Schema Incongruent Advertising

Quick Read: A dollop of ‘schema incongruence’, strategically thrown into an ad, could sometimes serve as a powerful stimuli.

Did you know that Reddit put together its recent Super Bowl ad in less than a week?

The ad is remarkable.

What just happened? pic.twitter.com/DypRp6DeQt
— Reddit (@reddit) February 8, 2021

Quoting the NYTimes article..

The Reddit ad started out like a clichéd car commercial, with two S.U.V.s racing across the desert. Then the signal seemed to fry, and Reddit’s orange-and-white alien-head logo commandeered the screen, followed by a lengthy printed statement that left viewers scrambling to grab a photo or screenshot...
The Kellogg School Super Bowl Advertising Review, an annual ranking from Northwestern University’s business school, reported shortly after the game on Sunday that Reddit’s commercial was among the most effective commercials of the broadcast. The Kellogg School’s list measures the execution of the commercial, the quality of the attention it generates, its memorability and other factors...

When one analyses this ad from Reddit and attempts to theorise the ‘how and why it worked the way it did’ one is sure to run into the concept of ‘schema incongruence in brand messaging’.

Schema incongruent advertising

When incoming information can be well organized into one’s existing knowledge structures, it can be called as schema-congruent information. When the information does not easily ﬁt into the existing knowledge structures, the information is schema-incongruent.

In a seminal paper in 1982, George Mandler from the University of California, San Diego proposed his Theory on Schema Incongruity. His thesis centered on the notion that although people generally like things that match their expectations, moderate incongruity can be arousing and thus intriguing. Furthermore, because moderate incongruity can be resolved with minimal effort, it tends to result in favourable evaluations. (source)

Over the years, several researchers have validated the impact of schema incongruence on brand messaging. For example, in an oft quoted research paper by Halkias, G., and Kokkinaki, F. (2012) titled ‘Cognitive and affective responses to schema-incongruent brand messages‘, the authors empirically investigate and validate that incongruent stimuli may attract more of the recipients’ attention, increase their cognitive arousal, and may finally elicit more positive judgements.

And in another research paper by Hye Jin Yoon (2015) titled ‘Understanding schema incongruity as a process in advertising‘, the author states that strategies evoking schema incongruity have often been used in advertising because information incongruent to schema has the potential to increase interest, memorability, and persuasiveness in consumers.

And to help elucidate this further, she proposes a four-stage process model (see below) and discusses each stage in detail with a focus on the impact factors that need to be addressed for using a successful incongruity strategy in advertising.

A process model of incongruity in advertising, Hye Jin Yoon (2012), Source

So the next time you see an ad that seems irreverent, fun and provocative (the tropes most often employed by ‘impulse brands’ like candies, chewing gum etc) you know the method to the madness behind their creative work – a dollop of ‘schema incongruence’ strategically thrown in to serve as powerful stimuli.

And yeah, by the way, just in case it didn’t come to your notice, Robinhood (this is a quick follow up to the previous post, remember?) also aired an ad during this Super Bowl. And let’s just say that it did get some attention.

Visceral Targeting

Quick Read: We love ourselves so much that even the Mona Lisa could use our face to appear more engaging to us. No, seriously! But does that tell us something about the future of advertising?

You stand in front of the Mona Lisa, only this version is around three times the size of the original and has a blue sphere on a shelf that juts out from the painting.

In the blue sphere – called the Gazing Ball – you see a reflection of yourself naturally juxtaposed against the Mona Lisa.

As part of this exhibition, Jeff Koons has taken 35 masterpieces, had them repainted in oil on canvas, added a little shelf, painted as if it had sprouted directly from the image and added the Gazing Ball on top of that.

(Jeff Koons with the Gazing Ball (da Vinci Mona Lisa).Photograph: Fruity MacGuinty)

Presenting his artworks, Koons (fancily) says that while the gazing ball “represents the vastness of the universe and at the same time the intimacy of right here, right now, this experience is about you, your desires, your interests, your participation, your relationship with this image.”

Now, is the joke here on us or is it on Leonardo da Vinci that even in the master piece we have to be able to see ourselves in order to evince a higher level of curiosity and appreciation- the heady mix that all artists crave for?

Pop-culture has become more narcissistic in recent decades. And we, being the most narcissistic species on the planet, obviously help perpetuate the trend even further.

The Doppelgänger Effect

Popular wisdom tells us that opposites attract. But as this post suggests, all we need to do is just take a look around us and bear witness to the thousands of couple twins, boyfriend twins, celebrity couple lookalikes and even facial recognition dating sites, and we’ll start to realize that what we might be most attracted to is, well, ourselves.

Today there is mounting scientific evidence to prove that we are friendlier to people who look like us.

And this has interesting ramifications on advertising.

One knows that it’s easy to algorithmically construct an ‘average face’ – a composite image that averages the faces of any given sample of people.

(Image Source: Averageness – wikipedia)

(In fact earlier this year, Benetton used this approach to algorithmically construct a ‘Face of the City‘ for each of 6 global capitals in order to celebrate their status as a melting pot of various races and cultures. Video here.)

In the same way one can construct a composite morph using weighted average of individual faces. For example, the ‘Tiger Morph’ below is a weighted average of a stock model face and that of Tiger Woods.

(Image Source: Personalized Face Composites for Implicitly Targeted Marketing)

Using similar means what if a social network were to subtly blend our profile picture – almost on the fly- with that of a brand’s spokesmodel to make online ads more attractive?

Would these ‘Personalized Face Composites’ be more credible as spokesmodels in the ads?

And would such ads be more effective in increasing our purchase intent?

And let’s not even get started on user privacy. (Yes, I am looking at you Facebook!)

Welcome to the world of visceral targeting.

—

(H/T Austin Kleon: Jeff Koons Gazing Ball. H/T Rosie & Faris: The Doppelgänger Effect)

(Featured Image: United Colors of Benetton – Face of the City campaign )

The IKEA Test

Quick Read: Well let’s just say that if IKEA had considered opening a couples’ relationship counselling centre at each of its stores, it might give the couples’ counsellors a run for their money!

If there were to be a prep school for wannabe couples, the final test for graduation could argaubly be throwing them at the task of shopping for furniture… together.

Full discosure: Mrs and I somehow aced that test – though she derives an indescribable pleasure everytime she sees this PepperFry commercial.

No wonder then IKEA is parodied to be the #1 place where couples could realise that they actually can’t stand each other!

Probably armed with this insight, Ramani Durvasula – a California-based clinical psychologist is actually using IKEA shopping runs as a communications exercise for her couples therapy. (H/T Racked)

Ask her if IKEA is a domestic wonderland or a map of a relationship nightmare, and you are told that it could be the later. In fact, according to this WSJ report, she thinks the Ikea shopping experience is fraught with anxiety for couples, for example the kitchen models can lead to arguments about who doesn’t do the dishes and so forth.

Speaking of which, doing dishes could be a seperate thesis altogether on the perils of matrimony.

Actually make it ‘doing dishes’ + ‘trying to own the remote’ and you could have a perfect reciple for domestic disaster.

This commercial for Pril dishwashing liquid is a little undiscovered gem along those lines (though it could be accused of packing a little too many of a punch in one single ad).

(sorry non Hindi readers, wish there were sub titles)

And by the way there even seems to be a compelling case that says – when in need of a marriage therapy, just do the dishes!

So the next time someone tells you that brands could do with some insights from ethnographic and psycho-analytical research. Tell them that the later could also be true.

[Bonus (and unrelated) Read: Nearly 3 years ago, BrandedNoise featured a post called ‘The IKEA Effect‘]

(Featured Image: Rashid and Shirley Smith got married at the IKEA in Elizabeth, N.J., in 2013. Source)

Exploring the Boundaries Of The Traditional Concept

Quick Read: The idea of Traditional Concept and its reliance on metrics like Purchase Intent for validating product ideas is being challenged. More so in the realm of Retro Innovations.

The Traditional Concept and its classic three part construct – Insight | Benefit | Reason To Believe – to represent a product idea for consumer research has been coming under scrutiny. In fact, there are even obituaries being written about it citing reasons like:

It is too rigid, rational and over – engineered as a construct to represent a product idea
Puts far more emphasis on our deliberative ‘System 2’ thinking
Fails to take into account how consumers tend to make decisions (unconsciously, quickly, swayed far more by emotional impact and immediate impressions)
Relies heavily on metrics like purchase intent for validation

Academic arguments apart, one thing that a Traditional Concept cannot possibly help with is screening product ideas that fall into the realm of Retro Innovations – new products that are designed around connecting us with the past and invoking our nostalgia.

Two recent product examples where a traditional concept could have had a tough time cracking the consumer code:

The ‘Miller Light’ Retro Design And Its Placebo Effect

Miller Lite is known as the first mainstream light beer in the US. But over the years, the U.S. sales of the beer had been declining, trailing Bud Light, Coors Light, and Budweiser. Revenue dropped 7 percent in just 2013 (source). So in January 2014, as part of a product placement tie in with the film Anchorman 2, Miller released a limited edition version of its original 1975 white can.

(The Retro Designed Miller Lite Can)

Surprisingly for Miller Lite, this retro designed packaging proved to be a success (it sold 32 million cans more than that during YTD 2013) that by September 2014 it decided to switch back to this packaging full-time, including on bottles and tap handles.

And reportedly, taken by surprise, when Miller marketers conducted some post launch evaluation, they learnt that the Millennials had liked it because it seemed iconic and old while their parents had liked it because it reminded them of what they used to drink. Strangely, customers even started telling the company its “new” beer tasted better even though they were still drinking the same old beer(!)

Obviously, a Traditional Concept and conventional testing for metrics like Purchase Intent, could not have driven the brand along this unexpected ‘retro’ direction.

Leica M Edition 60 – The Digital Camera Without An LCD Screen

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the legendary Leica rangefinder system, the company recently announced the Leica M Edition 60. The unique thing about this camera is that it does something bold – it ditches the back LCD screen and all onboard menus. One cannot even review their photos. It leaves photographers with physical controls of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. And it forces them to look through just one thing – the viewfinder.

Is this a good idea? Will consumers like it? Does it even make design sense? The debate is on.

But one thing is certain: this reductionism as a celebration of photographic art – as Leica calls it – could not have been conceived of through the lens of the Traditional Concept and testing for Purchase Intent.

Is the Leica M Edition 60 too high end to be a realistic example here?

Well, then let’s get a bit ‘low end’ – Music CDs and online music.

Let’s think of product ideas in terms of Traditional Concepts and test for their Purchase Intent to sell online music to the Japanese vs the good old CDs.

And good luck to us doing that!

(AKB48, a popular Japanese group, has sold CDs containing tickets to its performances, encouraging fans to buy multiple copies. Source)