As we enter a season packed with major cultural moments like Footy Finals, Black Friday, the US election and the festive season, it got me thinking about the value of investing in moment marketing. And I’m not the only one.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard the phrase ‘capitalise on cultural moments,’ I’d be as rich as I feel during lunch on payday.
But is it worth the premium to align with these fleeting moments, especially given the risk of being outshouted by the event itself?
Take brands advertising during the Superbowl as an example: independently brilliant, but together can create a mess of misattribution. In their attempt to piggyback on popular moments, brands often end up fuelling cultural clutter and getting lost in the very noise they sought to escape.
Simply put, maximising impressions doesn’t necessarily guarantee meaningful impact. Why? Because just showing up isn’t enough; brands often produce similar emotive 30-second custom spots that promote the event more than their own brand, resulting in wallpaper—easily overlooked and quickly forgotten.
When brands have got this wrong in the past and waded into culture without authenticity and distinctiveness firmly in mind, studies have shown audiences misunderstanding campaigns at best, and at worst actively misattributing them to key competitors. Analysis of the 2014 FIFA World Cup showed 25% of viewers incorrectly recalled a Mastercard sponsorship that never existed, while almost 1/3 viewers misattributed Adidas's campaign to major athleisure rival, Nike.
While cultural occasions present a great opportunity to align with national hype, there’s a risk. So, what are the common pitfalls of cultural capitalisation, and what lessons can we learn from them?
1. From visibility to value-add
Brands risk disconnecting customers in their bid for eyeballs when they prioritise broadcasting brand spots over meaningful engagement. Shifting from surface-level exposure to substance-level connections involves understanding the intricacies of the event and the audience they aim to reach.
A prime example is Netflix’s recent campaign, where professional tennis player, Carlos Alcaraz, hijacked the live TV broadcast of the Indian Wells Open, turning the post-game ritual of signing the camera into an opportunity to tease his upcoming sports docuseries across a number of matches.
2. License to play, not just pay
Whilst some brands create a bespoke asset related to a moment in time and call it a job well done, true impact comes from authentic alignment with an event or license to play in that space. For example, while Decathlon’s reactive campaign to a tech outage was fun, it’s likely to be forgotten due its departure from the brand’s usual tone. KitKat however leveraged its established ‘take a break’ branding to create a reactive campaign which reinforced its ongoing brand positioning. Therefore, whilst both were labelled ‘reactive,’ (which implies a short-term focus), KitKat strategically leveraged the moment to strengthen and expand its long-term, heritage positioning.
3. From moment to momentum
When it comes to leveraging the fame of established moments in culture, brands run the risk of what is labelled ‘the vampire effect’, where the event is so anticipated attention is drawn to the moment in time vs the brand itself. To avoid merely ‘renting fame’ for the short-term, brands should look to invest in long-term strategies and partnerships which integrate the brand into the moment so seamlessly, each would be incomplete without the other. And while brands might feel like they’re selling their firstborn to afford this, it doesn’t have to be. Agencies and their clients should conduct brand experience and OESP audits to identify distinctive media device opportunities with the potential to create equity for the brand…. long-term.
A standout example of a timeless and distinctive media device is the iconic KFC Bucket Heads, which have been creating 340,000 bucket heads annually for the past 13 years.
In summary, the aim is to not just align with cultural moments, but to become the defining event that is anticipated. When moments marketing is done with authenticity and distinctiveness, it elevates a brand from merely participating in culture to actually shaping it.
Summer Treseder, Strategy Manager, Initiative Australia