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by surfaceTensi0n 3724 days ago
In advertising there is a concept called effective frequency which is, essentially, how many times someone needs to be exposed to your ad before they make a purchase. This is tied pretty directly to the complexity of your message. The more complex your message, the higher the effective frequency and the more times people need to be exposed to your ad before they buy your product. Hence the tendency towards easily assimilated ideas like you mention.
1 comments
dredmorbius 3724 days ago
I'm starting to think I need to look at advertising theory some more. Ugh.

Thanks for the comment though, pretty much as I'd suspected.

Another note: if the frequency is too high in any one period of time, I suspect there's burnout. Political advertising seems to hit this point -- a friend in a heavily campaigned state a few years back used to respond to candidate spots with "F--- you <name>" when yet another of the multiple-times-an-hour ads would sound.

You need repetitions, but also spacing.

There's also ... I forget the name, but "Pass the Biscuits, Pappy", a 1930s / 1940s Texas politician. Ended up governor, before getting caught up in a corruption scandal. Early name recognition came from his fame as a bluegrass / popular music performer.

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soared 3723 days ago
You are bordering on some basic advertising theory! Seeing an ad too often has a negative effect. So depending on your industry, you advertise with different strategies. My favorite example is beer. They advertise year round, but pretty low key. You'll see maybe one or two beer ads a week. But when certain events occur (superbowl, spring break, holidays, etc) they ramp up advertising and you'll see two to three a day.

Its different for each industry though, some do 90% of spend for the holidays.

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surfaceTensi0n 3723 days ago
Even before you get to burnout you get saturation where more advertising yields lower returns. There is a whole industry around advertising analytics and helping advertisers figure out how to allocate their budgets for maximum penetration without wasting money on saturated audiences.

If you're interested in some advertising theory, give Media Planning: A Practical Guide by Jim Surmanek[0] a shot. It's short and pretty accessible.

[0] - http://amzn.to/1Q7mGVe

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