Intriguing, mysterious and memorable - a well-prepared teaser ad is a great way to reach customers. It is an excellent support for promotional activities and an original element of building a brand image. What exactly is teaser advertising? And why is it worth using?
What is teaser advertising?
You are bored scrolling through the news on Facebook. You see a lot of not very interesting posts. Every now and then you come across an advertisement that you completely don't care for. However, at some point, an unusual post from a certain company catches your attention. You stop, watch, read the message it contains. The content does not reveal anything specific, and at the same time is extremely intriguing. You are consumed by curiosity what this may be about. You are looking for information on the Internet, but you do not find anything specific. This mysterious post appears everywhere. From time to time you check the company's social media and follow its activities. You are waiting for the sequel. For any explanation. Until you finally find out that the post was part of a carefully planned ad campaign. Surprised?
Teaser advertising is an unusual type promotional campaign. First of all, in any channel there is material that aims to arouse the interest of the recipient. The message must intrigue, affect emotions and imagination, provoke thought - it should arouse in the consumer the desire to discover its secret piece by piece. The second stage is presenting the proper message, i.e. revealing the real idea of the first message. This is the grand finale of the campaign - the consumer gets to know the ending of the story. The second stage may take place even several months after the premiere of the first communiqué.
A few words about the history of teaser ads
Teasers were first heard about in the 1980s. At one point, billboards presenting a model dressed in a swimsuit began to appear on the streets of France. The photo read: "I'll take the top off in a week." As promised, a week later, the French could see the same woman on new billboards, but with her back turned, without the promised bikini top. This time it said, "I'll take the pit down in a week." The message aroused considerable interest - practically the whole country talked about it. The audience was intrigued by the new form of advertising. They wondered what it was about. What a surprise it was when the advertisement turned out to be ... a promotion of the cream!
The campaign was a real breakthrough in the marketing world. Promotional activities have taken on a different dimension - today brands are more and more willing to use unusual forms of advertising.
Why is the teaser working?
Ads attack consumers from all sides. Did you get hooked by the movie? Time for advertising! Are you listening to your favorite radio station? A few minutes of a break will not hurt! Or maybe you are browsing the internet in search of interesting content? After all, nothing will happen if you come across a sponsored post every now and then, right? Ads are everywhere. Many of them are incredibly irritating to the audience. Slogans such as "just now, the only such opportunity", "promotion especially for you" or "check out our new, innovative product" do not work for consumers. Today's recipients want something more - they need additional stimuli that will provide them with new experiences. They will interest them, cause quite consternation, and at the same time - they will not be intrusive. In today's world of marketing, the principle of "close the door to me, I will enter through the window" does not work. Today, what matters is creativity, subtlety and the unconventional.
And that's what teaser advertising is like! Teaser does not impose content, does not attack consumers with intrusive promotion. Instead, it delicately arouses their interest - it intrigues, fascinates and moves the imagination.
Teaser advertising encourages consumers to discuss and thus creates a natural buzz around the brand. In addition, it creates a great bond between the brand and the consumer. Due to the specific form of the message, each recipient may feel as if it was directed exclusively at him. Such a mechanism strengthens the feeling of unity with the brand and builds trust.
Teasers in the times of social media
Social media rules in contemporary marketing. Many brands have proved that they can be used to implement incredibly effective and very effective advertising activities - even with a small budget. Social media is a great place to lead teaser campaign. Interesting posts on social media can generate really large reach. All because of the popularity of social media among today's consumers. Facebook alone is used by over 20 million Poles. Added to this is Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, which has been incredibly popular recently. Creative, carefully prepared teaser advertising will spread like a virus on social media, reaching thousands or even millions of recipients.
The potential of teasers in social media was used by, among others Taylor Swift to promote his album "1989". Every day the singer published excerpts from the lyrics of her new songs (some posts were enriched with pictures painted by Swift). The singer's fans enjoyed this personal content. The first post was liked by over 530 thousand. people, and the next generated ranges from 360 to even 600 thousand. The campaign was quite successful. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 list. What's more, in the first week after its premiere, it was bought by over 1,200,000 people - and only in the US!
Teaser advertising - a handful of examples from our backyard
Lech was a pioneer of teaser ads on the Polish market. The brand used this promotional technique as early as the beginning of the 90s. It started to post billboards on the streets of Polish cities with the surprising slogan "I am green". Only after some time it turned out that the message concerned beer.
The Heyah campaign from 2004 also deserves a mention. At one point, posters with a red paw appeared all over the country. Literally a moment later, they were replaced with slogans such as: "Do not go to the seaside", "Do not leave the house", or "Watch out for the hosts". A bit scary, right? Today, bearing in mind what happened in 2020, we would probably think it was another pandemic. Fortunately, the solution was not a virus that was dangerous to people, but ... the Heyah brand! She was the "threat" against which they had been so intensely warned. The campaign finale revealed that Heyah is like an epidemic, because it spreads quickly through users in the operator's network.
A promotional campaign by Maślanka Mrągowska was an extremely interesting teaser. In the first phase of the campaign, billboards with the slogan “I'm not just anyone. I don't eat just anything ”or with a shortened version of“ I'm not just anybody ”. The slogans were accompanied by black and white photos of ordinary people - like us. The second stage of the campaign was the replacement of black and white posters with color photographs enriched with the slogan "I do not eat anything for dinner". Additionally, the billboards feature the logo and the brand's product. So solemn and cryptic advertising for a theoretically simple, ordinary article? Maybe it is a bit exaggerated, but you undoubtedly cannot deny the original character of the message.
Teaser advertising is an excellent form of promotion that works perfectly during product launch, launching a new brand on the market or rebranding an existing brand. Teaser builds tension, creates publicity and awakens the imagination. Carefully prepared will undoubtedly ensure your market success!