Awakening the dreamer within

Editor's note: Patricia Sauerbrey Colton is vice president, rheingold USA, a San Francisco research firm. She can be reached at 415-400-9969 or at colton@rheingold-online.com.

Impactful dreams and successful advertisements share surprising similarities. Like a vivid dream deeply touching us in the middle of the night, successful advertising often uses the same principles to make us react.

Dreams and advertising both want to speak to our secret wishes and ambitions and they both need to solve the dilemma of making us feel that our longings could become true without revealing that these longings would be shocking to fulfill in the real world. Such a revelation would make us wake up panicked or have us strongly reject an ad that attacks us like that. We want dreams to feel calming and comforting while working off tension collected during the day; advertising should work similarly, matching our psychological needs with products that fulfill them.

To illustrate and examine some of these principles, our firm, San Francisco research company rheingold, analyzed commercials shown during the 2011 Super Bowl in an empiric study. During two-hour in-depth interviews with 20 respondents selected to represent the average commercial viewer, the secret, underlying messaging of three Super Bowl ads were explored.

Perform like a dream

Rheingold’s methodology aims to reveal these insights in a way that goes far beyond likes, dislikes or the overall evaluation of a commercial. Step by step, the complete reception process of the commercial gets reconstructed. Respondents are encouraged to describe their viewing experience for every stage of the commercial, specifically how they feel, how these feelings relate to their lives and how they evaluate them. Dissecting the commercial into its psychologically relevant parts helps understand if and how it is able to perform like a dream in the consumers’ minds (e.g., touch on relevant emotions, memories or unconscious purchase drivers).

The inner dialogue respondents have when watching the commercial gets exposed as a back-and-forth thought process of how the individual scenes of the commercial are perceived. Typically, viewers ask themselves questions during the commercial that they answer themselves. Which questions get triggered and how they get answered reveals where in the perception process respondents might get stuck or are able to create a meaning that connects to themselves.

Questions to elicit these insights include: What went through your mind at every step of the commercial? Which questions do the scenes and their elements trigger? How do these questions get answered by the commercial? Which questions remain unanswered and how do you, the viewer, feel about that? What are your internal answers to these questions to make sense out of the commercial? How does this connect to the advertised product? How does it make you feel about the product? Which elements are crucial to attract you to or repel you from the product?

This technique seeks to reveal the turning points in the commercial and show which dramatic elements of the commercial work in or potentially against the advertised product’s favor, with the goal of developing actionable optimization recommendations.

Ad one: VW Passat – the Darth Vader-y side of a harmless family car

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrDU8K63hbo

Plot: A little kid, dressed up as Darth Vader, plays in a nice upper-middle-class family home and tries to work Darth Vader magic on the washing machine, the dog and his sister’s doll. But his willpower does not make anything move. When his father gets home with the VW Passat, the kid tries to work his magic on the car as well. And, surprisingly, the car starts and the lights turn on. As a viewer, we see the parents behind the kitchen window while it becomes obvious that the father started the car remotely with his key.

Respondents feel touched by the atmosphere conveyed in the ad and talk about the sweetness of this family life: “He recognizes the struggles of his boy and wants to help him.” “This is a close family, they give their child independence and are supportive of his creativity.” “Isn’t that great? His kid means the world to him. This is monumental to the kid. He is in heaven and will talk about this his whole life!”

On the surface, respondents see an ideal for their own life achievements and accordingly view the Passat to be the perfect car for the happy, average family. However, when digging deeper into respondents’ minds, the often-unconscious darker or more Darth Vader-y side behind the scenes reveals itself: “Darth Vader is so powerful and stands above everything.” “It is kind of scary to see that little kid running around like that.” Some even drew the connection to a dark side of VW: “This company was started by Adolf Hitler ... ”

Respondents first state that the fun of this commercial lies within the sweetness of the little boy and the beauty of the family life. However, what we seem to truly enjoy is the powerful, almost almighty position we get into. The viewer becomes a confidant of the father, secretly enjoying playing a trick on the little boy: “It is almost as if I had pushed the button. I can totally see myself doing this to our son.”

What we often do not want to admit is that driving is strongly connected to the feeling of being almighty: We try to show off, escape from what we want to leave behind, explore something new and use the car as a tool to provide us with extended powers we would not have by ourselves.

The Passat’s secret message: “I am not only the average, middle-of-the-road, unedgy, maybe even sometimes boring car; I can also help you feel almighty and powerful. I literally provide the key to it!”

With this commercial, Volkswagen was able to touch the viewer’s secret ambitions of almightiness and power when driving a car without threatening them and by offering them a “sweet and safe middle-class cover” that would not overtly confront them.

Ad two: Coca Cola – no battle around a Coke Bottle

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shvwd7VYpE0

Plot: In a Lord of the Rings-like fantasy setting, soft, seemingly good-hearted, smart-looking creatures within a town surrounded by a wall are being attacked by orc-like, primitive characters who are accompanied by a big, fire-spitting dragon. As the crowds form in front of the town wall, the town gate opens and an ice dragon is pushed out in front of the gate. The gate closes and the dragon fiercely spits fire on the ice dragon, which melts down until a Coke bottle is revealed inside. One of the leaders of the invading horde grabs it, inspects it and throws it away like garbage. The fire-breathing dragon catches it and drinks the bottle of Coke. Suddenly, the dragon spits fireworks and streamers toward the town walls. As the invaders realize they’ve lost their major weapon, they turn and leave the scene. The townspeople celebrate their win by toasting Coke bottles at each other.

The obvious story told often by respondents revolves around the celebratory moments Coke provides. Coca-Cola transformed the dragon from evil to peaceful and forced him to change an aggressive attack to a firework-worthy scene. People comment: “With Coke, you are more at peace and happy.” “If you want to be a beast, don’t drink Coke.” “Coke is cooling and refreshing. Puts out the fire.” In addition, the Trojan horse theme stands for a non-violent, smart way to defeat the invaders “the Coke way.”

Interestingly, the analysis of the in-depth explorations with viewers showed one of Coke’s key psychological drivers is missing: Coke’s strong unifying qualities. People love Coca-Cola because it is all-embracing, non-judgmental and welcoming of all walks of life. Coke is one of the most global brands; it makes us feel at home wherever we go. Accordingly, the climax of the commercial is not very Coke-like: “They should party together in the end.” “The townspeople should shoot Coke bottles like arrows at the attackers, so that they all can have a taste and become friendly.” “I could see the orcs having Cokes in the end and I would see their features change to become softer and nicer like the ones in the fortress.”

Coca-Cola’s secret message: I am the drink for the smarter ones. With me, you can protect your group of people and make a celebration out of any situation.

This is not what a Coke drinker wants to achieve by drinking Coke. It is supposed to be for everyone and help overcome differences. Switching the ending to reflect Coke’s all-embracing qualities might have more strongly touched on the subtle wishes a Coke drinker hopes to become true.

Ad three: Motorola – fitting in while breaking out

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BPFODsob1I

Plot: Masses of people in a futuristic subway station are shown. All are dressed in white, their heads covered by hoods, wearing white earphones. They move in the same direction, appear sad and do not seem to interact. One normal-looking young man appears, dressed casually and moving in a different direction than the masses. He reads 1984 on his tablet computer. After his subway ride, he leaves the station against the flow of the white masses and looks up directions to a florist on a 3-D map on his tablet computer. He buys a bouquet of flowers and hides it when the object of his affection – a white-hooded girl – enters the same elevator he is riding up to his workplace. Back in the office among the drones he takes a picture of his flower bouquet and incorporates it into a stick-figure animation of him giving the flowers to a girl. He places his tablet into her office. After watching the animation, she looks at him and removes her earphones. The tablet brand is shown – Motorola XOOM – with the tagline: “The table to create a better world.”

At first look, this appears to be a touching love story that shows how the XOOM tablet can help differentiate oneself from the masses, which respondents often interpreted as Apple fans: “These are Apple people. They follow like lemmings without questioning.”

Respondents feel reminded of Apple’s revolutionary commercial in 1984 when Macintosh was introduced. Similar to the feel of Motorola’s commercial, the main character broke the conformism of the masses, with Macintosh stating that 1984 is not going to be like Orwell’s vision of 1984 and suggesting that Apple will bring variety and color into people’s lives. Accordingly, many consider Motorola’s ad an attack against Apple, which, ironically seems to have created white conformist masses instead of adding variety. “This tells you: Motorola has something to say. It stops the dictatorship.”

The XOOM’s features seem to underline how it differentiates itself from the iPad, particularly before the iPad2. The built-in camera, the Android operating system and the seemingly Flash-driven flower animation impressed viewers and appeared as an attractive response to the iPad: “This shows you true innovation. A way to break out.”

The underlying message people cannot and do not want to talk about immediately tells another story: This is not only a commercial against conformism but also for it! It makes people get into memories of how they fit into their own lives, when they go with the flow and when they decide to move against it: “Who am I? Am I brainwashed yet? Where do I belong?” “Life can always improve, you’ve just got to take a chance at it.” “I changed my career several times; I don’t understand those people who always complain and don’t do anything.”

Ultimately, what people see here as well is a story of falling in love with conformism, sameness and the easy-to-predict in the form of the “white-hooded girl.”

XOOM’s subtle promise: I provide you with a compromise in the ambivalent conflict of belonging and breaking out. With me, you can live the digital dream (white-hooded masses) without losing touch with the analog world (XOOM owner breaking out). You can follow the tablet craze while still rebelling against the Apple cult.

Motorola psychologically helps us disguise our secret wishes to conform and fit in by offering a love story that in the foreground pushes us toward our easy-to-explain hope to differentiate ourselves and promote individuality. Without directly “outing” this conflict, XOOM helps us connect both sides, like a dream would do it!

While this commercial was touching, it was perhaps the most disturbing to viewers. They got into a psychological construction process to make sense out of the contradictions the commercial is trying to address but they sensed that they were being offered a compromise rather than a true solution that would calm them. Accordingly, to use the dream metaphor, the Motorola commercial can easily slip into being perceived as a nightmare as we do not want a revolution that takes a step back into a more analog world that we tried to leave behind for so many years.

Rather than touching us like comforting advertising, this commercial shows qualities of a piece of art that unsettles us and triggers an often uncomfortable reflection of our own lives.

Harvest insights

The discussed examples involve commercials in their finished form but this type of testing can happen at any point of the creative development process, ideally as early as possible. The goal is to harvest insights that facilitate creating a perception experience that leaves an unconscious impression, one that uses the power of dreams.

Our firm uses the described methodology to understand commercials and other advertising material to uncover improvement recommendations that work in the favor of the product and at the same time take the reception experience of the target consumer into account. As the examples provided show, there are no universal rules that can be applied. Every product-commercial combination shows very individual impact mechanisms that must be strategically explored and research is an excellent way to do just that.