Ads: Purpose vs. Product
Brands rose to the challenge of advertising during particularly sensitive times
Among regular (non-purpose) ads, a safe (and popular) bet was producing product-centric creative.
As lockdowns halted campaign production and limited filming capabilities for new ads, brands and agencies got creative with what resources were available. That meant sometimes products had to step in as the spokesperson when characters were not an option.
It has been recorded an unprecedented spike in ads registering signal on our Empower metric — 37% of all those in Q2 to be exact. Historically, only 12.5% of all ads scored on it. This uptick was the direct result of the pandemic as 63% of Q2’s Empowering ads were COVID-19 themed (as were all but one of the top eleven ads below).
In terms of negative Cultural Perception, the number of COVID-19 ads with Exploit signal in Q2 started out comparable to normal ads and close to historic norms (12.5%). However, there was an inflection point in May. This change was the result of more brands entering the COVID-19 field and diluting the messaging and also more ads branching out from the typical heartfelt and inspiring themes.
Prodtastic: Prod (short for product) + tastic (forming adjectives denoting someone or something regarded as an extremely good example of their particular type) measures when the product advertised generates an emotional response from viewers and is the primary driver of the ad (as opposed to storytelling)
Products and purpose are not completely void of one another in advertising. In fact 5% of breaking ads in Q2 scored on both Prodtastic and Empower. It was more common among the COVID-19 ads (7%) as opposed to regular, non-COVID-19 ones (3%). However, brands often chose to emphasize one over the other as strength of signal for Prodtastic and Empower had an inverse relationship in Q2. The highest scoring Prodtastic ads had weaker Empower signal on average than the lower scoring Prodtastic spots.
Among Q2’s top ads, Ocean Spray’s “X Nature” and Frito-Lay’s “#Joygivers” earned scores on both, but for Ocean Spray Prodtastic signal was much more dominant and the opposite was true for #Jorgivers. In “X Nature,” Ocean Spray explained how sustainability shapes each and every one of its juices which gave viewers an Authentic, Empowering impression of its products: