Most people don’t think about your brand very often.

In fact, unless you’re running a branding campaign, most people don’t think about your brand at all (which means you don’t actually have a brand).

For example, how often do you think about, say, AAMCO transmission repair?

Or even Exxon?

The hard truth is that people will only think of your brand in two situations:

  1. Your high-impact, and well-coded ad gains their attention, or
  2. Their previous exposure to your branding gets them to recall your brand at their moment of need

And that’s actually a good thing.

While it may be hard to hear that the brand and company you’re sweating blood to build goes largely unthought of by your customers-to-be… it really is a good thing.

Why?

Because if no one’s thinking of your competitor’s brands, but they ARE thinking about your brand when your ads air, then…

Customers are much more likely to think of you first and to feel the best about you when they need what you sell.

Which means you win.

Now, the victory will be delayed until that moment of need, but you’ll still win big over time.

But it’s important to emphasize the caveats:

1) You Need to Be Running a Proper Long-Term Branding Campaign

If you’re not advertising on mass media…

Or if you’re misusing your mass media to run strictly transactional ads…

Or if you don’t have the proper frequency for your ads…

Then people will largely ignore your ads and you won’t get that win when the customer eventually needs what you sell.

2) Your Ads Have To Be Properly Codified

You don’t want people to remember your ad, but misremember whose ad it was.

And trust me, the data shows that only about 40% of ads that are remembered are properly attributed to the right brand.

To avoid that, you want your ads to be chock-fill of Brand Codes.

Brand Codes — aka, Distinctive Brand Assets or Brandable Chunks — ensure that a distracted audience will instantly associate your ad with you.

For example, if you only caught the last five seconds of a TV ad that ends with “They’re Grrrreat!” you’ll know exactly which product was being advertised.

3) Your Ads Have To Be High Impact

If your ads can be ignored, they will be.

Which, again, is a good thing.

Because if your ads are high impact while your competitors aren’t, then you win.

So long as your ads are, in fact, high impact.

It makes no sense to spend the money on media, but short-change the quality of your ads.

How Do Your Ads Stack Up?

If you assume your brand is a relatively small thing in the grand scheme of things (from your customers’ perspective)…

Then how well are your ads gaining the attention of your audience?

Are you running a proper long-term branding campaign?

Are your ads high-impact?

And are your ads properly codified?

If not, why not get some help to fix that situation ASAP?

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