Gen3 Marketing: Liking vs. Resonance

Reading Time: 〜5 minutes

This is Part II of a three-part series. Read Part I here. 

“Hey, is that your creative idea?”
“Yeah.” 
“Did the creative director like it?”
“Yeah.” 
“Did the client like it?” 
“Yeah.” 
“Did the focus group like it? It tested well?” 
“Yeah, they said they liked it.” 
“Great, let’s run it!” 
[Crickets…]
“Shit! What happened? I thought everyone liked it.” 

Blame the targeting. Blame the product. Blame the media mix model. Blame the client for agreeing. After all the buck stops with them, right? Stewards of the brand. 

We’ll get into what liking is later, but for now know this: liking and resonance are inversely correlated. Once again, Paul Zak’s research: he looked at Super Bowl commercials and found that the top ten in USA Today’s ad meter had little or no resonance (the power to move people to action). And the highest resonance commercials were not even in the top-10. Ay caramba. 

Correlation: -.38 (this is bad)

The ad industry’s only measuring stick for creative just went up in smoke. Poof. 
What this means is that you cannot determine whether an ad is “good” (resonant) based on asking people, not even the uber creative dude with the summer scarf, expensive eyewear, and manscaped chin holding his Black Pencils in his mysterioso grayscale headshot. 

Paul and I kept the beats pounding. A major agency in Japan sponsored research Paul and I did on commercials that won Cannes Lions awards—platinum and gold, to be specific, the best o’ the best. 
Result: no resonance. Cognitive snoozers. 
No power to move people to action. CFOs & CEOs, are you listening? This means minimal ability to create revenue, the lifeblood of your company. 
But the Cannes Lions judges, rosé in hand, sure “liked” them…

GEN1, GEN2, GEN3

“The resonance response, the simultaneous release of dopamine and oxytocin the brain, the one biological response that precedes action, has created every customer ever, and is the one phenomenon that powers free-market capitalism. This is great, massive discovery. But…can we intentionally trigger it?” 

Long answer: yes. But with caveats. 

I would be remiss in my duties if I did not properly set the stage for this next step in our journey into Gen3 Marketing. 

Les Binet, a load-bearing pillar of the Gen2 era, conjured this up one fine spring morning, whilst sipping chamomile tea and wistfully pondering the falling blossoms: 

I’m confident that already you can see the issues with this. When Tom Roach posted it on Twitter, there were actual CMOs and senior marketing “pros” commenting: “Saved.” And “Taking notes now.” I must confess, I recall an expletive or two escaping my lips at the time. Any CMO of mine would be running roughshod over this quaint tea cake of a missive. This is what happens when we think to ourselves: “This makes sense…right?” Then we go in search of liking from those around us. And pretty soon, we have a commandment on a clay tablet. True North taking us East. 

In all fairness, this was the hallmark of the Gen2 era, which is now over. We did our best with what we had. Thankfully, now that Gen3 is here, we have so much more at our disposal. Les Binet, well done. I’m sure many found it useful back then. We know people in common and they are threatening to introduce us, so no offense, mate. 

Still, the reaction to the above is an indication that we cannot assume knowledge or competence, and we require a baseline refresher to make sure we’re all on the same page. 

WWHWW - TRADITIONAL MARKETING MODEL

You can think of traditional marketing in these phases: 

WHO - targeting. Who we think will buy our product. 
WHAT - Insights. The creative brief. WHAT we say to the WHO. 
HOW - creative. HOW we say the WHAT to the WHO. Visually. Verbally. 
WHERE - media planning. 
WHEN - media buying. 

Now we can examine the last two eras:

GEN1 - The analog Don Draper era
1965-1995. 30 years. 

W - pure demographics. 
W - Conscious mind surveys and focus group interviews. 
H - intuition-based “big idea”
W - three TV networks, radio, print
W - (buying)

GEN2 - The digital, analytics, data era. 
1995-2025. 30 years. 

W - digital segments. 
W - data, and more data. Analytics, correlations, conscious mind surveys. Put it in a pot and mix it. 
H - intuition-based, many ideas
W - many TV channels, digital, social, pods, print, radio
W - (buying)

GEN3 - The cognitive era of customer creation
2025~

W - cognitive traits — the insights define the target. Insights and targeting are the same. 
W - cognitive traits
H - engineer resonant messaging
W - All of the above and more. 
W - (buying)

Now we have a framework for basic advertising on which we can agree. Next, let’s dig into how Gen3 marketing approaches this in our bid to trigger the resonance response. 

Find that in the final installment: Part III.