Mini March Madness! Fluent Devices Bracket
A fun March Madness bracket starring Fluent Devices, the distinctive assets people love to love.
Can You REALLY Build A Brand In Six Seconds?
We look into our ad testing database for the most emotional 6s ads. Are they great stories… or something a bit more basic?
Failure Rules: Getting To Zero Waste
“The paradox of success is you need failure to achieve it” – but there’s more than one type of failure you have to manage…
Now THIS Is How To Use A Distinctive Asset…
How McDonalds is using its golden arches to add a creative twist to Brand Fluency.
Want To Manage Change? Get Weird!
John Kearon reports back from the Insight Show with thoughts on change, diversity, and the power of weirdness.
Five 5-Star Ads Celebrating Women
For International Womens Day, we look at five 5-Star winners that celebrate women from our 2017 and 2018 ad tests.
Super Bowl: Football, Advertising AND Insights showcase?
With over 100 million viewers and a 5 million dollar price tag for a 30 second spot, it is imperative that brands advertising on the Super Bowl spend their money wisely.
FeelMore50 2017: Humor Wins Big for American Brands
What gets North Americans feeling emotional? “Dogs and kids”, a cynical observer might say, and it’s true that each year’s FeelMore North America list brings a new crop of adorable children and puppies. But plenty of ads use those elements without emotional success, and this year we’ve seen some small but interesting shifts in the overall sentimental picture.
Super Bowl Fourth Quarter Report: Teaser Troubles, and the NFL’s 5-Star Win
Our fourth quarter blog post from the Super Bowl, focusing on teasers and the NFL’s own “Dirty Dancing” ad.
Super Bowl Third Quarter Report: Bud Gets Serious, Tide Gets Talked About
Our third quarter LIVE TESTING Report focusing on Budweiser and Tide.
Super Bowl Second Quarter Report: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snowboard!
Our second Super Bowl Live Blog – and more 5-Star successes for Winter Olympians.
Super Bowl First Quarter Report: Inspiration meets Humor as Eagles Soar
Our first Super Bowl blog post.
Pepsi and Bud Light Lead the Way in Early Super Bowl Testing
The early results of our Super Bowl testing are in – and Pepsi and Bud Light have cause to celebrate. Pepsi’s revival of its 1992 ad with Cindy Crawford, and Bud Light’s viral “Dilly Dilly” ads, have both registered strong results on System1’s tests. Together they throw a spotlight on one of the most important, but least known, aspects of advertising success: Fluency.
The Do-Gooder Bowl
What are brands focusing in on with their ads for this year’s Super Bowl? How have the ad previews/teasers performed so far? Which brands are back for another Super Bowl spot, and which are rookies?
Super Bowl LII Ad Testing: Bigger, Better, Live – r
Last year we broke new research ground by testing every Super Bowl ad LIVE, announcing the results on video, on Twitter and on our website as they came in. It was a lot of work, a lot of fun, and a wild, hectic celebration of the great emotional ads every Super Bowl brings. So, of course, we’re doing it again
Five Big Findings from the 2017 FeelMore50
The 2017 FeelMore50 list launches today. ust to remind you, the FeelMore50 is a list we publish every year of the best emotional advertising. We ran self-funded tests on over 700 ads which won awards, enjoyed viral success, or made the news over the course of last year. The fifty with the best results appear on the site. Here are five big things to take away.
Coming Soon: The 2017 FeelMore50
Every year, we test and rank hundreds of TV and digital commercials, in a search for the most emotional ads of the year. It’s the FeelMore50 list, the only industry ranking that reflects the real emotional response of real people. The latest rankings – covering 2017 – are coming to our FeelMore50 website on Thursday.
Seduce Don’t Persuade: NPD
Brands tend to approach innovation by thinking about “unmet needs”. Instead of persuading a customer to buy something new because it meets their needs, we think you’ll have better results seducing a customer into buying something new because it feels good and has fluency. We call this probing of the market for seductive opportunities Product Landscaping.
The 3Fs of Christmas 2017 – Family, Fantasy, Familiarity
The results are in! With over 50 ads tested as part of our FeelMore Xmas live project, it’s time to reveal which brands hit the emotional spot this Christmas. The good news is it’s been a bumper year for UK ads.
Keep On Truckin’: 5 Things That Make the Coke Trucks a Classic Christmas Asset
“NOW it’s Christmas!” – that’s a quote from one of our respondents giving an enthusiastic response to Coca-Cola’s “Holidays Are Coming” ad. When the red Christmas trucks roll out, the festive season has truly begun in the minds of a generation of ad watchers.
Fame, Feeling and Fluency: Predicting the Future of Ryanair
Budget airline Ryanair has a history of courting controversy and thumbing its nose at received branding wisdom. Founder Michael O’Leary’s business strategy has always been to go on the offensive, mock critics and brazen out problems, and he’s been highly successful. So Ryanair’s latest crisis – around the sudden cancellation of hundreds of flights this autumn and winter – hasn’t been accompanied by many predictions of doom.
Keeping the Focus Human – Morrisons and McDonald’s
Festive feasts have always figured in Christmas advertising, of course. But with Christmas ads getting more media spotlight than ever, and with pressure to compete with the “big guns” like John Lewis and M&S, supermarkets and restaurants face a new dilemma. How do you showcase your festive food and also make your advertising emotional?
Consistency and Creativity – John Lewis’ Juggling Act
The John Lewis Christmas ad may not top our charts every single year, but since we’ve been testing Christmas ads its seasonal blockbusters have only once slipped below the 3-Star boundary. This year is no exception – it’s 2017 ad, Moz The Monster, scored 4-Stars in our ad test, indicating an ad set to achieve continued share growth for John Lewis
Inspiring speaker quotes from our Brave Conference New York
Why Brands Should Unwrap a Fluent Device for Christmas
This week saw the Christmas ad season kick into gear with our first 4-Star and 5-Star ads. One is a cheerful 30-second spot with a very basic storyline, the other is a high-budget storytelling epic starring a character loved by British kids for generations. Step forward, Toys’R’Us’ “Geoffrey The Part-Time Reindeer” (5-Star) and M&S’ “Paddington And The Christmas Stranger” (4-Star).
Lots of darts, same dartboard
Drawing even more heavily on the principles of behavioral science has led to some really intriguing research into answering this complex, though simply written, question: Knowing what we know now about behavioral science and System 1, what can we do? How are companies finding the Behavior Bullseye at the IIeX Behavior Conference?
UK Christmas Ad Season has Begun!
The UK Christmas Ad season began on November 1st, as Currys PC World released three ads showing off the best new tech in store this year. The theme is members of staff taking the items home to try them out – and landing in amusing situations because of it.
The System1 Guarantee : How? What? Why?
For as long as I have worked in this industry – both as a Marketing Leader and Ad Agency boss – there’s been a tension between creativity and the bottom line. The tools and channels change, but the arguments don’t. “Research ruins ideas!” “Awards are meaningless!” “Data makes us soulless number-crunchers!” “Social is self-indulgence!”
From Mince Pies to Testing Live
Last year nothing symbolised the UK’s Christmas advertising crop better than the humble mince pie. The festive treat took a starring role in commercials by Waitrose, Aldi, and M&S (whose gently comedic “Mrs Claus” was the most emotional Christmas ad of the year). It summed up the trends we saw last year.
Abertura de anunciantes brasileiros a novos modelos anima agências estrangeiras
“That S*it Will Never Sell!”: Turning Potential Winners into Profitable Launches
The 3 things you need to land a 5-Star Ad that your current agency may not be giving you
Instant Innovation: Just Add Fluency
Especially for young people, instant ramen is the snack that fuels the world. The inventor of the instant noodle, Nissin founder Momofuku Ando, is a heroic business figure. In Japan he has his own museum and was the star of a top-selling “business manga”, a comic adapting the Cup Noodle story.
2 Things Your Agency Should be Doing to Create 5-Star Advertising
Is your agency helping you reach 5-Star Advertising? This coveted 5-Star ranking is based on System1 Research’s pioneering behavioral science work to predict long-term profitability by ranking ads on a 1- to 5-Star scale based on emotional impact.
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.