Quantitative versus Qualitative strategy

As a consumer, you encounter on average 3.000 Ads a day. Because most of the ads are not of your concern in order to live your daily life, you do not really pay attention to them. Marketers call this kind of behaviour: low involvement. It is assumed that over 95% of advertisements are encountered with a low involvement behaviour. This leaves us with the assumption that advertisement has no effect on people. Luckily, or sadly depending on which side you are on, it is assumable that 97% of all buying decisions are subconscious. So, there is a workaround.

Advertisement and Brands need to be learned by the consumer.

When you meet a person the first time, you only get to know them by talking to them and observing their behaviour. The same is with brands and advertisements. You need to learn his persona, his identity, that happens through advertisement. Of course, most ads promote a new product or special offer of a company, but this is nothing different. You need to “learn” that this specific company from now on is offering this specific product.

But again, most advertisements are encountered with low involvement behaviour.
This is where two basic constructs come into relevancy.

Quantity versus Quality

Creative advertisement creates tension which creates attention.
Quantitative advertisement repeats the same message so long that it gets burned into the consumer’s brain.

The Creative approach

The creative approach is the qualitative approach. It is the question of how to make something so outstanding that it breaks through the low engagement behaviour of people. How does it work? It’s called momentum. Creative advertisement should first create the inner question of “What the heck am I looking at?”. When a pedestrian asks himself that question you almost have won because now, he enters the funnel of engagement.

• First, he notices something different about the poster
• Then he starts to wonder what it is
• He thinks about what he sees
• And then he figures it out
• By figuring it out by himself, he has now learned the message

and goal achieved.

With the first trigger, of being different and interesting enough, we managed to keep the consumer’s attention long enough and by getting him to think for himself, we achieved our goal with just one poster on his way down the street instead of multiple ones, like in …

The quantitative approach.

The customer gets bombarded with a message. A message that was carefully crafted by marketers by analysing consumers‘ data in the specific market. The created marketing briefing gets handed over to people who are not specifically trained to create good and interesting advertisements but just to make something look pretty. Today, through social media, the quantitative approach got much cheaper. Social media ads are very cheap and it is hard to fail if you have done at least some research.

Depending on your channel, your industry, your resources and other factors, the quantitative approach might not be the worst option for you.

But …

The quantitative approach does not build much recognition and interest. This does not lead to a well-crafted brand. Crafting a brand needs time. It is the long term goal versus the short term goal. Just selling something and quickly penetrating the market with a new product by lowering the prices, won´t build you a brand but will sell you out.

The qualitative approach is the approach of a carefully crafted message with a highly engaging story behind it in order to create tension and attention in the pedestrian. You start to build recognition and a brand in the consumer’s mind.

From which person do you have a better image?

From a person who desperately tries to get people to buy their product by shouting everybody in their faces till they give in or a person who tells every customer a highly engaging story that is nice to listen to. To whom would you build up more empathy and sympathy?

To whom of the both would you be most likely to voluntarily return for your next purchase or purchase advice?