Marketing has many faces. TV adverts to increase sales, stunts to improve brand awareness and events to embody brand message. Campaigns are set up to boost recognition, gain market share and highlight seasonal promotions, but when it comes down to it, all marketing is really trying to achieve the same thing: memorability.
Luckily for brands, the same process that makes an unforgettable in-person experience works virtually too. Here’s how.
The marketing-memory merry-go-round
First, let’s recap. Each day, the human brain meets, greets and responds to 60,000-80,000 stimuli. Those with personal significance and emotional attachment will hop onto the neuron rollercoaster and whizz around the long-term memory fairground. Those that don’t pique our interest will be refused admission.
Up to 99% of this admissions process happens subconsciously, so there’s little point for online marketers to use gimmicks like LARGE CAPITAL LETTERS to try and get on the memory merry-go-round. Instead, online marketers would benefit from targeting the subconscious with virtual stimuli.
Seducing the subconscious digitally
Given you’re reading this, the chances are you spend much of the day behind a screen and probably even more so since the start of Covid restrictions. Working from home necessitates more virtual calls and webinars, socialising from home increases social media usage, relaxing at home boosts video and streaming services. In other words, there are many avenues for online marketers to produce emotional content that seduces the subconscious.
One method is triggering nostalgia. Jonathan Wan, Global Marketing Director of Japan Airlines, told our 5&5 video series that “the physical experience can’t be replaced, however, a virtual experience allows us to have a deeper appreciation of the physical experience. Many of our experiences are essentially memories with emotions, we can recreate these emotions virtually”.
Therefore, if you create a virtual experience that teleports your subconscious back to happy memories – an amazing day in the park, an incredible holiday, a jaw-dropping event – you will forge positive associations between your brand and consumers.
Making long-lasting virtual memories with INVOLVE®
At Rebel & Soul, the subconscious is our obsession. We know that it controls the way we trust, appreciate and value brands and so we used our neuroscience and neuromarketing knowledge to create a methodology that speaks to the subconscious and maximises memorability: INVOLVE®.
Putting the ‘neuro’ in our neuroexperiences, INVOLVE® ensures that each of our events entice and excite the mind’s memory-making machine. From a keynote conference speech to a promotional video, the INVOLVE® framework can be applied to anything in the physical or digital realm and boost retention by up to 52%.
For example, let’s pretend you INVOLVEd an espresso martini-making event for your brand – think show-stopping venue with eye-catching dancers, branded martini glasses and the whiff of luxury coffee – and then a social distancing sledgehammer ruins your plans. What do you do?
You send beautifully-crafted espresso martini-making kits to your VIP guests. You set up a live stream with entertainers (yes, the dancers are still there) and guest interaction. You allocate personal bartenders to help each guest craft their bespoke espresso martini.
A sensory overload for a virtual experience? Never. The INVOLVE® framework banishes physical limitations and shows that it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. No matter where you are, you can still make eternal positive memories.
Read our latest whitepaper, The Definitive Guide to creating the most Memorable Virtual Experiences.
