Uniting Left & Right Brain
LUNIR is founded on the principle of uniting the left and right side of the brain in all the work we do. So, what does this really mean? Is it taking the fun out of the creative elements, or destroying a perfectly analytical approach with artistic nuances? Demonstrating the power of this approach is perhaps best done by way of a simple example.
Let’s take crémant, aka sparkling wine. Everyone knows it, most people love it, and, let’s face it, an event in Luxembourg isn’t really an event without it. Nevertheless, regardless of how marvellous Crémant de Luxembourg may be, it still needs to compete with prosecco, cava, and the all-famous French liquid gold…champagne. In addition, because of the sheer number of sparkling wine producers, it is essential for brands to find a way to stand out amongst the crowd and to engage effectively with consumers in the online space to set themselves apart from the rest.
As a content manager, it is not always easy to identify what type of content is resonating with consumers. The knee-jerk creative angle might be scenes of an elegant couple in a luxurious hotel or people at a fancy event. This inspires you to then generate content from these ideas, post it and see what happens. Unfortunately, this hit-and-miss approach tends to deliver inconsistent results - sometimes the content is spot on and other times it yields deafening silence or, worst-case scenario, damaging reactions. In addition, consumer behaviour and societal views are forever evolving, and what worked last month might not work again this month. Therefore, time and money are often wasted creating content which may be creatively genius and original, but not effective.
What is the solution? Can concrete data be used to better direct the creative to achieve the desired response? This is where the right side of the brain comes in.
Today we have access to powerful consumer data in real time, increasing the capability to monitor and predict consumer responses. For the purposes of this example, I have used a conversational intelligence tool called Talkwalker, which provides real-time data from over 150 million sources across online and social platforms. When used effectively, this data can help to identify powerful consumer insights that can help drive the direction of creative messaging.
Emoji Usage
I have been monitoring #crémant in the Talkwalker platform for a couple of weeks, and some interesting insights have started to emerge. One of the features in the tool is the emoji cloud, which provides a visually appealing but powerful overview of what is happening in the online conversations. As you can see in the cloud below, some foreseeable emojis came up when crémant was mentioned across social media, such as an oyster, peach, and flower. However, there were also some unusual ones, including a parrot and a sloth. When drilling down into the data of the sloth, I found that this emoji is often used to express a sense of leisure and relaxation, which is indeed a nice thing to do with a glass of crisp crémant.
How does an analysis of emojis help with creative direction? Well, for example, the sloth has now given us the added perspective of someone enjoying crémant in a lazy, relaxed setting, as opposed to being predominantly a drink for a formal event or fancy aperitif, for which sloth emojis are unlikely to be used. It is not the most used emoji in the cloud, but when looking deeper into the results you can see that it is an emoji that is trending and growing in usage, and there are some other emojis that have a similar symbolism (rainbow, tree, picnic basket). With COVID-19 still very much at play, it could be that people are now starting to drink crémant more during leisurely situations at home or at a secluded Air BNB in the mountains – and perhaps this could become increasingly common if the creative messaging portrays this new concept. This could in fact create new associations and have a long-term impact on the product perception. With alternative angles like these, you can start to think about a creative and messaging that resonates with people more than simply the knee-jerk creative approach, and perhaps use that to enhance and broaden the potential audience scope.
Language Usage
Luxembourg, and Europe in general, has a huge variety of spoken languages, which sometimes poses a challenge when planning content. However, if you know what the most used language is and how it is being used, then the choice of language becomes simpler. Talkwalker uses AI to detect over 187 languages in real time, and interpreting this data can produce a strong indication of the most effective languages to use in creative messaging.
When analysing the language breakdown, it was interesting to note that the most common language was English (34%), despite other languages such as French and German being frequently chosen by various wineries for their messaging.
A simple choice of language in text and audio can change the results of your communication immensely, as well as playing a role in whether or not your communication appears in searches and hashtags. It is also important to analyse the tone of the language, i.e. relaxed, formal etc., to ensure the messaging is targeting the consumer at the right level. A great way to test the effectiveness of another language is to run a dark paid media post in that language and consider how it compares against another language (e.g. French vs English).
Time Published
When we examine the time of day when people are talking about crémant the most, we can get further ideas into what creative to use and when would be the most effective time to publish it. The following timeline demonstrates that #cremant is mostly mentioned in the evenings around 6pm Central European Time, which indicates that currently crémant is most likely associated with aperitif occasions before dinner. I was able to confirm this by observing that the hashtag #apero appeared in the data as one of the top trending hashtags.
This data can be used for multiple strategies. For example, we could decide to publish a post at a time when crémant consumers are commonly posting about what they are drinking, or we could consider publishing a post at a time before the potential consumer has already decided which drink to purchase. This could be an effective approach to generate fresh associations between crémant and different types of occasions.
So, where are we? I initially pictured a scene of elegantly dressed people enjoying crémant at a fancy soirée. Now, after reviewing some data and uncovering interesting insights, I am considering scenes of a couple lounging on the sofa at home. This may be an unusual creative to use for sparkling wine, but the data suggests that there may be an opportunity to test out potentially new emerging associations, and move away from the traditional, mainstream messaging in order for a brand to set itself apart from the norm. In terms of content, I now know that it may be worth testing the use of English text and assessing how it performs against another language that is currently used more frequently in crémant-related messaging, and I have some alternative publication time strategies to consider.
Just by skimming the surface of the available data, we have already made some ground in uncovering potential creative angles which could go beyond the conventional messaging offered in respect of crémant. This provides a more calculated, analytical approach based on hard data (right brain) while providing fuel for the creatives to develop innovative content, and perhaps even the opportunity to go beyond the scope of the “expected” (left brain). That’s the power of uniting left and right, and that’s the foundation LUNIR uses to break the norm and produce impactful, effective and creative messaging that resonates with the target audience and can take brands to the next level.