Attention Grabber
The Business Plus ‘Best in Business Advertising’ awards highlight effective B2B print advertising. Peter McPartlin explains why Allianz’s latest campaign stands out
Not so long ago, in the world of media advertising, the measures which determined whether a media channel was worth it or not were ‘reach’ (the percentage of a particular audience that the medium delivered), ‘profile’ (the composition of that audience expressed against its total number), and cost per thousand (how much it might cost a client per thousand of readers that were delivered).
The glut of digital media has changed all that. All three metrics have been effectively devalued by the absence of uniformly accepted measures of ‘reach’.
Now it’s ‘click-thrus’ and ‘viewability’, while CPT can be anything you want it to be.
While the amount of content that we have access to has grown exponentially, the brain’s ability to process that information hasn’t changed from the time we were chasing mammoths. That’s why the metric du jour is now ‘attention’.
Estimates measuring the number of advertising messages that people are exposed to weekly are imprecise, but most guesses are in the thousands. Attention is a finite resource, and in a media world where there is a seemingly endless sea of content, attention is a scarcity.
To have any influence on an audience, an advertiser has to gain attention. However, most advertisers appear to be paying for space with vanity ads rather than paying for attention. It shouldn’t be hard to stand out in that sea of sameness by paying attention and respect to your audience.
Damien Wilson’s eye-catching climate graphic
That’s what Allianz appeared to do with their advertising for ‘Climate Safe Homes’. It might be a bit light on copy, but the creation of a unique visual as the centrepiece of the execution certainly caught my attention. And that’s worth paying for.
The campaign was created by Allianz’s in-house designer Damien Wilson, who during his career has worked with several large brands across FMCG, telcos and financial services. He joined Allianz in 2020, and works with the market management team as a print, digital and experiential designer.
As part of Allianz’s Climate Safe Homes project, the insurer is bringing together stakeholders from construction, engineering, architecture, academia, and other associated industries to accelerate climate adaptive home building in Ireland. The aim is to help deliver a new climate resilient home building model designed specifically to withstand changing weather patterns.
When Allianz launched its Climate Safe Homes campaign in April 2023, Wilson had recently completed the design of the Allianz sustainability brochure and was familiar with Allianz’s sustainability initiatives. For the campaign Allianz has used PR, social media and print, and infographics and statics were created in-house too.
Peter McPartlin is co-founder of The Indie List, Ireland’s leading source of freelance marketing, creative and digital talent. The Best in Business Advertising award is presented quarterly, with the winner receiving a Tipperary Crystal trophy. To submit B2B print ads for award consideration, email Siobhán O’Connell in Business Plus: siobhan. oconnell@ dmgmedia.ie