Marketers know that digital content can be a potent pill for success but struggle to consistently unlock its full potential to drive long-term brand equity and a willingness to pay more for your brand than other alternatives. Digital's full power is unleashed when effective, targeted digital ads are an integral linked part of a COHESIVE campaign.

I am no lexicographer, but I choose that word intentionally. Cohesive is a derivative of the Latin verb haerēre that means "to be closely attached; to stick." When teamed up with the prefix co- to form cohaerēre, it means "to stick together" either literally (such as delicious fruit scone dough…nom nom) or figuratively (such as a society or sports team). Clearly a concept that contributes to making life happy!

The happiness that cohesion brings extends beyond deliciousness and social interactions; it is a word that will also make your CFO very happy. Evidence from Kantar’s global cross media database shows that campaigns that are cohesive are 31% more effective, AND when you tailor ads to work where people will experience on top of that the gains increase even further to 57%!

You may already think of this as synergy. I much prefer cohesive, or to be truly honest asking whether your campaigns have got glue, are they sticky in the ways that matter? Here are my three tips to increase the effectiveness of your marketing by making it COHESIVE or sticky!

Be clear on what you want to stick!

Brands grow by being meaningfully different to more people. Digital ads, like every brand encounter, are an effective way to build and consolidate all these associations, but only if you design that in from the outset. Are your briefs focussed on short-term outcomes or are they truly brand centric?

Whilst you will remember every detail of your ads, nobody else cares that much. They will remember the gist of it or the most memorable moment – what we call the creative magnifier. The secret to creating effective ads is to ensure that your brand and what you want people to think and feel about it intuitively links to that creative magnifier.

Create digital content that not only grabs attention, but also sticks in people’s minds and creates memories.

Although you may worry that your audience, like goldfish, have a short attention span, to succeed you need to tap into everything that makes them human! Leo Burnett famously said, “Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” Insatiable curiosity is also characteristic of the most effective marketers. Humans FEEL first. We pay attention to things that make us feel something and mostly we want to feel good and live happy, enjoyable, and fulfilling lives.

·       Are you creating digital content that sticks in people’s minds – are your ads meaningful, emotive, creative, and entertaining?

·       Are you tapping into the cultural pulse and shaping it? Or are you an unwelcome disruption that triggers the skip?

·       Are people going to disconnect from your ads because you’ve overloaded them with too many messages or made it too hard for people to work out what’s going on?

Stick with what works and make it easy for disinterested human brains to stick it all together.

One of the best ways to increase the effectiveness of your campaigns, and the ROI from media investment overall, is to stick with an enduring creative platform. An idea that ensures your brand shows up in a consistent way that consolidates what makes your brand meaningfully different from others. Is it easy for people to stick all your ads together – digital and not – so you get that multiplier effect?

Nurofen is a fantastic example of how to crack cohesion – or what we might call the ‘connected creativity code’ – with its award-winning multi-channel, multi audience approach that has transformed the brand’s fortunes. As a result, Nurofen is closing the gender pain gap and truly changing lives. Join Efrain Ayala and me on Tuesday 2nd July, 11:20 on the Hexagon stage as we reveal how you can close the ‘effectiveness gap’ by unlocking creative effectiveness in a digital world.