The 4th of July is just around the corner and so that means we will be seeing a lot of American flags, fireworks, barbecues and promotions in time for the day. Although some may feel alienated by patriotic ads, a belief is held that patriotic ads, particularly with the use of the American flag, cultural and historic events, and patriotic colors, may be beneficial. Patriotism is strong in the United States, and so patriotic themes in ads help companies create a connection with m any consumers. If a consumer feels an emotional connection to a brand’s messaging, they will react positively towards the brand. Of course, it is more beneficial if patriotism is engrained in the company’s DNA, rather than disingenuously flaunted prior to the 4th of July. Some brands that Americans consider to be most patriotic are Jeep, Coca-Cola, Disney and Ralph Lauren.
According to Sastry Rachakonda, CEO of digital marketing agency iQuanti, brands should opt for a quantitative approach using analytics to examine issues such as:
• Analyzing search trends on patriotism.
• Modeling data to find the correlation between a given brand and patriotism.
• Mining the customer base to do a demographic match and understand patriotic propensity.
• Projecting the potential impact from positive/negative perspectives.
It is important to understand the audience and take advantage of data analytics to determine whether a brand is successfully connecting to the consumers. By looking at digital data from previous campaigns, a company can indicate whether or not patriotic content performs well with consumers.
