In modern business world, competition among each brand and product has become keener. Also, nowadays consumers expose to hundreds of advertisements every day, it’s vital how to use advertisements catch the audience attention immediately and help them memorize it in mind. Showing the product and listing all its features in the first ad is not surprising to consumer now. Therefore; some companies use a little trick in their ad and commercial campaign which they believe can seize more attention. One of the popular ways is teaser campaign.

A teaser campaign is an advertising campaign which typically consists of a series of small, cryptic advertisements that foresee a larger, well-developed campaign for a product launch or otherwise important event. These advertisements are called “teasers” or “teaser ads”. A teaser campaign may be a short trailer or print ad that is used to advertise an upcoming product, and is usually launched long in advance of the product, so as to “tease” the audience. The advertisement above was a print ad from Petax. We can clearly see that in the middle of the picture is a shadow of a camera, but we can’t see its actual appearance.

Pentax has launched this teaser campaign in order to draw attention to its upcoming medium format digital camera. At that moment, little is known about the body, except that it will be officially unveiled at the CP+ trade show that takes place from 11-14 March 2010. On its official website, consumers can see the countdown car at the left, as well as the date that it would be showed to the public, and this campaign had increasing the expectation for the new camera. An effective teaser campaign uses separate clues and hints to demand the attention of their audience.

The main advantage of teaser ad is that it creates excitement and a sense of intrigue in the audience which may result in better engagement. Marketers use teaser ads to break the clutter and build excitement. Although teaser ads provoke curiosity among the viewers, it is a risky strategy, because in teaser ads, there is virtually no identification of the brand. The brand name is exposed only at the end of the series. Hence there is a chance that consumers will associate the teaser campaigns with a competing brand or even an unrelated brand.

There is a chance that the competitor taking advantage of teaser campaigns. There are also instances where the follow-up campaign fails to sustain the interest generated by the teasers. Since the follow-up campaigns will be based on the teasers, there has to be extra efforts to make teasers more visible. The advertisements have to run across various media, costing more than common ads. To effectively make use of teaser campaigns, companies should have several requirements, and should also note few points in mind.

First of all, use strong and clear elements that can keep the audience curious and are related to their brand so that consumers can associate the ad as soon as they see it. Make sure the element can reinforce the identification in the upcoming ads. Secondly, take control of the time and choose the suitable media to reach maximum viewers. A long teaser campaign would give chance for your competitors to react, and might bore the viewers before they see the actual product. Finally, the following campaign is the focus and the climax should be worth all the excitement created.