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The Long Tail theory and creative advertising
than the total of people who receive a niche message.” Let’s say a multinational soft-drink brand wants worldwide exposure.
Traditionally, it may choose to aim its message to a mainstream audience
which will include men, women, and people from a wide range of ages. A creative message to please everyone will need to be generic and appeal
to the lowest common denominator. To the creative, this means that the advertising will become bland,
all-accommodating, and not very interesting. If instead of aiming at such broad audience we aim at the niches
separately, we can then create many stronger, more relevant and
interesting campaigns. For example: a niche campaign can focus on young men, while another can
focus on young women, or small groups of people who share special
interests. The communication strategy then becomes a collection of
widely different actions, each with the potential to be interesting,
relevant and aspire to a higher creative standard. As a result, a brand will reach more people and establish a stronger,
more personal bond than if it tried to cater for a popular audience. And
the creative work will have the potential to be memorable. An earlier interpretation of the Long Tail theory applied to the sales
model. A traditional shop could only carry popular items which it knew
people would buy. Catering for niches would run the risk of ending up
with lots of surplus, and sales would drop. Internet changed that. Amazon can cater across niches because it has no
storage or surplus issues. On the internet, even a niche can generate a
large volume of business due to the sheer numbers of people who come
together from all parts of the globe. This is a bastardized version of the original Long Tail theory, but it
fits well when explaining why sometimes it’s good to generate lots of
separate crazy ideas for a number of distinct audiences rather than a
single, generic concept to appeal to the popular mass. When it helps to convince clients to allow us to create more interesting
campaigns, then it’s been butchered for a good cause.
When deciding on a creative communication strategy for a large brand,
the Long Tail theory could be interpreted as follows:
than the total of people who receive a niche message.” Let’s say a multinational soft-drink brand wants worldwide exposure.
Traditionally, it may choose to aim its message to a mainstream audience
which will include men, women, and people from a wide range of ages. A creative message to please everyone will need to be generic and appeal
to the lowest common denominator. To the creative, this means that the advertising will become bland,
all-accommodating, and not very interesting. If instead of aiming at such broad audience we aim at the niches
separately, we can then create many stronger, more relevant and
interesting campaigns. For example: a niche campaign can focus on young men, while another can
focus on young women, or small groups of people who share special
interests. The communication strategy then becomes a collection of
widely different actions, each with the potential to be interesting,
relevant and aspire to a higher creative standard. As a result, a brand will reach more people and establish a stronger,
more personal bond than if it tried to cater for a popular audience. And
the creative work will have the potential to be memorable. An earlier interpretation of the Long Tail theory applied to the sales
model. A traditional shop could only carry popular items which it knew
people would buy. Catering for niches would run the risk of ending up
with lots of surplus, and sales would drop. Internet changed that. Amazon can cater across niches because it has no
storage or surplus issues. On the internet, even a niche can generate a
large volume of business due to the sheer numbers of people who come
together from all parts of the globe. This is a bastardized version of the original Long Tail theory, but it
fits well when explaining why sometimes it’s good to generate lots of
separate crazy ideas for a number of distinct audiences rather than a
single, generic concept to appeal to the popular mass. When it helps to convince clients to allow us to create more interesting
campaigns, then it’s been butchered for a good cause.
