Is a picture worth
1,000 words? Most would say yes, but when you dive deeper, you see
that the opposite is true; one word may very well be worth 1,000
pictures.
Roy Williams, author of
the best books on marketing ever written, states that "words
start wars and end them, words create love and destroy it, words
cause people to risk their lives, their fortune and their sacred
honor. Words are the powerful force there has ever been."
First of all, the most
influential people in the history of the world, Abe Lincoln, Martin
Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Jefferson, William
Shakespeare and many, many more, used the power of words to change
the world.
Williams goes on to
site cognitive studies demonstrating the superiority of echoic
memory, which stores information as sound, over iconic memory, which
stores visual information. When you memorize a speech, or a song, a
poem or the alphabet, it is not the image or the appearance of the
words and letters that you memorize - it is the sound of the words in
your mind that you remember - even though you read them silently in
your mind.
Similarly, sound has
more impact than sight. You need to be looking in order to see but
you don't have to be listening in order to hear.
Eyewitnesses are not
anywhere near as reliable as people who heard something take place
because you store what you hear in memory for a longer period of time
than what you see. This is the difference between echoic memory and
iconic memory.
The power of echoic
memory has direct influences on advertising effectiveness:
It's the
reason that the average person can remember the words to over 1,000
songs that they never intended to learn.
It's the
reason you can't get a jingle out of your head.
It's the
reason you can repeat what the teacher said even when you weren't
paying any attention.
Echoic memory is also
the reason that anyone over the age of 40 or so can complete the
words to the following jingle; Winston taste's good like a
__________ _______? (cigarette should) even though that jingle
hasn't been broadcast since 1970.
It was then that the
federal government banned the use of electronic media for cigarette
advertising. No one can remember any one of the slogans that Winston
has spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to implant into your
long term memory with the use of iconic print advertising since then.
Tobacco companies have been allowed to have unlimited use of print
advertising ever since. Billboards, magazines, full page and double
truck newspaper ads, outdoor stadium advertising etcyet no
one can tell you the slogan Winston used just a few months or years
ago – let alone 37 years ago. The power and nature of echoic
memory is the reason that we use TV and radio first and most of time
exclusively.
Print advertising
produces all that it will produce immediately and never more than
that. TV and radio will not produce immediately what it they produce
over time. Electronic media works better and better over time. The
constant repetition of electronic media is the only way that
advertisers can make their message stick in the mind of a consumer
forever.
For the older readers
Plop, plop____?
_____?
Please don't
squeeze the________?
Time to bake___?
______?
For today's
youth
Hello I'm a Mac.
And I'm_____?
America Runs on______?
Geico and Aflac would
never have accomplished increased market share through increased mind
share with print. Electronic gets it done, period.
Now I'm not a big
believer in catchy slogans and jingles but they serve their purpose
as an example of the power of echoic memory. I prefer to use the
power of echoic memory to increase share of mind with creative that's
real, honest, impactful and memorable.
TV and radio, if
scheduled properly (most isn't), is what increases share of
mind for our clients. Increase share of mind, combined with a strong
internal business operation is what translates into increased share
of market and therefore - an increased bottom line.
For a the real insight on this subject go to wizardacademypress.com and order the Wizard of Ads trilogy. It's worth your money and your time.
Keep climbing,
Jake
