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The Farmer's Dog took the time to tell a story that created an emotion.
Every ad that ran last night got awareness. The problem is that awareness without emotion is pointless. Your brain makes 35,000 decisions per day but you're only aware of 70.
It doesn't matter if your ads are on billboards, TVs, or TikToks. If it doesn't evoke one of the following six emotions then you wasted your money.
😱 Fear
😡 Anger
😞 Sadness
🤢 Disgust
🤣 Happy
🤯 Surprise
Let's break down The Farmer's Dog ad to see how they used emotion.
⏱️ 0:00 - 0:10
We start with surprise and fear. We're looking for reasons why our main character, The Ref, is in trouble. Great hook.
⏱️ 0:10 - 0:20
We're then surprised when a slushy comes out of nowhere and hits The Ref's car.
⏱️ 0:20 - 0:30
Now we start to feel sad for The Ref. It's pouring rain, he looks miserable, and the local radio station is piling on. To top it all off, he walks into a dark house alone.
⏱️ 0:30 - 0:40
The ad portion of this video has officially started. They ease the pain of it being an ad by introducing us to The Ref's giant Bullmastiff. For the dog lovers in the audience, happiness follows.
⏱️ 0:40 - 0:50
Sure . . . we see the product in action. It is an ad after all. They still do a great job of cutting the promotional bit when they switch to a closeup of a giant slobbery dog face. Ding surprise. Ding happy.
⏱️ 0:50 - 1:00
This is my favorite ten seconds. Like any good Simone Biles routine, it's time to stick the landing. We're all happy to see The Ref and his best friend in the living room hanging out.
Those feelings go into exponential overdrive when the dog lays his head on The Ref's shoulder right as the background music hits hardest. The surprise of the music mixed with the happiness of seeing two friends hang out ends the story perfectly. Only then do we see The Farmer's Dog logo. The kicker is that we only see it for one second!
BUT CHANDLER . . .
How can I justify this to the almighty bean counters on the top floor?
You can't. It's impossible to measure your share of your ideal customer's mind for the problem you solve.
We can at least look for anecdotal signs that we're making progress. I checked Google Trends this morning. The results show what emotional marketing can do. The Farmer's Dog averages a search interest of around 25 at any given time. Last night, right after the ad aired at 9:40 pm EST, search interest spiked to 100.
That's a ton of traffic that they, hopefully, captured on an email list. Once on the email list, The Farmer's Dog can continue to build and nurture that relationship.
I'm sure they sold plenty of product last night but I doubt it was close to enough to "justify" the cost of creative production and ad placement. And yet, it still worked.
🤨 What do you think? Is emotion-based advertising worth the hype?
How do we create ads that cut through the noise? Great ad copy. Creative ad copy is the cornerstone of any great ad campaign.
As an advertising agency, like so many of you, we love to watch the ads. There are always winners who got a bargain for the money they spent
