62 / 112
60 •
PPB
• NOVEMBER 2015
THINK
FAST FORWARD
Still Livin’ The Dream
Ever come home from a full day of
work knowing you should eat well, but
you just order pizza instead? Coined
by a social psychologist, decision
fatigue—or ego depletion—results
from a lack of mental energy required
for decision-making activities. The more
decisions you have to make in a day,
the less likely your later decisions will
be good ones.
You can fight decision fatigue in a
few ways:
1. Make daily decisions (the repeti-
tive ones) the night before.
Decide what you’ll wear, what you’ll
eat and when to run those impor-
tant errands.
2. Do the most important task first.
Whatever needs the most attention
and deserves your best decision-
making skills should be tackled
before anything else.
3. Turn decisions into commitments.
Make a point of prioritizing tasks by
writing them down; schedule them
on your calendar if you have to.
4. Eat something before you make a
decision.
If you have to decide
something important at the end of
the day, eat first. The extra nutri-
ents fuel your brain and fortify your
decision-making power.
5. Simplify.
If the task list seems over-
whelming, it probably is. Can you
move a task to another day? Can
you break it into smaller steps? Can
you delegate a task, or strike it
entirely? Do it. Eliminating deci-
sions lessens fatigue and the likeli-
hood of a poor outcome.
BIZWORDS
Decision Fatigue
BRANDABLE
In an age of success on a global
scale, is the American Dream alive
and well? Western Union banked on
it, building a branding and digital
marketing strategy that centers on
the embodiment of the American
Dream and how to achieve it. The
campaign targets Americans with
friends and family living abroad, a
demographic the company has
coined “dual-belongers.”
The money-transfer service
launched a YouTube video that
highlighted Americans speaking
about their American Dreams, and it
also developed dedicated web pages
that offer advice on how to achieve
the American Dream. These promo-
tions, along with the company’s
Western Union American Dream
Sweepstakes, were tied in to social
media postings on the company’s
Facebook and Twitter accounts.
By July of this year, Western
Union had recorded a 1,705-percent
total engagement rate—the compa-
ny’s social community responded to
the campaign with nearly 19,000
‘likes’ on Facebook, as well as 839
shares and 714 comments. YouTube
viewers reported finding the video
inspirational and positive.
AD-ITIVES
LookingTo Data To Drive Creative
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. ad agencies are letting the numbers tell them how to
design their digital ads, according to a recent poll conducted by ad platform provider
Jivox. The goal? To increase brand engagement, respondents say. And it appears the
use of data to customize ad creative has worked.Thirty-nine percent reported seeing
increased click-through rates.
The most popular type of data used by respondents was demographic information,
at just over 58 percent. More than half the respondents also applied device location
data to their creative strategies.