LinkedIn score a System1 Ad Of The Week first – an ad for… ads. “Forklift” is promoting LinkedIn’s targeted online advertising service, but – as befits an ad of the week – it’s doing so in a way that’s unusual for a B2B service, generating surprise and curiosity while entertaining its audience.
LinkedIn have a major advantage when it comes to online advertising. They don’t just know who their audience are, they have a strong idea of what they’re actually looking for. Social media advertising promises powerful targeting, but it can’t control whether or not a customer is in a purchase window for a product. Too often visitors to social networks are served transactional, left-brain oriented direct sales ads which have little long-term impact on anyone not directly in the buying window. But visitors to LinkedIn are in a work-oriented frame of mind and more likely to be immediately interested in products, services and roles related to it. For B2B vendors, LinkedIn ads are a compelling product.
Which makes the creative approach for “Forklift” even more interesting. Rather than lay out the rational benefits of their ad platform, LinkedIn have gone for the surprising and emotional approach. A business meeting is disrupted by the intrusion of a forklift truck, which begins lifting up the meeting room table to the shock and concern of the people sitting at it. What on earth is going on? The voiceover reveals all – it’s a metaphor. With LinkedIn targeting, you’re not hurling your ads for industrial equipment at finance professionals who will simply never need or use them.
It’s a witty way to bring the advantage of targeted advertising to life, and an ad with an emphasis on storytelling and humour which is built to attract the attention of the right brain, more important for longer-term brand growth and effectiveness.
To measure “Forklift”’s effectiveness, we did a bit of targeting ourselves. For B2C ads, we always test with a general audience as well as specific samples, as broad reach is essential to long-term growth. For a B2B ad, though, the general public isn’t the most important sample – you do need to see how the ad resonates specifically with a B2B audience. So we looked at LinkedIn within this context. It’s worth pointing out, though, that “Forklift” outperforms the business services average on every metric even with a general audience!
Were B2B audiences entertained by the metaphor, or befuddled? It’s a common myth that B2B audiences are only interested in serious, persuasive advertising, but that isn’t the case. A strong, entertaining, emotional ad works just as well on B2B viewers, and “Forklift” did the job with an impressive 3.8-Star Rating for long term growth. LinkedIn also got a Strong Brand Fluency score and an Exceptional rating for short-term Spike.
The high Spike Rating shows the ad’s secret weapon, one hardly any B2B ads use – Surprise. The ad scored almost twice as high as the average ad on Surprise, an emotion which works positively to drive emotional intensity and curiosity in an ad. In other words, LinkedIn cut through in a sector where most ads take a more predictable path.
75% of B2B ads only get 1-Star and produce no long-term business impact, so high performance is something to be celebrated. Forklift isn’t just an ad about ads, it’s an ad which shows by example that you don’t have to be boring, just because you’re B2B.
"For B2B marketers, reaching and engaging the right audience is critical to growing their brand. ‘Only on LinkedIn Ads’ playfully dramatizes the frustrations of reaching the wrong audience and highlights how LinkedIn’s advanced professional targeting uniquely helps them find the right ones among our 1 billion members.”
Keith Browning
Director, Global Brand, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
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The most effective ads boost sales and drive long-term growth. They do it by making people feel more - building positive associations with a recognisable brand. We predict sales and growth impacts by measuring emotion, letting you make ads that entertain for commercial gain.