can get beyond the downside of too much repetition. It basically suggests that switching the medium can help you.
Part 1 – Alternating Media
10 repetitions of the message in Instagram (or TV, or any medium) is less effective than a package you put together of 3 Instagram, 2 YouTube, 1 Google Ad, and 1 digital display ad. So in this case, 7 is better than 10.
This method provides ample repetition, but the new-ness of each medium softens the feeling of a hard-sell approach.
Part 2 – 1+1+3
The second part of the amplifier effect is another phenomena we see by integrating messages with different media.
Meta self reports that TV+Meta and TV+Billboards creates an amplifier effect. In essence,
- If Meta ads are 15% effective, and billboards are 10% effective, instead of seeing a 25% effectiveness rate, they are suggesting it’s nearly 35%.
- Similar findings are demonstrated with TV+Meta.
So 1+1 doesn’t equal 2, it’s more like 1+1=3.
Here’s an example of what happens when a brand has too much relevance, and not enough differentiation.