We counsel our clients to repeat, repeat, repeat: Get a good message and stick with it—in print, digital, and spoken communications. Show In fact, we often say that someone needs to hear a message 14 times before they will take action based on that message. I recently went looking for the original source material for that fact. We’d initially heard the “14 times rule” as an adage in advertising and wondered if prevailing wisdom—especially in an age of social media—had changed. The term for the number of times someone has to hear a message before acting on it is called “effective frequency.” So what’s the effective frequency for your organization’s message? While there is a lot of conflicting information out there, everyone agrees on one thing: Repeating your message is a good thing. I found this from a blog American Express publishes for its business customers: So how frequent must your communications be to reach and activate your audience? Long-standing research in advertising tells us that it takes three to seven impressions before a message registers. A frequency of fewer than three messages is a waste of money. But a frequency beyond seven continues to have a cumulative benefit; diminishing returns doesn’t set in for a good while. You’ll get tired of your ads long before your prospect does. We agree. That’s what we tell our nonprofit clients who worry that their message is getting stale, or that a donor who hears the exact same message from everyone she talks to is going to be bored at best and suspicious at most. Don’t confuse your boredom with hers: She’s not paying nearly as much attention to your communications as you wish she were. From a blog on The Financial Brand we found this: Marketing experts like to debate the “right ways” to calculate effective frequency. Some say repeating a message three times will work, while many believe the “Rule of 7″ applies. There was a study from Microsoft investigating the optimal number of exposures required for audio messages. They concluded between 6 and 20 was best. This was oft quoted in my reading: The 1st time people look at an ad, they don’t see it. This is even more interesting when you note that it was written in 1885. If you really think about, people haven’t changed much. But the amount of information coming at us has. One research abstract we found had this to say on message frequency: Studies suggest that repeated statements are perceived as more truthful than statements made less frequently, “presumably because repetition imbues the statement with familiarity.” In simple terms: Frequency breeds familiarity, and familiarity breeds trust. Similarly, studies show that repeated exposure to an opinion makes people believe the opinion is more prevalent, even if the source of that opinion is only a single person. So not only do consumers remember a statement that gets repeated, they are more likely to believe it, and think it is the popular opinion. In summary, we could not find a study that unequivocally claimed the “14 times rule”, but the general takeaway is that a frequency of between 7 and 20 is needed. And since there’s no empirical data that gets more precise than the “14 times rule”, we’re sticking with it. If you’re a nonprofit, no matter how large or small your budget, the most powerful tool at your disposal is disciplined repetition of a compelling set of key messages. These messages should be used by everyone who speaks and writes about your organization and its work. What you lack in the ability to target your audience with paid advertising, you can make up for with consistent repetition in your everyday communications over time. We want to know what you think. What effective frequency have you applied to your communications? *Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2015 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness. How many ads is the average person exposed to?How many advertisements is a person exposed to in a day in 2022? According to marketing experts, the average person sees between 4,000 and 10,000 ads in a single day.
How often are we exposed to advertising?Fast forward to 2021, and although there are no official figures, the average person is now estimated to encounter between 6,000 to 10,000 ads every single day.
Is the number of times an average person is exposed to the advertising message?In advertising, the effective frequency is the number of times a person must be exposed to an advertising message before a response is made and before exposure is considered wasteful. The subject on effective frequency is quite controversial. Many people have their own definition on what this phrase means.
How many ads per day does a person see?Back in 2007, market research firm Yankelovich ran a survey of 4,110 people and find out that an average person sees up to 5,000 adverts every day. Today, that number is even higher and the average person sees around 10,000 ads per day, though only a quarter of that or less will be relevant.
|