Synopses & Reviews
Once advertising was all about being "on-message" and getting talking points right. But breakthroughs in brain science have confirmed what we all know but don't often admit to in business: people are primarily emotional decision-makers.
About Face shows how 21st-century advertising can realize success by being "on-emotion" first and foremost. Using data from eye-tracking and facial coding to analyze consumer responses, it demonstrates exactly which advertising strategies are successful and why. Moving beyond the old "P's" of product, place, and promotion, Dan Hill outlines ten rules for emotionally effective advertising, including:
· Keep it simple
· Make it relevant
· Be memorable
· Focus on faces
· Always sell hope
· Dont lead with price
Emotions rule decision making. About Face shows that by focusing on the three new "P's" of passion, purpose, and personality, ad campaigns can become more effective and emotionally engaging, taking brands closers to the customer.
Review
"Whether you are trying to influence others, or trying to figure out how others are trying to influence you, About Face is a useful guide to the way advertising really works." - Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational
Review
· Unique research-based insights
· Presents a new mental model of how consumers make decisions
· Specific examples will reorient marketing efforts and improve ROI
· Author with media credentials" There's a preparedness to embrace neuroscience and behavioral economics, and thus Dan Hill's lastest work is timely. Let's hope the new generation of creative people will take advantage of his many insights and practical recommendations." Hamish Pringle, Director General, Institute of Practictioners in Advertising and co-author of Brand Immortality
Recommended by CEO Refresher!
See an excerpt on the American Educational Foundation website!
Dan Hill and About Face mentioned in "For Brands, A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste" on Fox Business
Review
"Drawing from a good mix of academic studies, practitioner books, and personal consulting experience, Hill...argues in this engaging, well-written book that effective ads focus on consumers' emotional needs rather than reasoning powers. He provides good practical advice for targeting consumers' emotions and many memorable ads that accomplish this goal...Summing Up: Highly recommended." --
CHOICE Magazine, M.R. Hyman, New Mexico State University
"An exceptionally strong case for the use of emotion in advertising. Well-written and well-documented." - Al Ries, author of War in the Boardroom
Review
"Whether you are trying to influence others, or trying to figure out how others are trying to influence you, About Face is a useful guide to the way advertising really works." -
Dan Ariely, author of
Predictably Irrational"Dan Hill has developed a lot of ideas about what works, and why. And he lays out a good many of them in this fast-paced, fact-based treatise on how to do advertising more effectively." -New York Journal of Books
Synopsis
Scientists and psychologists now argue that people are emotional, not rational, decision-makers. Grounded in psychology and neurobiology as well as a study of advertising tactics, this new book from Dan Hill (author of Emotionomics) provides ten rules that enables companies and advertising agencies, large and small, to be more effective. Improving advertising results requires leveraging emotions, creating a lively brand personality, addressing people's values, and recognizing their search for shared meaning via social media.
Synopsis
Scientists and psychologists now argue that people are emotional, not rational, decision-makers. Grounded in psychology and neurobiology as well as a study of advertising tactics, this new book from Dan Hill (author of Emotionomics) provides ten rules that enable companies and advertising agencies to be more effective. Using data from eye-tracking and facial coding to analyze consumer responses, it demonstrates exactly which advertising strategies are successful and why.
About the Author
Dan Hill is an authority on the role of emotions in consumer and employee behavior and an expert in facial coding as an aid in measuring people's decision-making process. He is the founder and president of Sensory Logic, a scientific, research-based consulting firm that specializes in gauging and helping to enhance companies' sensory-emotional connection with consumers. He has appeared on CNN, the Today Show, MSNBC, and Fox Business. He is the author of Emotionomics: Leveraging Emotions for Business Success, About Face: How to Make Sure Advertising Is On-Emotion and On-Message, Body of Truth: Leveraging What Consumers Can't or Won't Say, and Face Time: How the 2008 Presidential Race Reveals the Importance of Being On-Emotion in Politics, Business and in Life.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1 Get physical
Orientation; Billy Mays and the gift of the gab; The variables of voice; Seeing what you cant see; What has the most visual stopping power?; Going beyond sight and sound into additional media; Leveraging sensory contrasts; Creative templates that work well; Summary
2 Keep it simple
Orientation; How not to waste half your advertising; Engagement: what the financial stakes are; Advertisings secret emotional cancer: frustration; Overcoming frustration through simplicity; Rules for word play; Summary
3 Keep it close to home
Orientation; Easy does it: the advantages of leveraging whats familiar; Putting a new, improved twist on whats familiar; The comfort zone: where the familiar is credible and easy to accept; Home is where the heartbreak is; Leveraging peoples preference for comfort; Taking into account peoples bias against whats foreign; Summary
4 Focus on faces
Orientation; Why face are special: proof and four well-known reasons; Why faces are special: subtle factors highly relevant to advertising; From theory to practice: emotional responses to faces; True smiles versus social smiles: how heartfelt smiles differ from willed ones; The quest for authenticity; Criteria for casting appropriately and evaluating performance; Cold-hearted criminals also have cold minds; Summary
5 Make it memorable
Orientation; Did you see it? Recall measures as a house of mirrors; Explaining the answers: the gap between recall and how as retention works; Explaining the answers: why ‘Truth won and what it means for you; Three additional criteria for enhancing ad retention based on how memory works; How to avoid the risk of creating unbranded ads; Summary
6 Relevancy drives connection
Orientation; The categorical truth: never forget the WIIFM; Types of motivations: a serious case of wanting fun food; Being on-motivation is essential to effectiveness; Redefining industry categories as emotional markets; Relevancy created by identifying with emotions involved; Relevancy created by identifying with a brands personality type; Summary
7 Always sell hope
Orientation; Happiness, Inc.: leveraging the hope that springs eternal; The interrelated dynamics of happiness and hope: an advertisers checklist; A critique of three examples of selling both hope and happiness; Behavioral economics and the tension between hope and fear in advertising; The missing factor in selling hope: be true to your word(s); Summary
8 Dont lead with price
Orientation; Cheapo-nomics: an example of ‘value advertising in practice; How leading with price can destroy a companys marketing strategy; Problem 1: Lack of sustainability (surprise fades); Problem 2: Become numb to price (devaluing hope); Problem 3: Invites analysis (undercutting emotional engagement); Problem 4: Low-value perceptions (inviting contempt); Problem 5: A price focus distorts purchase choices (dissatisfaction results); Problem 6: Brand loyalty at risk; pride takes a hit; Problem 7: Brand integrity at risk; desperation detected; In contrast, three real solutions to economic hard times and price/value wars; Summary
9 Mirror the target markets values
Orientation; Why empathy has become marketings new touchstone; The struggle to create authentic dialogues: welcome to executive blogging; The battle of sexism: offensive gender portrayals; The rise of a creative class outside the advertising agency structure; Cause marketing: a way to neutralize critics and make new friends; Summary
10 Believability sticks
Orienation; The battle between belief and pervasive skepticism; Defining the types of advertising; What type of advertising is most emotionally persuasive?; Time for analysis: what are the implications of these various results?; The two ends of the spectrum for creating persuasion; Familiarity: what we know and like, we trust; Fairness versus desire: fulfilling on practical needs or wants and dreams; Fairness: why humility and specificity work wonders; Desire: its all about the three Ps of passion, pleasure and purpose; Consistency: nobodys won over by fickle companies and mono-emotion actors; Summary
Afterword
Notes
Picture credits
Index