Torstein Hagen has a problem with my memory

Torstein Hagen is the founder and chairman of Viking Cruises. Because Jill and I enjoy many of the Masterpiece Theater shows on PBS, we get to see quite a bit of Torstein these days. He seems like a nice guy in his video, but I think he has a problem with my memory. And he is not the only advertiser to have a similar problem, not just with me, but many other people.

Interruptive but which brand?

Before the pandemic, ads for Torstein’s company, featuring river cruises and glimpses of familiar landmarks like the parliament building in Budapest, regularly interrupted whatever show we were watching. Given the inept handling of the ad break by PBS, an abrupt interstitial, it was annoying. One second you would be watching a scene play out in Victorian London, the next you would be looking at a cruise ship on the Danube. And this happened several times during a program. I got fed up with it, but the annoyance stuck to the advertiser just as much as PBS.

But here is the funny thing, for a long time I could not remember which company sponsored the ads, because in my head the cruise line for old people was Saga, not Viking. Having spent a lot of time in the UK over the years, I had been exposed to ads and media coverage for Saga Cruises, a brand that markets its holidays only to people over the age of 50. (A vacation firmly rejected by my younger self as “for old people,” a rejection that continues even now I am beyond the 50-year frontier.) The more recent ads for Viking clearly stated which brand the ad was for, and in theory the lovely, Scandinavian-accented, “Viking. Proud sponsor of Mastermind,” should have sealed the deal. However, it did not. For at least a year or longer I struggled to consciously remember which brand was the annoying advertiser, despite repeated exposure to its videos.

Consciously trying to remember the name of an advertiser is a rare event. Most of the time I am like every other TV viewer, if it is linear viewing or online and I have not skipped, changed channel, or attended to something else, I sit there, vaguely attentive, and watch the ads. If I am to remember an ad and its brand, it has to elicit enough attention that I absorb what is shown and said. Whether I will remember it later depends on the memorability of the content and how well it establishes a link to the advertised brand in my mind. The intrusive format of the PBS ads ensured my attention, but Viking’s content failed to establish a connection with the right brand, because in my mind the video showed the sort of trip that old people choose, and that real estate was already firmly associated with Saga. When I consciously thought about it, I knew the ad was not for Saga, but the real sponsor remained elusive.

More than a quirk

You might think that this misconnection is simply a quirk of Nigel’s experience and you would be right. After all, most people do not regularly split time between countries long enough to absorb the local advertising. Most people in the USA will never have heard of Saga, and so will probably remember that the ads on Mastermind are for Viking (they see them often enough, after all). And I admit that in this case my experience may well be unique. But believe me, the problem of misremembering which brand sponsored an ad is far more widespread than you might imagine. And many advertisers waste huge amounts of money on advertising that often goes to benefit their competition more than the brand being advertised.

Energizer or Duracell?

A classic case in point is the Energizer Bunny. Today, I doubt most people would confuse which brand is associated with the pink, drum beating bunny, but back in 1989, shortly after I first arrived in the USA, far more people associated the bunny with Duracell than Energizer. Why? Because the first Energizer bunny ad was a parody of another drum beating bunny used by Duracell, and the battery/bunny combination was already established in the minds of many viewers and associated with Energizer’s arch-nemesis. For several years, my colleague Steve McHugh and I would fly down to St. Louis to deliver the findings from Energizer’s tracking study and sadly report that more people remembered the ads for Duracell than Energizer. While the Wikipedia article suggests 40 percent of Duracell customers were confused, initially I remember it being far worse.

The association did eventually change, but it took years, and a lot of wasted media spend. Worse than wasted, because, as the Wikipedia entry alludes, the confusion over which brand was sponsoring the advertising probably boosted Duracell’s salience for many viewers at a time when Energizer had essentially gone dark for them. While far more was involved than just misremembered advertising, including the launch of Duracell’s Ultra, Duracell gained market share during this time frame to challenge Eveready for market leadership. There followed a period of price cutting, and free battery offers, as Energizer sought to hold share, a classic misstep which resulted in slimmer margins for all brands. Duracell responded with the relaunch of its copper-and-black line, formalizing its nickname “Coppertop” on the brand’s packaging, boosting performance, and investing in a $100 million marketing campaign. To cut a long story short, today, Duracell is the undisputed brand leader in the USA.

Ad execution and structure matter

Returning to the example of Viking Cruises, you will have gathered by now that I have finally figured out which brand is behind those interruptive ads, in part because the pandemic triggered a change in content. The new video features Torstein himself, and introduces Viking.TV for “these unusual times.” In spite of my previous antipathy toward the Viking brand, this seems like a smart business move to me, and, as I mentioned earlier Torstein comes over well in the video. Now, instead, of groaning at the TV, my response is to yell, “Torstein!” whenever he interrupts a show, even if I do still struggle to bring the Viking name to mind. (Strange behavior? When locked down during a Vermont winter, you must find your pleasures where you can.)

How an ad is executed and structured to engage attention and be remembered really does matter, but so too do the pre-existing associations in people’s minds. Our minds constantly seek to reference our sensory input against all existing memories and when another brand has associated itself with an idea, it can be difficult to break the connection. Given that we pay little attention to advertising in general, sheer repetition is not the answer. The execution itself must engage attention and feature the brand in a memorable way, then repetition will help entrench the impression with the correct brand. This is why distinctive brand assets can be so important in the creation of effective marketing. They are a mechanism which helps establish which brand is being advertised and trigger the right brand association across touch points.

As is often the way, a change in content and repetition has strengthened the connection between Viking and its advertising for me. But it does make me wonder if the connection could not be made even stronger with the right distinctive asset. Might Torstein consider wearing a Viking helmet, do you think? That might help solve my memory problem. But what do you think? Please share your thoughts.