Squandrous

I may be a bit of an Apple fanboy, but this makes me chuckle. But it also brings up a conversation I had with a film director last week about current advertising campaigns.

Coming from the film world, he thinks repetitive ad campaigns become boring. Coming from the marketing and communications world, I think that repetitive ad campaigns build brand awareness.

Our main point of focus were the Telus ads that feature colorful animals on white backgrounds. While he admitted that the campaign was effective in making him think of the brand, he also claimed that he quickly tuned out once the ad came on television.

Even though he tuned out, I would argue that the campaign was successful. The reason he was tuning out was because he knew that a Telus advert was on screen, even though no mention of the company or its products had been introduced. This kind of brand awareness is something many companies strive towards for years — very few of them have achieved that level of ubiquitous recognition. (Apple’s iPod shadow people campaign is an example of another brand that has become embedded in pop culture.)

What good companies need to do is to capitalize on that brand recognition and keep things fresh while still maintaining familiarity.