Mystery, Mustard and Marketing: The Birth of the Fluent Device
The campaign for Colman’s Mustard was one of the first examples of a new kind of advertising idea, one that would go on to drive profitable growth for hundreds of brands in the decades since: a Fluent Device.
Seismic Shifts in the MR Industry’s Tectonic Plates (Reflections from the ESOMAR Congress 2017)
Something changed this year at the ESOMAR Congress. Tectonic plates are shifting. Age-old market research certainties are vanishing. The most visionary clients are doing things differently and changing what they buy and the way they buy it. And where they lead, others will follow.
Short Term Sales, Long Term Profits: 5 Ways To Get The Most From Your Digital Content
Platforms and publishers are changing to accommodate the current surge in online video – think Facebook’s introduction of auto-playing ads. But testing and insights have to change too, as marketers still have trouble getting a reliable read on which bits of content are performing well – or even what “performing well” looks like.
3 Key Takeaways form IIEX Atlanta 2017
Nathan Waechter, Associate Vice President at System1, reflects on the IIEX Forum in Atlanta – and highlights 3 key takeaways from the conference.
I Like Big Books, I Cannot Lie
During the Book Launch Party in London, in the shadow of a six foot replica book, a new ground-breaking tome was unleashed on the world: System1, Unlocking Profitable Growth.
Battle of the Supermarket Love Stories
In a move away from product-pushing and pricing wars, French supermarket giants Intermarché and Monoprix have made the move into Feeling. Using the classic boy meets girl love story template, the brands’ new 3- and 4- minute spots are more short film than classic ad.
Why It’s Christmas in June for UK Ads
Happy Christmas to all our Readers! Plenty of creatives and planners are having to do, looking to hit exactly the right emotional note to delight and inspire the British public.
We Are Making A Long Story Short And That’s A Problem
In order to create profitable, brand-building campaigns, marketers should look to long-term campaigns that drive System 1 decision-making.
Fluent Innovation and the Fight for Mental Health
Ollie Aplin, author of ‘This Book Will Make You Stronger’ applies the principles of Fluent Innovation in his new book to improve mental health issues in men.
Introducing Fluent Devices
Fluent Devices help solve one of the great problems of emotional advertising – how do you build on the success of a blockbuster 5-Star ad and make sure your next commercials are just as strong? Find out in this blog post.
‘1’ Quick Note on Innovation
Every year GreenBook runs a study called the GRIT (GreenBook Research Industry Trends) Report, which examines key metrics within the market research industry. One component of the GRIT Report is a ranking of the 50 most innovative market research agencies.
FeelMore50 Ad of the Moment – A Dynamic Journey to Increased Ad Sharing
Donald Duck Magazine’s “The Duck and the Boy” had the highest Dynamism score (a measure of changes in emotion throughout an ad) in our 2016 FeelMore50 rankings.
System1, Unlocking Profitable Growth – The System1 Philosophy on 5-Star Marketing
Chapter One of our book about our System1 philosophy focuses on decision-making itself – it sums up everything we’ve learned from thinkers like Daniel Kahneman and Gerd Gigerenzer and shows how their ideas are relevant to everyday life.
Moving Power, Not Stopping Power
What should shopper marketers aim for? Research has shown that aiming for moving power is much more successful in driving System 1 decision making processes than stopping power.
WELCOME TO SYSTEM1
Hello, and a very warm welcome to the new System1 Research blog. We used to be BrainJuicer, and as of April 4th this year we’ve rebranded as System1 Research, part of the wider System1 Group.
FeelMore50 2016: UPS Keeps On Truckin’!
Great news for fans of advertising that makes people feel more and buy more! The 2016 FeelMore50 ranking launched yesterday– our annual list of the global Top 50 most emotional ads.
Why Adidas was right to shun viral spoof ad ‘Break Free’
Agency co-founder Rod Connors gives his insight into why Adidas chose not to endorse and run student-made ad ‘Break Free’.
How To Have A Great Super Bowl Debut
Super Bowl debutants have a big job to do. They have to hold their own against some of the biggest brands on the planet, and they have to introduce themselves to a super-size audience for the first time.
The End Of Sadvertising: Super Bowl LIVE Ad Test – Third Quarter Report
In recent years, a pillar of Super Bowl advertising has been the sentimental ad. Usually – but not always – built around telling a moving story, sentimental ads work by tapping different types of happiness – awe, joy and particularly uplifting emotion. They also often toy with negative emotions, and if they resolve those feelings of sadness into happiness, such ads can be highly emotionally dynamic (which tends to mean better sharing and interaction rates).
Year Of The Celebrity Ad?: Super Bowl LI LIVE – Half Time Report
Emotional advertising isn’t all about emotion – while Feeling is the thing advertising does best to build brands, advertising is also a great opportunity to build Fluency. What is Fluency? It’s making your brand easier to recognise, easier to process mentally, and easier to choose quickly. You build Fluency by creating and using what Professor Byron Sharp calls “distinctive assets” – anything that brings your brand quickly to mind. Logos, slogans, songs, shapes, even colors can be distinctive assets.
Good “Romance”: Super Bowl LI LIVE Ad Test – First Quarter Report
Humor has always had a big part to play in Super Bowl advertising, and the last few years have seen the most emotional ads shift between commercials to make you laugh, and commercials that bring a happy tear to your eye.
Emotion + Culture = Prosperity!
Adorable snowmen, woolly hats and scarves, and a heart-warming story of togetherness… this ad from China could be a typical Western Christmas-themed ad. But the fireworks might give you a clue that this Coca-Cola commercial is something a little different.
Super Bowl Ad Testing: Live Like You’ve Never Seen It Done Before!
Everyone’s excited to watch the Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots battle it out on February 5th to decide who will be crowned Super Bowl LI Champs. But that’s not all we are excited about. We also tune in to see which brands will leave us talking about their advertising the most. Who’s going to make us LOL, smirk or even cry, we will find out in a few short weeks.
FeelMore50™ Ad of the Moment: Hungry Hounds Against the Forces of Authority
Welcome back to another FeelMore50 “Ad of the Moment” spotlight! With the Super Bowl just around the corner we felt it’d only be fitting to shine a light on 2016’s FeelMore50 Super Bowl winner – Super Bowl 50’s most emotional ad of the night – PepsiCo’s Doritos “Dogs”.
Happy New Product Development
After festivities and the respite of public holidays, it’s that time of year when we pause for a breath to refocus, re-energise and rebuild. In many ways it is a clean sheet – new diaries, new calendars, perhaps some new socks? And of course there’s the formality of new year resolutions that we hope can make us better versions of ourselves, or at least make us temporarily tougher on our perennial feeble-mindedness.
A Very Merry Emotional Christmas
It’s been a difficult year and there is no better way to raise the country’s spirits than with funny, heart-warming ads.
Alerts on UK Xmas Ads: Bouncing High
John Lewis wanted to make people smile this year with an ad that embraces a sense of fun and magic. They’ve certainly managed to achieve that with the appropriate help of a trampoline and some animal assistance.
Alerts on UK Xmas Ads: Orange is the Colour
Aldi’s offering was the season opener in this year’s Christmas ad parade. Quite surprising, in that it stars a root vegetable, viewers found Kevin the Carrot to be a happy, innocent and cute little chap; his triumph at the end of his exciting adventure leads to good levels of happiness and an effective resolution.
Alerts on UK Xmas Ads: Applause for Mrs. Claus
After many commentators bemoaned the melancholic tone of 2015’s adverts and sensed that the emotional heartstrings were being over-plucked, 2016 has already shown it’s still an emotional playing field, albeit with a very different tone. As emotional engagement correlates best with long-term business success, this is not too much of a surprise to see, nor is the excellent story-telling that we’ve witnessed in some of the more lengthy and big-budget ads released so far.
The 3Fs: Good For Your Brand, Good For Your Budget
Spend any length of time in market research and you become aware of the notorious Cost-Speed-Quality Triangle. Notorious because the idea is you can only have two out of the three. Good and cheap research takes time. Fast and good research ain’t cheap. Fast and cheap research means cutting corners on quality.
Binet And Field Return With ‘Media In The Digital Age’
At the IPA Effectiveness Week Genesis Conference, Les Binet and Peter Field unveiled the first findings from their third volume unpacking the IPA datamine for ad effectiveness nuggets.
Debunking the Pre-Testing Vs. Creativity Myth
Fighting Back Against Idea Fatigue
We’ve all heard the figures about the staggering numbers of new products launched every year. But what people don’t often say is that these innovations are rather unevenly distributed. Some categories see only a few major launches. Others see a huge turnover of new ideas. And behind every one that makes it to market there are a throng of concepts that didn’t get that far.
Ad Testing: More Vital Than Ever?
Online video has been one of the great success stories of digital advertising – consumers are said to prefer it as a way to consume content, and brands have invested in it massively. Its momentum is such that the news this morning that Facebook metrics have been overestimating the amount of time people spend watching videos on the platform won’t change the upward trajectory of online video or its centrality to modern marketing.
5 Questions To Make Your Digital Content Better
On September 26, 2006, the modern era of marketing began. Facebook – already enjoying viral growth among academic institutions – opened its accounts up to the public for the first time.
“You Had Me At Hello”: Introducing Fluent Innovation
What makes an innovation succeed? Successful innovations are 20% the new and surprising, 80% the familiar and pleasing. You have to have that core good idea, but so much of what makes the difference between success and failure lies in framing it for acceptance.
Fame, Feeling And Fluency – The Only Brand Metrics You Will Ever Need
There has been a growing awareness in the marketing community that traditional Brand Tracking doesn’t really help much to guide and predict brand growth, and there is desire to see it reinvented from the bottom-up. Why not start with Behavioural Sciences as a guide, because the great thing about science is that it simplifies and clarifies things? And if there’s one area of consumer research that needs cleaning up, it’s brand tracking.
Fame, Feeling And Fluency: A VW Case Study
Volkswagen, as you just may have heard, is in a spot of trouble at the moment. The kind of trouble that wipes a quarter or more off a company’s share price and removes CEOs. Whether the legal fallout from their emissions-test-fixing scandal, and the fines the company face, will cripple or even destroy VW is an open question. But there’s another question to answer too – what are consumers making of all this? How likely are they to forgive VW, or didn’t they care much in the first place?
Branding Reality Bites: The Strange Tale Of OK Soda
2015 brings us a little-heralded marketing anniversary – it’s been 20 years since Coca-Cola pulled OK Soda from the market. If you’ve not heard of OK, or you’ve forgotten it, that’s more than forgivable. The drink – meant to appeal to the ironic, cynical, Nirvana-loving teens of Generation X – was launched in 1993 but never made it to general release. OK Soda survives now as an occasional case study and minor cult – like the Ford Edsel, it haunts the graveyard of global brands that never were.
These Aren’t The Insights You’re Looking For
Previously we published an obituary for the Traditional Concept, which struck a nerve and became our most-read post for months. Research concepts, we argued, are simply too reasonable – they are appeals to deliberative System 2 thinking in a world where decisions are actually made by our fast, emotionally-guided System 1.