Persuasive Advertising - J. Scott Armstrong [120]
To obtain additional information on these issues, we analyzed quasi-experimental data on print ads:
Print ads with product-related questions and good answers had better recall. Our WAPB analysis found 13 pairs of ads in which one ad posed product-related questions with good answers while the other did not. Recall for ads with product-related questions and good answers was 1.44 times better than for the other ads.
6.13. Repetition
I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.
Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark
If an ad keeps repeating a fact that is not true, will you start to believe it? According to Lenin, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” The Nazis used repetition to sell their philosophy. In a diary entry dated January 29, 1942, Joseph Goebbels, the German Nazi propaganda minister, wrote, “In the long run only he will achieve basic results in influencing public opinion who is able to reduce problems to the simplest terms and who has the courage to keep forever repeating them.” However, like Lenin, Goebbels overlooked conditions; repetition for high-involvement products should only be used when the arguments are strong because repetition eventually increases counter-arguments.
Repetition typically increases liking. Duracell repeated the Energizer Bunny for years, and people grew to love the bunny: So much so that when an ad by BMW showed that one of its automobiles had run over the bunny, there was a public outcry.
6.13.1. Space repeated claims
Oft-repeated advertisements … almost become friends which many readers like to see.
Daniel Starch, 1914
Repetition should be spaced out within an ad. It should also be spaced across time in a campaign.
Advertising experts Sutherland and Sylvester (2000) recommend that repetition should be spaced within an ad. This helps to keep a calm tone, especially if a high-involvement product is involved. Close repetition sounds aggressive. For example, in the mid-1800s, London advertisers used repetition widely. Messages such as “USE PETER’S SOAP” were repeated a hundred times in a newspaper column. Google AdWords prohibits immediate repetition, such as “low low prices.”
Repetition spaced across time is especially persuasive because people tend to forget that the messages are coming from a single source.
Repetition is effective for most advertising, as it keeps the product in mind. It is especially effective for products that are not familiar to the target market. Since the information is new, the target market might not hear it correctly the first time. In addition, repetition will make consumers feel more comfortable with the advertisement.
Repetition helps to ensure that the message is heard, comprehended, and remembered. This is especially important for ads aimed at an elderly market.
Repetition is expected to be especially persuasive for low-involvement products because people do not have their defenses up. It can do the same for credence products as the claims cannot be easily evaluated.
Repetition has long been used by advertisers. In the 1870s, Royal began advertising “Royal Baking Powder—absolutely pure,” and repeated it for decades. Repetition was used so much in advertising that it drew the ire of the public. For example, in1886, the London Times wrote: “The incessant witless repetition of advertisers’ moron-fodder has become so much a part of life that if we are not careful, we forget to be insulted by it.”
Evidence on the effects of repetition
A small-scale lab experiment used different levels of repetition for 30-second TV commercials for three high-involvement and three low-involvement products. The arguments did not appear to be strong. Repetition increased purchase intentions for the low-involvement products, but not for high-involvement ones (Batra and Ray 1986).
A lab experiment examined ad recall for 157 subjects, aged 21 to 88 (all of whom had passed a hearing test). The subjects listened to radio commercials about a bank cash card, a business-pages phone book,