Unstereotyping in ads is likely to unlock higher marketing ROI: Kantar report

Kantar, the data analytics and brand consulting company, has launched its annual Creative Effectiveness report for 2022. 

It highlights the trends that brands incorporate, to captivate audiences with their content and ad retention ventures for the television and digital mediums. 

For this, Kantar has collaborated with Unstereotype Alliance to launch its Unstereotype Metric (UM), a system which measures the gender portrayal in advertising. It helps marketers review the potential of their creative executions. 

The study comprises over 14,000 ads across 70 countries for more than 3,300 brands in 251 categories. 

Key highlights of the report

Fulfilling story arcs: Stories create room for empathy, engagement, and vivid memories through which they aim to influence how consumers think and feel about the brands. Ads like Amazon’s 'Couple Confess' and Surf Excel Matic Liquid’s 'Dumb Charades' are examples of fulfilling story arcs.

Touch of drama: Just the right kind and quantity of spice delivered through creative storytelling and filmmaking, elevates even the repetitive themes, making them more personal, relevant and aspirational. This is witnessed in the campaigns of Nihar Naturals’ 'Braids', Munch’s 'Rap' and Aashirvaad Select Atta’s 'Banaye Har Din Khaas, Gehoon ka Sartaj' (Make everyday special with the crown of wheat).  

Extravagance in visualisation: Indians are open to suspending their disbelief for the well-visualised film. Campaigns that emote this visualisation are Axe’s ‘Goan Granny’ and Xiaomi’s ‘Redmi Note 10 Pro max’. 

Emotional meaningfulness: Emotive contexts have the potential to make the consumers warm up to even the dry functional categories. Whirlpool’s 'Intellifresh Everyday Care' and Maxkleen’s ‘Farrsh’ showcase these emotive contexts.

Show, not tell: Integrating brand payoffs as an organic plot event in the script is a timeless approach toward creating vivid and persuasive memories. Campaigns such as Cadbury ChocoBakes Cakes’ ‘Night Time’ and Ponds’ ‘Dadu’, feature narratives that are aimed at creating impactful memories.

Customised and integrated content for higher ROI​: Carrying forward creative stories and elements from other media amplifies the impact of digital assets.

Shoot for instant meaning: Given the attention span of consumers and the short window available on digital platforms, it pays to ensure that the consumers are not called to do any additional work for decoding what they are supposed to think and feel about the brand.

Ride the moment: Embrace the topical issues and trends, to engage and be relevant.

Hook them early: Promise of a fulfilling story arc, emotive journey and humour help in ensuring that consumers stay invested beyond six seconds.

Unstereotyping: Unstereotyping in advertisements is predicted to unlock higher marketing ROI. It signifies strong brand equity and is likely to impact short-term sales as well. This impact is not only true for women, but progressive male role models also impact business outcomes across categories.

Progressive ads: Progressive ads trigger positive engagement. They are in general seen to be more enjoyable, relevant, different and even pleasantly surprising. 

In addition to the report, Kantar has also announced the winners of the second edition of its Creative Effectiveness Awards. It recognised Indian brands that were effective on the TV and digital mediums in 2021. 

HUL bagged four awards, two of which were for effectiveness on TV, while the other two were for digital. The other brands that took home an award each, were Amazon, Marico, Mondelez and Whirlpool Corporation, all for TV effectiveness.

Soumya Mohanty, managing director and chief client officer, insights division, Kantar, said, “The spread of ads that consumers have perceived to be both creative and effective is an affirmation of the fact that the space for creativity even in the context of marketing ROI is infinite. While there is no magic formula for creating such ads, we can start with the right ingredients and refine them by testing them out with consumers. Kantar is pleased to share the learnings that we have had in the area while working with the leading marketers in India.”