Several of the advertisers who bought large packages of advertising in association with the recent Australian Open did themselves a massive disservice.
The ‘Exposure Effect’ is a double-edged sword.
We are more likely to be positively impacted by things with which we are familiar and comfortable. That is how advertising works. However, the flip side is that we also become bored and potentially contemptuous of those things with which we are extremely familiar and dismiss them.
Colloquially, we refer to this as ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’.
The marketing wallies at ANZ ignored, or perhaps more likely did not understand, this flip side of the ‘exposure effect’. They were persuaded to spend up big on ad spots by channel 9 sales executives in the mistaken understanding that ‘more is better’.
Those who watched the Open were probably at least sports fans if not specifically tennis fans, and they probably watched a lot of the tennis.
The negative impact of the exposure effect can come into play as early as after 5-7 exposures to an advertisement. Most of the viewers would have got that in the first hour or so of watching, after which, the familiarity desired by the advertiser, risked becoming something else entirely.
Diminishing returns from the advertising investment.
The ANZ advertising was grossly overexposed. The use of Dylan Alcott being introduced by the hosts ‘mucking around’ with his phone, seemed to be in almost every ad break.
Clearly the ANZ made a significant investment. It would have been much better used if some of that investment had been directed towards a variety of creative executions of their brand, rather than being all the same quickly boring, becoming really annoying, execution.
Personally, I became so annoyed, had I an account with the ANZ, I might have run down to the branch and closed it, as doing business with a bank that wasted so much money does not seem to be a good idea.
Not the impact I assume their naive marketing people were hoping for.
Don’t worry. ANZ is well ahead of you closing its branches. They close the branches to pay for the over the top ads
Yes, Another double edged sword: close branches to make the person to person engagement more difficult to save a few dollars, while pissing dollars up against a failed ad strategy.
I think they need someone who understands human behaviour to take them behind the dunney and beat some sense into them.