Entertaining and receptive advertisements key to success

Engaging target audience stressed.

KARACHI: In today’s era of information overload, for a product to stand out amongst the clutter and be entertaining, useful and receptive is the key to brand success, according to British communications expert Julian Saunders.

Addressing participants of a training workshop on ‘Innovation in Communications’, organised by the Pakistan Advertisers Society (PAS) on Tuesday, Saunders said that engaging consumers is getting harder and proper planning needs to be done to reach the target audience effectively.

Saunders, who is also the founding partner of The Joined Up Company, further said, “If an advertisement does not have the role of a mobile phone in it, then it is not likely to be a good one.” He added that it is pivotal to involve today’s needs and technology in a brand campaign for it to be successful.

He stressed the constant need to try new ideas for product campaigns and launches. “A great engagement idea needs to attract, intrigue and involve a consumer,” he said, adding that there is a theoretical hierarchy to holding consumer attention, of which the highest level is to ‘co-create’ ie having the target audience be part of the brand.

Quoting the author of The Idea Writers - “Your job is not to create an ad, it is to create something useful, entertaining or beautiful on behalf of a brand” – Saunders said that local communication experts also need to follow similar steps to gain brand success.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 2^nd, 2011.