Would you like to know the Psychological secret to advertising that will see your sales numbers rocket?

Bit of a silly question really; of course you would, no matter your sector or industry.  Plenty of businesses advertise, but as John Wanamaker famously complained half of it isn’t having the desired effect – if only you could tell which half!

So why isn’t it working?  The sad truth is, so much advertising isn’t even seen, let alone remembered.  So how do we place advertising that is not only seen, but really makes an impact and that the customer will recall and use to inform their next purchase?   It’s essential that we find an advertising medium that penetrates the conscious mind and subconscious mind at the right moment: no mean feat when you consider how much of our day to day life is governed by System 1 processes. To understand the intricacies of the human mind, we need to turn to our psychology friends for some help…

Using psychology we have identified why one of form of advertising is delivering brand recall off the Richter scale.

So what’s the secret sauce?  Quite simple really: if you want to run an advert that’s truly remembered, there are three key criteria you need to aim for:

1. The Perfect Environment – context is key. Where will your advert be seen? What will your target audience be doing? All of these impact on the type and quality of engagement your advert will have.
2. The Vital Placement – your advert needs to be somewhere it’s likely to be seen, and ideally several times, before it sinks into your audience’s psyche whether conscious or subconscious.
3. The ‘Golden Moment’ – possibly the most important of all.  What kind of mindset is your audience in? Are they hurried, rushed, distracted?  Or relaxed, excited, and looking for new ideas? Everyone knows how good they feel when they are about to embark upon any kind of trip whether it be business or pleasure. No matter who you are you always come back with a story of some sort and new ideas and needs.

With our Targeted Advertising solution on boarding cards, itineraries and confirmation emails, we’ve found the formula for scoring a perfect home run against all three; let us show you how.

What can you do to make your advertising more interesting and to deliver response?

Travel is an emotional experience, full of excitement for the leisure traveller, and importance for the business traveller. Travel is also a stimulating experience, promoting a range of feelings from escapism to concentration.  Research studies have shown this level of excitement promotes a heightened state of alertness, increasing the ability to take in messages such as airport adverts, inflight magazine content, signage and most importantly, the boarding card.  Being in this zone is likely to make advertising messages more interesting to you – and therefore more memorable.

Repetition is really important to the success of a campaign

The boarding card is the most important document after your passport, it is looked at on average 8 times during a round-trip at over 13 locations because of its importance.  Advertising placement is key to success: it needs to be an integral and complimentary part of whatever the person is doing at that time.  Other formats have championed intrusive and disruptive styles, but these irritate the target audience, and can be closed, ignored, or not even seen!  This simply isn’t a problem for our targeted advertising platform: you can’t ignore your boarding pass, as it’s a vital travel document for your journey and you need to keep looking at it over and over again, and is compulsory to be presented for purchases at the airport. 70% of passengers are even still looking at their boarding pass whilst in the plane! No other medium follows you throughout your journey and is with you until you empty your pockets. You continue to rely on it, with the message becoming louder and clearer. That’s why 61% of passengers remember advertising on the boarding card. No other media can deliver that kind of recall with just a single ad placement: a marketeer’s dream scenario.

Finding The ‘Golden Moment’

The mindset experienced in the more relaxed moments of the journey, such as the departure lounge and inflight, promotes an enquiring and aspirational frame of mind, with travellers looking to be “inspired and informed”.  Passengers are seeking new things and experiences and this is just the right time for them to be offered inspirational advertising – the “Golden Moment”.  Imagine being be able to personalize a message knowing that person is travelling specifically from Madrid to London.  Connecting the advertiser with that person is a joint venture bringing the two together.  Whether they are travelling from any airport to any airport, we can ensure the relevant advertising message is there in their hands at the right time.

How do we know?  Our research shows that more passengers plan their next trip whilst travelling than when at home, and particularly inflight.  Now let’s map the most popular “planning” time onto when the boarding pass is most looked at in the journey.  We can see the two clearly align to create the perfect golden moment for travel and tourism advertisers to reach their audience:

The magic dust that really makes your advertising zing is to target the serendipity of this “Golden Moment”.  Imagine that you could put your advert in front of your next customer just at the exact moment that their mind was open to new ideas – perhaps even looking for that inspiration?  Such perfect timing guarantees that your advert will be remembered and acted upon too, with direct call-to-action for immediate impact, so that your sales numbers will sky-rocket: this gold is real!  Targeted advertising uniquely allows brands to reach their specific target audience, but this is only half the story. Recall is key in the advertising game, and our secret sauce means our platform is unmatched. 61% brand recall: don’t we call these statistics “Unicorn Moments”?

If you want your brand to be remembered, think about the environment, placement and ‘golden moment’ opportunities for your advert.  Now find the platform that truly delivers on these to make your search as short as possible: talk to our Targeted Advertising specialists.

‍