The art of the moment: what matters most in an advertising message

Let’s imagine two fruit stands near a metro station. Suppose it’s December, and both are selling fruit. One sign reads “Tangerines.” The other – “Seedless tangerines.” It’s not hard to guess which stand will have the longer line. You might think this is about competitive advantages? Not exactly. What really matters is something else: do you even need fruit today in the first place? As you’ve probably guessed, the most important thing in advertising is how relevant it is to the customer.

If an ad doesn’t meet the customer’s current need, you risk wasting money. This is especially true in digital communications and e-commerce. Smartphone users search for information about actions while they’re performing them. That means abstract ad texts about product quality and guarantees don’t interest anyone. People are looking for specific experiences and real-life scenarios. That’s why guides, reviews, case studies, and testimonials are so popular.

How do global brands address the issue of relevance? They rely on Big Data. A study by Boston Consulting Group claims that companies using data-driven marketing earn 20% more revenue than others. That’s the average. Sometimes it’s even higher. For example, Amazon uses purchase data to sell related products and generates nearly a third of its sales this way. User data is also widely used in copywriting to make messages clearer and more relatable to the audience. A vivid example from the outdoor advertising world is Spotify’s pre-holiday campaign “2018 Goals.” It featured humorous wishes from the service based on users’ listening habits. Agree, phrases like “Be as loving as the person who added 48 Ed Sheeran songs to their ‘I love Gingers’ playlist” stand out nicely compared to typical holiday greetings.

Today, advertising communications and marketing are shifting from CRM systems and automation toward personalization. This includes efforts like Spotify’s emotional targeting, where ads are shown based on the general mood of a user’s playlist. Or weather-based triggers, where different ads are displayed depending on data from meteorological services. According to the 2018 Consumer Trends Report by the Kibo platform, personalization elements on a website’s homepage influence the purchasing decisions of 63% of customers. The problem is that while Western analysts are seeing off the automation era and experimenting with personalization, most Ukrainian businesses have yet to master even automation. Nevertheless, every business, every brand, every trademark that thinks about the future must strive for relevance in its advertising. And to achieve that, a few simple things should be kept in mind:

Specificity and relevance are not the same
When you write “free delivery within 1–2 days” on a landing page, it sounds better than a vague “personalized approach” or the cliché “in-house production.”

But the real question is: is this truly an advantage? For many customers, free delivery might be something they already take for granted — a basic part of the service. “Well, good,” the user shrugs. Meanwhile, what actually drives the purchase could be a technical detail that seems minor to you.

Create ads based on real situations
It’s not enough to consider facts. It’s important to understand why people need your product, how they use it, and when they need it. To gain this understanding, it’s best not only to talk directly with customers but also to observe them. Don’t settle for surface-level answers. Don’t assume you know your buyers. In reality, grandmothers selling goods in the subway might know more about their audience’s needs than an experienced marketer puzzling over analytics reports. Don’t distance yourself from people. Observe. You could spend a massive budget researching customer behavior, or you could just spend two or three days working at the checkout counter in your own store. What would you choose?

Being relevant means finding new points of connection with people
Recently, the cosmetics brand L’Oréal made a move to help boost its mobile sales. It acquired the makeup try-on app ModiFace, allowing users to test L’Oréal products remotely.

Relevance isn’t limited to proper targeting. It’s also about the ability to expand your presence and go beyond the 4P concept. To be where your audience is. To talk about things that matter to them. Not to broadcast from a TV screen during prime time, but to complement the audience’s lifestyle. A business that wants to stay relevant must learn to build relationships with its customers, become closer and more accessible. To respond not only to the question “Do you have it?” but also to “What will it look like?” and “Will it work for me?”

Study the people you work for. Consider their interests. And be relevant.