Aaranya Advertising ’s Post

In today’s advertising landscape, the strategic use of music is more crucial than ever. Research indicates that music significantly influences brain functions such as concentration, attention, and emotional responses, making it a powerful tool for creating lasting impressions. Notably, audiences are twice as likely to continue watching and remember videos that feature music they enjoy. Historically, advertising relied on custom jingles for brand recall. However, the 1970s and 1980s saw a shift towards licensing popular songs, leveraging existing emotional connections. For instance, Nike’s 1987 use of The Beatles’ “Revolution” marked a significant turning point in this trend. Successful brand integrations have further demonstrated the power of music in advertising. Apple’s iPod campaigns introduced indie artists like Jet and Feist to wider audiences, while John Lewis’s 2014 Christmas ad featured Tom Odell’s cover of “Real Love,” blending nostalgia with storytelling. Levi’s 2018 “Circles” campaign utilized Jain’s “Makeba” to align with the brand’s message. Modern consumers seek genuine and emotionally resonant music in advertising. Brands are increasingly collaborating with real artists to create authentic connections with audiences. Despite its impact, music is often an afterthought in advertising strategies. Prioritizing music selection can significantly enhance a campaign’s effectiveness and emotional resonance. By thoughtfully integrating authentic music, brands can deepen consumer connections and elevate their messaging.

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How to Win Gold at Cannes Lions? A couple of days ago, the winners of the Silver Mercury advertising festival were announced. By a twist of fate, I ended up on the jury and can share how to snatch gold from the clutches of the metal distributors. I saw many great works that, for various reasons, didn't quite make it to the next award level. I'm confident that if the entries had been slightly different, their results would have been higher. Yes, the title was clickbait, but the tips might actually be useful for any advertising festival. I'll share some observations that might be useful for nominees next year. 1. Submit your project in a category by considering the evaluation criteria for that category. For example, in the "Effective Humor" category, the criteria weights were distributed as follows: Strategy 20%, Idea 30%, Execution 30%, Result 20%. I saw festival works that didn't describe the strategic approach or didn't specify the campaign results. As a result, the idea might have been interesting, but it was unclear how to award 40% of the points. 2. Provide precise results if there is such an evaluation criterion. For example, when we evaluated the effectiveness of humor in a video submitted to the festival, the result couldn't be the overall brand recognition (which launches dozens of campaigns every week). Instead, it should be the recognition of a specific service advertised in the video, or at the very least, the video view rate. Essentially, the metric directly influenced by the video. There was a funny case where the result in the entry was stated as an increase in followers to a certain level - we checked the account, and the number of followers was significantly lower :D 3. Add a video about your project. Even when evaluating advertising videos, it was super useful to watch a video explaining the strategy and results of the video campaign. All jury members, I believe, first looked for a short video explanation of the project and only then read the text description of the project. 4. Identify the strong point of your project. This determines the category. It might seem that the campaign is funny and should definitely be placed in "Effective Humor," but it might turn out that the campaign had a cool audience interaction mechanism and no humor at all. 5. Review the entry with a fresh perspective. When evaluating the "Best TV/OLV Advertising Video," there was a case where a brand ran a campaign with several videos. On one hand, it seems that all the videos are part of one campaign, solving the same tasks, etc. But damn it - in one video, the campaign message isn't very clear, although in other videos, it's fine. And you know what the mistake was? The project description included only that non-winning video. The jury knew about the other, more successful videos, simply because of their experience. I hope these tips help someone win a higher-level medal in the coming years. Go for it!

You’ve probably come across agencies/freelancers hyping about achieving a +25 ROAS (return on ad spend) for their festival clients. Suggesting that for every £1 they spent on advertising they put £25 back into the pocket of the festival 🤑 On first look, what festival wouldn’t want some of that!?  But does this actually show you that your advertising is working? 🧐 Well, it depends on what we mean by ‘working’. For your advertising to 'work', it needs to be EFFECTIVE. And EFFECTIVE advertising is when it influences the future buying behaviour of people - people who weren’t planning to buy a ticket to your festival. Or in other words, advertising is EFFECTIVE when it helps to achieve sales that wouldn’t have happened without it! 📈 Does ROAS or other in-platform metrics (e.g cost per click, cost per conversion, click through rate etc) measure effectiveness? 👎 Those metrics are all about EFFICIENCY; how efficient you are at spending your ad budget. I mean, course your retargeting campaign had a high ROAS, as most of the people were likely going to buy from you anyway. At best, your advertising just made it easier for them to find and buy you. And so the majority of those sales would have happened without the advertising - it wasn't EFFECTIVE advertising. So where do we need to look to measure effectiveness? 🔎 Inside peoples heads, in their memories. That's because the name of the game with advertising is to build memories in people's heads, so that your festival is remembered: 1. At the right times/moments that matter (When people are triggered into market for the value that your festival offers) 🛒 2. For the right reasons (So that once your festival is thought of, people choose you over other options). 💪 The problem, is measuring the stuff going on in people's heads (effectiveness) is bloody hard and expensive! And beyond most festivals. And so instead, festivals just measure what they can (like ROAS, cost per conversion etc), and end up just focussing on efficiency, at the expense of effectiveness. It's another contributing factor for what we're seeing in the market - failing festivals 🎪 :-( But there are some options for festivals. Just simply ask yourself: If our advertising/comms are doing the things they're supposed to be doing for the brand (building and refreshing memories) what factors should I see improving? So that I know I am heading in the right direction. As you’ll see in the below table, a really simple and crude measurement to use could be direct traffic to your website. This is someone typing your festival directly into Google, so clearly you have built sufficient memories for them to be able to do that. Another is using Google Search Trends. Ok, time for the measurement table, which hopefully is clear enough, but is a work in progress! And thanks to Dale W. Harrison, Ben O. Andrew Tindall and Dominic Charles whose brilliant thinking I borrowed. #Festivals #FestivalMarketing #EventProfs

How Custom Songs Can Transform Your Brand’s Advertising In today’s fast-paced digital world, capturing your audience’s attention has become more challenging than ever. Amid endless scrolling and fleeting moments of focus, the question arises: how can your brand stand out? The answer lies in the power of custom songs tailored specifically for your advertising campaigns. The Struggle of Modern Advertising Brands today face numerous challenges in creating memorable campaigns. The competition is fierce, and consumers are bombarded with countless ads daily. Amid this noise, a generic approach simply won’t cut it. Many businesses struggle to find the right balance between creativity and impact, often piecing together disparate elements lyrics, music, artists, and studios from various providers. This fragmented process not only consumes time but also risks diluting the brand’s unique voice. Why Custom Songs Matter Music has the unique ability to evoke emotions, tell stories, and forge deep connections. A well-crafted custom song doesn’t just complement an ad; it amplifies its impact. By aligning the music’s tone and lyrics with your brand’s identity, you can: - Grab Attention: A catchy tune can hook your audience within seconds. Foster Emotional Connection: Music speaks directly to the heart, making your message more relatable and memorable. - Enhance Brand Recall: A distinctive song can become synonymous with your brand, leaving a lasting impression. Streamlining the Process of Creating Music for Ads Creating custom songs can be a daunting process, often involving coordination between multiple resources. To address this, an end-to-end approach is essential. This includes: 1 - Understanding Your Brand: Beginning with clear goals, audience insights, and campaign messages. 2 -Crafting Lyrics That Speak: Developing words that resonate with your brand story. 3 - Selecting the Right Talent: Matching projects with the perfect artists and musicians. 4 - Producing with Precision: Leveraging professional studios to bring visions to life with top-tier quality. 5 - Delivering Impactful Results: Creating songs that captivate audiences and elevate campaigns. Why Investing in Custom Songs is Worth It A professionally created custom song offers a seamless way to amplify your brand’s voice, save time, and ensure a cohesive outcome. It helps make your brand stand out in the crowded advertising landscape, leaving an emotional and lasting impression on your audience. #Branding #Advertising #CustomSongs #Marketing

Have had some chatter & inquiry on where the Quiver ship is headed. Thank you for those who have reached out. It sincerely means a lot to us. Shelley & I will share the big news in the new year, but until then, I can offer some insights about what is now under our hood. We have learned many things along the way, and in what we have rebuilt Quiver to be, we have tried to apply all of it. So, rather than all at once, perhaps it is easier & more digestible to share them lesson by lesson. The first, which I will share today, is probably the most fundamental to what we are building --- and it is that all of the entertainment, brand, media, live event, advertising & tech worlds are intimately connected by many many nodes. This is not an epiphany to anyone, and obvious to most in our biz. But most companies we know tend to stay in their lanes, in their own node in this ecosystem. We are trying to build something that lives between all of the nodes. We can do this because our team are among the few who have actually spent time in and surveyed all of it's corners. Advertising. Entertainment. Media. Technology. Live. Myself, I started out working in ad agencies and learned from living legends like Geoffrey B. Roche, the partners of Grip Limited (so many that they are tagged below), and my first advertising boss, Dave Lafond. Know that our thinking has been shaped by theirs. Shelley & I have worked at leading Canadian entertainment companies, Cream Productions & Secret Location, seeing Emmy wins first hand, & being involved where live audience voting was integrated into a live show for the first time -- Big Brother Canada. We still work with Ryan Andal & his new venture with our friends Illuminarium Experiences. We are there almost every week. And Quiver's first-ever project was a TV series on Discovery Channel, where we learned how to craft video storytelling for the auidences first, but with Jeep woven in. Shelley & I also share a common ancestor - the legendary Canadian digital design studio, Jam3. We both owe a great debt for many of our sensibilities & know how -- Pablo Vio, Mark McQuillan & Adrian Belina taught us well. While we share many fundamental philosphies about the attention to detail and the process of great craft, know that we are not recreating Jam3. We have worked in digital media, and I met another Canadian media legend, David U.K., who at the time had me helping create and shape branded content experiences with the Ultimate Fighting Championship among other amazing digital properties. This is only a summary of our survey, but taken as a whole, it gives a glimpse into the company we are becoming -- one that plays in all of these spaces. At the same time. Will unpack more of these lessons 1 by 1, over the next little while. Inquires & comments are welcome, and I will do my best to respond, as timely as I can. Bob Goulart Bob Shanks Rich Pryce-Jones David Chiavegato David Crichton Mike Robitaille Graham Lee Randy Stein

Curation has evolved, offering agencies new ways to manage ad impressions, tap into high-quality inventory, and leverage data-driven insights. But with innovation comes complexity. How can we get the best of both worlds? 🔹 Strengthen direct publisher relationships for more control and better results. 🔹 Prioritize transparency by ensuring clear reporting and independent verification. 🔹 Focus on sustainability by minimizing media waste and streamlining the process. Our very own Stephen Cutbill shares his insights on finding the right balance with Advertising Week: https://lnkd.in/eCUcYn8u What strategies do you think are key to navigating this balance? Let us know in the comments! #DigitalAdvertising #Curation #ProgrammaticAdvertising #AdTech

🚀 Last night, I went to the Astroland Advertising Festival and saw a glimpse of the future of advertising. The brainchild of Gerry Graf of slapglobal, Astroland is an award show that flips the script on an industry that needs a new perspective. 🪑 For one thing, Astroland judges aren't ad veterans with big egos ("I don't even care what I think anymore," says Gerry), they're humans with 0-5 years in the business, curated by Gerry from agencies like CALLEN, JOAN Creative and Mischief @ No Fixed Address. 🏆 Similarly, the "winners" weren’t the same polished, overproduced campaigns that you'll find at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this summer. Judges could nominate anything created by anyone – a TikTok, an album cover, a tweet. The only rule is that if it wasn't MADE by the brand, it HAD to be acknowledged and interacted with by the brand. The McDonald's Grimace shake trend took one top prize (known not as "gold", but as "damn"). Music producer Metro Boomin's open source beat inviting everyone to drop a dis track on Drake won another damn. (Ouch) This is what advertising looks like now: brands meeting culture where it already is. Instead of starting with a notebook and a marker, modern creatives start by scrubbing social, looking for moments to interact with. It’s not always about making things. Sometimes it’s about finding things. Found content. Found ideas. This resonates so much with the work I’m doing now at Catch+Release, where we help brands license content from anywhere on the internet. Which reminds me, shouldn't you be scrubbing social right now? 📱 Thanks for the invite Gerry. And for hopping on a zoom to talk about the idea. I can't wait to see what wins (and who's judging) next year. To see all the winners, head to https://lnkd.in/g-pjfAzS

Aha! I see what you did there. I learnt this many years ago when I had my own advertising agency and my creative partner at the time was reviewing some of the teams work:  “That’s very Relevant/ Expected he said of the art directors work… “cool” said the art director “ job done then” “No, this is precisely where we need to go deeper” I want you to think Relevant / Unexpected”. The collective penny dropped and from that day on reviews where never the same. I think this principle is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. The challenge these days, however, is overcoming the need for instant gratification and finding time to think, because only when we allow ourselves time to think does the magic happen. The "I need it now, just get something out, let's build the plane on the way down" attitude is not exactly conducive to consistently great creative ideas. Being "relevant unexpected" in the context of advertising and branding refers to the art of blending relevance—connecting meaningfully with the audience's needs and desires—with an element of surprise or originality that captivates and engages the audience in unforeseen ways. This approach doesn’t just catch the attention of the target audience but also fosters deeper engagement by presenting familiar concepts in novel and intriguing ways. Relevance: is all about a deep understanding of you audience. It means knowing what matters to them, what pains they face, and what solutions/gains they seek. Unexpected: This is about delivering these insights or solutions in a way that is not the norm. It can involve creative twists, breaking industry norms, overturning expectations, or innovative storytelling techniques. Some examples: Spotify with their yearly "Spotify Wrapped" feature. It delivers users' listening statistics, which is relevant and anticipated, but each year, they add new, unexpected features and personalized data insights, making it a viral phenomenon. Red Bull is known for its extreme sports sponsorships, which align with its brand message of “giving you wings.” The unexpected came when they sponsored Felix Baumgartner to skydive from the stratosphere in "Red Bull Stratos," breaking the sound barrier and live-streaming it to the world,a groundbreaking event in live entertainment. Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign, where popular first names were printed on Coke bottles. The relevance was the personalization trend, and the unexpected twist was seeing your own name or that of your friends on a globally recognized product, turning ordinary Coke bottles into personalized gifts. What other examples come to mind? Ciao, Tim

US consumers spend 3 hours per day on digital audio and 2 hours on social media according to Global World Index. It's time to tap into audio marketing. This article talks about how to use audio advertising to enhance brand engagement and drive consumer connections. https://lnkd.in/eTpBwvRi