Marketing promotion: How to make your ad attract users' attention in 1 second?

In an age of scarce attention, every user is very busy. Don't expect them to just wait to see your ads every day.

impossible!

He is very busy. He may be using the toilet, talking to someone, thinking about a question from his boss, watching a short video, browsing his Moments, checking hot topics on Weibo, browsing other web pages, or being attracted by another advertisement...

At this time, you have to know that your advertisements and copywriting are facing a person with extremely scattered attention. His attention is always occupied by various information. As soon as your advertisement comes out, he will immediately put everything aside and read your advertisement carefully.

Without gaining the user's attention, the copy you write for your advertisements becomes basically meaningless. And if you can’t attract him within 1 second, you will be rejected!

When talking about new media operations, I said:

Who are the competitors of operational public accounts?

Is it other operational public accounts? no!

Is it all other public accounts? Not yet!

It’s everything that takes away the user’s attention!

This is an era of competing for user attention. Anyone who can divert user attention is your opponent!

In fact, the same applies to advertising planning and copywriting. User attention is the first fortress that needs to be conquered.

Many advertising copywriters often mistakenly believe that:

After the advertisement is sent out, users will naturally look at it. What everyone competes on is the content. But in fact, they don’t care about your advertisement, they may care more about where to eat in the evening.

Therefore, the first thing everyone competes on is the ability to grab attention. Only when your ad is attractive enough to the user and makes him unable to control himself from looking at you, will he pause other behaviors and turn to see what your ad is saying.

So how do you attract users' attention and make them unable to help but look at you?

In this era of information explosion, everyone is faced with massive amounts of information every day. If we read every piece of information carefully, our heads would probably explode.

Our brain is very smart and also very lazy. There is something called the hippocampus in the brain, which screens various information in advance every day, filtering out most of the information in front of us and only allowing a small amount of information to really enter our attention. Moreover, this screening is irrational, very subconscious and instinctive.

For example, the advertisement below may be more easily filtered through the hippocampus and enter your brain than other information.

So, what kind of information can pass the instinctive screening of the hippocampus, and what kind of information does the brain like?

There are many, such as moving, dangerous, sex-related, me-related, survival-related, and so on. However, the brain is particularly concerned with contrasting information.

Among various creative advertising techniques, contrast is definitely the most useful one. Creating contrast in advertising is a method that cannot be ignored.

The brain always likes surprises and novel things. If a piece of information or a picture can create a sense of contrast, it will first attract more attention, and will make the originally bland statement more ups and downs, especially highlighting the key points that you want to be emphasized.

For example, many official accounts have caught the attention of users time and time again and gained the favor of a large number of fans due to the contrast between the seriousness of their official status and the fun of their expression. However, those official accounts that remain unchanged and stick to the rules always disappear in the flood of information.

For example, former US President Obama once said to the crowd in his victory speech, "This is not my victory, this is your victory," which moved his supporters to tears. In fact, the original sentence was just "This is your victory", but his staff helped him add a conflicting sentence before the originally bland statement, creating a contrast and immediately making it more emotional.

There is also our father Jack Ma, who has always been a model of successful Chinese entrepreneurs in everyone's impression. However, Jack Ma's frequently shocking performances are in sharp contrast to the image of entrepreneurs in everyone's impression, so they can always become popular on the entire network, gain the attention of netizens, and become super topics. Such contrasting information naturally catches the eye.

Therefore, when you are planning an advertisement, you can consider creating an advertisement with strong contrast, which can quickly pass through the filter of the hippocampus of the brain and make the advertisement stand out from the many messages that grab the user's attention.

That is to say, make your advertising content or form of expression counter-common sense, subvert cognition, create conflict, make familiar scenes unfamiliar or unfamiliar scenes familiar, and attract user attention.

for example:

The following classic Volkswagen advertisement forms a sharp contrast in both the picture and the text. The 2.16-meter basketball emperor Chamberlain and a seemingly smaller car form a sharp visual conflict.

They said it couldn't be done, they really couldn't be done

We tried our best! God knows we really tried our best.

But it's really impossible to cram Chamberlain of the Philadelphia 76ers into the front seat of a VW.

So if you are seven feet tall like Chamberlain, our cars are not for you.

But you might only be six feet seven inches tall.

That way, your stature gives you the opportunity to appreciate just how big of an achievement we have made at VW.

…

The previous update of Weilong Spicy Strips’ flagship store on Taobao was stunning. The style was completely different from similar products. The strong Apple style formed a sharp contrast with consumers’ previous perception of spicy strips, making the familiar scene unfamiliar, which was very eye-catching.

During last year’s 618 period, JD launched the poster “JD Flash Sale Day, Today is Extra Big”, which gave the familiar world masterpieces a new visual touch, and the sense of contrast came out immediately.

The Economist magazine, which targets high-end business people, also understands the art of contrast and has a series of similar advertisements.

For example, the following advertisement uses contrast in the copy. When you are wondering why you don’t read this magazine, it will immediately tell you that if you don’t read The Economist, you will be an intern for the rest of your life. This contrast is much better than saying it directly.

“I’ve never read The Economist”

A 42-year-old management trainee said.

There is also a creative plastic surgery advertisement that I have seen before, and it still leaves a deep impression on me after all these years. The cleverness of this advertisement lies in that it breaks the conventional thinking. It compares people who have had plastic surgery with their peers, creating a strong contrast.

The advertisement is about a class reunion of a group of seniors who graduated in 1969 many years later. Most of them are old men and women, but the young woman in red in the middle with a confident smile looks like their granddaughter in terms of both face and figure. Apparently, she is one of the classmates, and the entire ad highlights the allure and success of plastic surgery.

In short, users' attention is scattered, and they will never concentrate on watching your advertisement. The first thing you should do is not to introduce how good your product is, but to make them start paying attention to your advertisement.

At this time, the sense of contrast will inject super power into your advertising. We might as well try this contrast technique more often when doing advertising planning.

First, fully understand what your advertisement is promoting. If it is a product, extract its key features, functions, key appeal points, usage scenarios, etc. Identify the key points that your ad wants to convey.

Then, open your mind and think of all the scenarios or content that are opposite, contradictory, inconsistent, unconventional, and conflicting with the key information points you want to convey.

Finally, combine the key information points you want to convey with the corresponding contrasting content, make your advertising content or form of expression contrary to common sense, create conflicts, make familiar scenes unfamiliar, and exaggerate them appropriately to attract user attention.

For example, in a classic Burger King advertisement, even Uncle McDonald couldn’t resist the delicious food and came to buy Burger King in disguise. The conflict is obvious and creates a dramatic contrast, making this a world-famous advertisement.

First of all, the key message that Burger King wants to convey is: My burgers are more delicious and unmatched.

Then, a situation that is exactly the opposite of the key information conveyed is: everyone may think McDonald's tastes better, so they all go to McDonald's.

Finally, how do we combine these two to create a contrast? Even Ronald McDonald himself couldn’t resist the delicious treat and came to Burger King in disguise. This contrast immediately tells you which one is more delicious.

There is also an advertisement for Volkswagen titled "The Toughest Race on Earth". Cars of other brands are slowly reduced to wreckage in the harsh desert environment. The whole picture is bleak, but Volkswagen is still speeding in the desert with full performance and endurance.

First of all, the key message Volkswagen wants to convey is: My car has great performance.

Then, a situation that is exactly the opposite of the key information conveyed is: in a harsh environment, the car's performance is not good and it is broken down while running.

Finally, how do we combine these two to create a contrast? Volkswagen's approach is to contrast the barren desert with the vitality of the car, and at the same time contrast the wreckage of other cars with the powerful kinetic energy of this car, which immediately arouses consumers' curiosity.

Of course, you want your ad to quickly pass through the filter of the hippocampus in the brain and gain the user's attention. Not only can you create a sense of contrast in the advertising content, but there is also a clever way:

Make the ad itself unique

What does it mean? If you want your ad to immediately attract people’s attention, don’t ignore the scene surrounding the ad. For most advertisements, vision may be the most important point, because it has the most direct impact, and it only takes a moment to decide whether to see it or not.

We can create a strong contrast between the ad itself and the scene around it, so that users will look at it uncontrollably.

For example, when it comes to product packaging, if you want your product to stand out, you don’t need to be different from the rest of the world, you just need to be different from your competitors. This may be the essence of product packaging. Some people even say that the best way is to make it a category that is not like this category.

A long time ago, most headphone cords were black, and everyone was used to it. However, the iPod used a completely opposite color at the time, which immediately attracted a lot of attention, and then people talked about its functions, quality, etc.

Everyone was surprised that “it turns out that the headphone cord can be made white”, this is the contrast.

The same principle applies to advertising. Making advertisements that are different from the common types in the industry or that are different from the surrounding scenes may be a breakthrough.

If you look at the ads on Taobao that promote direct traffic, many of them will observe what the ads at the top look like, and then quickly make their own ads, which are different from those ads in terms of visuals or main points, forming a strong contrast and gaining more clicks.

For example, if they find that most similar ads are orange, they might make a red ad image; if they find that most ads feature beautiful women, they might use a big number as their ad image; if they find that most ads emphasize price, they might emphasize the experience…

In short, it is to quickly change the advertising presentation effect according to the surrounding advertising scenes, form visual conflicts, and immediately attract users' attention due to the contrast.

Remember, in this era, your competitors are no longer just your competing products, but everything that competes with you for user attention. No one will wait for your ads to appear.

You need to take the initiative to filter out your ads from the massive amount of information, stand out, and enter the user's brain. The game with the hippocampus is what every marketing planner needs to pay attention to first.

Think about it more, when your ad is placed in a bunch of cluttered information, will it attract users' attention?

Author: Mumu Old Thief

Source: mumuseo