Buyology - Martin Lindstrom [22]
But then came the most bizarre, potentially profound finding of all. The SST results showed that Coca-Cola was way more memorable than Cingular Wireless and far, far more memorable than Ford. What was even more amazing was that Ford didn’t just do poorly. In its post-program test, we discovered that after viewing the shows, our subjects actually remembered less about the Ford commercials than they had before they entered the study. Talk about driving away potential customers. In other words, watching the Coke-saturated show actually suppressed subjects’ memories of the Ford ads. The car company, it appeared, had invested $26 million in yearly sponsorship—and actually lost market share.
So why was Coke’s strategy so successful, while Ford’s wasn’t? They both spent the same stupendous amount of money on their media campaigns. They both ran countless commercials during the same program. They both reached the same amount of viewers. What was going on here?
To understand the results, think back to the way in which their advertising was integrated into the program. Coke permeated 60 percent of the show’s running time with its artfully placed cups, furniture evoking the shape of its bottles, and Coke-red walls. Ford, on the other hand, simply ran traditional commercials that didn’t intrude on the program at all. In other words, Coke was integrated fully into the narrative (company reps might as well have been pouring the stuff over our volunteers’ heads), while Ford wasn’t at all. For example, you don’t see any Ford-shaped couches or logos on the American Idol set. Contestants don’t drive onstage, or slink offstage, in a Ford. What about a Ford coffee mug? A Ford necktie? A Ford runner-up prize? No such things exist. Despite their $26 million worth of ad spots, Ford, quite simply, doesn’t play a role in the show.
In short, the results revealed that we have no memory of brands that don’t play an integral part in the storyline of a program. They become white noise, easily, instantaneously forgotten. When we see a commercial showing Idol contestants merrily sponging down a Ford at a car wash, or crowding into a vehicle like lunatic 1950s teenagers, we pay practically no attention to the product, because it’s clearly “just” an ad.
Through subtle and brilliant integration, Coke, on the other hand, has painstakingly affiliated itself with the dreams, aspirations, and starry-eyed fantasies of potential idols. Want to be high-flying and adored? Coke can help. Want to have the world swooning at your feet? Drink a Coke. By merely sipping the drink onstage, the three judges forged a powerful association between the drink and the emotions provoked by the show. Similarly, Cingular became associated as the instrument through which contestants can either accomplish their dreams or at the very least become a D-list celebrity. Ford, on the other hand, has no such archetypal role whatsoever on American Idol. Viewers don’t link it with victory, defeat, dreams, adoration, klieg lights, standing ovations, encores—or anything other than gas, tires, highways, and automatic transmissions. Idol contestants have no natural connection or aspirational affiliation with the brand so we, as viewers, have no emotional engagement with it, either.
And products that play an integral part in the narrative of a program—like Coke and, to a lesser extent, Cingular Wireless—are not only more memorable, they even appear to have a double-barreled effect. In other words, they not only increase our memory of the product, but they actually weaken our ability to