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Imagine: you’ve just spent thousands of dollars on a beautiful advertising campaign. The visuals are stunning, the message is spot on, and the distribution is perfectly arranged. But then, something happens that you absolutely want to avoid: when people see the ad, they don't think of you. Or even worse: they think of your competitor.
Sounds like a nightmare? For many marketers, this is unfortunately the reality. But what if I told you there’s a neurological explanation for why this happens? And more importantly: what if you could learn exactly how to prevent it?
Cells that fire together, wire together
Let’s start with what actually happens in the brain when someone sees your advertisement. It’s actually quite simple, yet incredibly fascinating.
Neurons that are activated together will eventually start to branch together. This means that when one set of neurons is activated, the other area is automatically triggered as well. It’s literally as if small bridges are being built within the brain.
Let’s make this practical with an example everyone knows: Coca-Cola. Suppose you are Coca-Cola and you launch a campaign entirely focused on sustainability. There is a part of the brain that associates with Coca-Cola. And through that ad, another part of the brain starts thinking about sustainability.
But here’s the interesting part: those two aren't necessarily related yet. Especially for brands like Coca-Cola (which isn't naturally associated with sustainability) a connection first needs to be forged.
The Moment Your 'Brand Drawer' Opens
This is where it gets really cool. The moment those two brain regions are activated simultaneously, a small link is created. You can visualize this process as a ‘drawer opening up.’
First, your brand must become active in the brain. At that moment, the drawer slides open. Any other thoughts that are activated at that same time have a chance to end up in your brand's drawer.
This is exactly why brand linkage is so crucial for brand growth. In his book "How Brands Grow," Byron Sharp demonstrated that there are two driving forces behind brand growth: physical availability and mental availability.
Mental availability simply means that when a potential customer wants to buy something in your category, they think of your brand. It means your brand comes to mind sooner and stands out faster in various environments. (If you want to know how to measure these ‘category entry points,’ check out our page on measuring CEPs)
And that’s where brand linkage plays a massive role. Because every time your brand enters a consumer's line of sight, whether in an ad, on packaging, or in an out-of-home advertisement, there is a chance that the drawer opens and gets filled with more positivity.
Creative Power: Why Content Matters More Than Media Spend
Now we come to something that will surprise many marketers. Research has been conducted on the ratio between the costs of creating campaigns versus media costs. Often, this ratio is around 10-90. So, media expenditures account for 90% of the costs, while the creative only accounts for 10%.
But, and this is where it gets interesting, effectiveness does not follow this ratio at all.
When you look at where the ROI comes from, you see that the vast majority, about 65% of your campaign's effectiveness, stems from the creative. In other words, from what you are broadcasting. Only 35% is determined by how much media budget you put behind it.
This might seem logical when you think about it; what you broadcast naturally drives effectiveness. But the fact that this ratio is so heavily flipped is something that is often overlooked in practice.
Of course, if you don't broadcast it at all, you have no effectiveness. And if you broadcast a campaign twice as often, you don't suddenly get twice the effectiveness. But this Nielsen study shows crystal clear: the creative is paramount.
From Brain Activity to Brand Growth
That creative consists, on one hand, of all the appeal an advertisement can trigger in your brain to choose your brand. But you only capitalize on that if there is strong brand linkage. Otherwise, it’s a form of misdirected creativity, where all the positive emotions go to the wrong place.
It’s about a package of elements that all need to be right. You need emotional impact, because without emotional impact, nothing happens in the brain. And it must be linked to your brand in the right way.
At Unravel, we frequently measure this creative using neuromarketing research. We use eye tracking to measure exactly what people see, which is crucial for brand linkage. And with EEG, we measure second-by-second what people experience in terms of emotion, attention, and mental workload.
This way, we learn how attention and emotion fluctuate during a commercial. We see which moments form the peaks and valleys. This is vital for brand linkage, because when you show your brand in a commercial, what is the ultimate moment? Early or late? During a peak or a neutral moment?
These kinds of questions might seem like details, but they make the difference between an ad that contributes to your brand growth or to that of your competitor.
Watch the Full Webinar for Free + Download the Sheets
What you’ve read here is only a small part of what happens with brand linkage. In the full webinar, we dive deeper into practical applications: when is the best time to show your brand? Is there such a thing as overbranding? How do you optimally build those neural bridges?
We share concrete brand linkage boosters based on the latest neuroscientific insights, and you’ll get practical tips you can apply immediately. Plus: all sheets and key insights are available as a free PDF download.
Click here to watch the webinar.
Because one thing is certain: your brand deserves a permanent spot in the consumer's brain. And now you know the neurology behind it 🧠
