What brand element makes the strongest first impression?

Like, in the first 2 seconds of your online ad, what brand asset packs the biggest punch?

The good folks at System1 teamed up with TikTok to test a bunch of ads. 847, in fact. Across 8 categories, 8 countries, and 84,000 TikTok users. Tikkers? Tockies? People?

Their question: of allllll the brand things you can stuff into the very first 2 seconds of an ad (when it rilly rilly matters), which one works the best? Granted there are various metrics, but they used “brand awareness lift” — did people remember the brand at all?

Turns out the WORST thing you can do is just show your logo, which depressed brand awareness 30%! Or your brand name (-16%). Ouch. 

The BEST things? Your logo in context of the product or whatnot (+182%), or… a sonic asset, which took the top spot with +191%. 

That’s right, once again, SOUND is a resoundingly-effective brand asset. (Get it? re-sound-ing?)

Caveats, of course, but go read the whole report, “The Long and the Short (Form) of It.” It’s lovely.

Some lessons:

🔸 Work on that brand linkage! If people don’t even know your ad is for your brand, you might as well just burn your cash. 

🔸 Have strong brand assets. If you don’t have them, MAKE them. I mean, you’re a brand builder, right?

🔸 Look into having solid brand sounds (paging Intel...). They're wicked useful. (If you need help, call me: I know a guy.)

🔸 If you have brand assets, USE them. Over. And over. And over. And over.  

(PS it’s Trekkers, not Trekkies….)