Media Industry Bias causes Barbie to advertise T-Mobile and EasyToys

“99.9% of the time people don’t give a sh*t about your brand,” said Adam Ferrier, founder and consumer psychologist of Australian agency Thinkerbell. Because where we ‘professional idiots’ spend a large part of our day working on one or more brands, the average Dutch person is much too busy for that. In fact, it does everything it can to avoid advertising. As a marketer it is very important to be aware of this and not to fall prey to the Media Industry Bias!

Media Industry Bias (introduced two years ago by Validators) refers to the fact that someone who works in the media industry looks at marketing and advertising in a different way than the average consumer. The Media Industry Bias arises from a misinterpretation of consumers’ thinking patterns. Where a marketer is busy with brands all day long, it is completely different for the average consumer. Consumers have hectic lives. They are busy with work, hobbies, housekeeping and friends. It is therefore absolutely not a priority for them to delve into the content or message of an advertisement.

Cases that raise our eyebrows
As a brand, it is therefore very important to tailor your communication to the recipient. And although that sounds simple, we at Validators still regularly see cases that we have our doubts about. For example, our eye recently caught the above bright pink outdoor advertising, who would be the sender?

In any case, there is no lack of self-confidence among the makers. Using only the bright color of pink and a date was nothing short of genius. The makers could also count on a lot of praise online among colleagues. We were curious and decided to investigate this expression.

69% of the Dutch have no idea who the sender is
What turned out? 69% of the Dutch had no idea who the sender of this message was. Who did they think of? With 18%, T-Mobile was mentioned most often. EasyToys was also mentioned (2%). And although it only involved a few people, EasyToys scored twice as high as the actual sender; Barbie! So unintentionally, the marketers at Barbie have spent part of their media budget on a completely different type of toy. It will come as no surprise, but also the message, the premiere of the new Barbie movie, did not reach the recipient. Would the results have been better if it had been asked among a more specific target group? No doubt, but out-of-home is just such a great medium to attract people outside your existing target group and increase your turnover.

You achieve the most growth among new, and not among loyal fans
What does this teach us? Avoid this expensive fallacy and don’t just develop for one specific target group, but involve a wider audience. Because it is precisely among this broad audience that there is a lot of room to increase your visitor numbers.

More information needed? Please send and email to Pau via Pau.mitjagilabert@validators.nl