Grit Makes a Better Case for Trial

A campaign about resolve, discipline and overcoming obstacles might appear built to reinforce loyalty: stick with the plan, stay the course, keep going.

Newly highlighted research points in another direction. Advertising that evokes grit can make people more willing to try an unfamiliar option rather than default to the one they usually choose. For brands trying to win trial, that is a more useful distinction than the broad claim that an emotional campaign ‘inspires’ an audience.

The study, recently featured by the Advertising Research Foundation, combines a field study with three experiments. Its central finding is counterintuitive but commercially plausible: perseverance-oriented messages can trigger a promotion-focused mindset. People become more attentive to possible gains and, consequently, more open to exploration.

Trial needs a different emotional brief

Marketers often treat switching as a problem to solve with price, product superiority or disruption. Those matter. But the research suggests the emotional frame around the decision also matters.

A challenger does not always need to tell an audience that its current choice is inadequate. In some categories, that can make the decision feel risky or defensive. A creative idea centred on progress, ambition or the satisfaction of pursuing a better outcome may instead make trying feel consistent with the consumer’s own self-image.

This is not an argument for filling every category with montages of early-morning training, determined faces and exhortations to work harder. Grit is not an aesthetic. It is a psychological cue, and it has a specific job: helping an audience see exploration as a route to improvement.

That makes the approach potentially relevant to categories where the customer is capable of changing behaviour but needs a reason to interrupt habit: a new food or drink line, a different fitness service, a challenger financial product, a new software workflow or an unfamiliar travel choice.

Loyalty campaigns should be careful

The same finding contains a warning. A brand whose immediate task is retention should not assume a grit-based message will strengthen repeat purchase. If perseverance language encourages people to seek the best available outcome, it may inadvertently make comparison and experimentation feel attractive.

Creative strategy therefore needs to begin with the behavioural objective, not the desired brand tone. Is the campaign meant to prompt a first purchase, encourage repertoire expansion, defend an established choice or reward commitment? ‘Motivation’ is too vague an answer.

This is where research can prevent an appealing creative platform from being given the wrong commercial role. Concept testing should measure not only liking, memorability and claimed relevance, but also whether the work changes willingness to try, likelihood of switching and confidence in the existing choice. Those are not interchangeable effects.

Make the invitation concrete

The practical application is less about adopting the language of grit than pairing a progress-oriented message with a low-friction first action. Sampling, a starter version, an introductory service tier or a clearly bounded trial can give the audience somewhere to direct that newly activated appetite for improvement.

For challenger brands, the strongest version of this idea may be simple: do not frame trial as disloyalty to the familiar. Frame it as the behaviour of someone prepared to look for a better answer.

That proposition still needs validating in the category, with the intended audience and against a genuine alternative creative route. But it offers a valuable corrective to the assumption that determination only keeps customers where they are. In advertising, it may also be what gets them moving.