How Does Messaging Drive Brand Recall in Media Buying Campaigns?

One of the primary goals of a media buying campaign is to drive brand awareness and brand recall. Marketing agencies specializing in these campaigns develop a media plan (a literal plan detailing where clients will spend on advertising) to meet this goal. Brand recall is defined as the ability to recall a brand or product we’ve been exposed to in the past when we intend to take action. For example, say you’ve talked about looking into any programs that may be available to get a discount on your utility bill. You haven’t had the time to look into it, but you’ve seen ads in your social news feed for utility rebates for consumers for the last three weeks. When you saw the ads, it didn’t register that this was something you had intended to do. Yet when you actually sat down to think about ways to save on your bills, you were able to recall having seen a rebate offer from a specific brand.

What gives the brain the ability to remember that brand at the instance of intent is a mixture of a positive experience and word of mouth. Someone in your trusted circle mentioned the brand offer or exposure to messaging that resonated during the times we experienced the ads. Nowadays, it can take up to 18 exposures to a brand or message over two weeks to drive brand recall!

How brand recall reflects your media buying and advertising strategy will differ based on your priorities and an understanding of your customers. For a media plan to be effective, it is not only where you place the media but how you target and customize the message to fit your audience’s needs. Messaging is what will drive brand recall when there’s momentum in the decision to take action.

Top 5 Things To Know When Creating Targeted Messaging For Your Media Buys:

  1. Intent: What intent is your media addressing? When looking at your customer, what is it that is going to drive them to your product or service?
  2. Media Demographics: Content consumption varies based on demographics. As an example, using a short video effectively will depend on the content, age, and medium targets viewing it. Millennials’ appeal to video is undeniable. However, having grown in the video era, they are quick to identify stock footage from original videos and are therefore more resistant to pay attention to a video that is stock. In contrast, videos created in partnership with influencers will be far more effective as these are perceived as real experiences. In general, highlighting the benefits of watching the video, like a special offer, discount, or other services, will engage the user to watch and take action.
  3. Media Ethnography: Awareness of media diversity is one of the critical drivers of consumption in diverse communities. Our exhaustive “Marketing Means Diversity” report highlights a 2019 Bloomberg report showed that African Americans are 20% more likely than the total population to say they will “pay extra for a product that is consistent with the image I want to convey.” In this report, we’ve gathered data from more than 20 reputable sources on how diversity affects marketing effectiveness and media placement. Download the free guide: [mc4wp_form id=”6483″]
  4. Media Proximity: How close is the consumer in proximity to the product or service. At our agency, we develop strategies that, in specific cases, prioritize budgets and messaging based on proximity by creating geographically fenced areas both in digital and physical mediums. Within these areas, we deliver customized messaging targeted to persons in the vicinity of the advertised product or service.
  5. Media Relevance: Each advertising medium is active in a different way to appeal to diverse audiences. While a billboard is just a billboard, the messaging on that billboard may be relevant to a diverse audience than the advertisement’s creation. The relevance to foot traffic may be different than it is to transit. While you won’t always please everyone, it is essential to base those decisions on your measurable priorities to determine how effective your existing message is to achieving the ROI that your advertising should yield.

Brand recall is a primary goal when developing media buying campaigns, and success requires effective messaging. By creating enticing messaging that appeals to the desired consumers, the opportunity for consumers to see and remember your brand increases. At Los Angeles-based multicultural marketing and advertising agency, Wicked Bionic, we offer media buying strategies and campaigns for large organizations and government agencies targeting diverse audience engagement.

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