Marketing Communications

254 CHAPTER 8 MEDIA PLANNING

six-week period. However, if the consumer does not always read the full newspaper and

occasionally omits the pages in which the ad appears, the actual number of times he or she

will be exposed to the message will be lower than six.

When deciding on the objective of how many times the target group has to be reached, a

first question that arises is: How often should a consumer be exposed to a message for it to

be effective? And how does a consumer respond to frequent exposures to the same message?

Research shows that advertising repetition initially increases learning, but may lead to bore-

dom and irritation later.^4 According to the two-factor model, an inverted-U relationship exists

between the level of exposure on the one hand, and advertising effectiveness (cognitive

responses, attitudes, purchase) on the other (Figure 8.3). Wear-in and wear-out effects explain

the nature of this relationship.^5 At low levels of exposure, consumers develop rather negative

responses (e.g. counter-arguments) due to the novelty of the stimulus. After a few exposures,

the reaction becomes more positive. This is referred to as wear-in. More frequent exposures

again lead to more negative responses, a phenomenon called wear-out. Negative responses,

such as irritation, can be expected to be the highest both at low and high exposure levels,

while positive responses are optimal at intermediate exposure levels. One way to counter or

delay the wear-out effect is to make minor changes to the ad so that the consumer is not

exposed to the same ad over and over again or to use executional cues that evoke positive

emotional responses.^6 One study shows that in cases where consumers process messages in a

superficial or shallow way (e.g. when they are hardly aware of the fact that there is an ad),

wear-out may not occur at all.^7

Another way of thinking about advertising repetition lies in the economic signalling theory,

which assumes that consumers take advertising repetition as a signal of the quality of a brand.

In this view, higher advertising costs signal greater manufacturer effort and higher manufac-

turer confidence and trust in quality.^8 In other words, consumers think that if a manufacturer

is willing to spend a lot of money on advertising, it must be convinced that it will get the

money back in the long run. The latter is only possible if consumers not only try, but also

repurchase the product, which can only occur with a high-quality product. However, at

extremely high levels of repetition, consumers find the advertising expenses excessive. At

that point, people think something must be wrong, and perceptions about the advertising

company as well as about the quality level of the brand deteriorate. It is interesting to note

that the attitude towards the ad seems to wear out more quickly than the perception of

brand quality.^9 In this sense, repetition beyond ad wear-out can make sense.

Figure 8.3 Ad frequency and ad effectiveness

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