Last week, at ad:tech New York, executives stressed the importance of creative as technology improves.
“I worry that we are going to a world in which people will wake up one day and [advertisers will] know exactly what toothpaste [people] want and exactly what spaghetti sauce they want, that aspiration and emotion are not factored in, and we are going to lose something,” said Beth Comstock, president of integrated media at NBC Universal.
Of course, numbers still matter to Ogilvy & Mather, the brains behind Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign, which encouraged women to find themselves beautiful without the beauty industry — and registered 500 million YouTube views.
“We believe in the numbers and tracking the numbers with our campaigns, but if emotion is not there, then it doesn’t work,” said Carla Hendra, co-CEO at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide.
When it comes to reaching consumers, marketers have to be honest and sensitive to emotion, but, that doesn’t mean that they should stop advertising.
“Consumers want to buy stuff, so it’s okay to advertise to them,” Hendra added.
