Is my TV commercial still effective? How to know when it is time to change your advert.

Tuesday, 07 June 2011

You will have noticed that some TV commercials are broadcast so many times that they reach the point where you wish somebody would change the creative. It may even have happened to one of your campaigns. The question is, how do you know when your advert is no longer effective and you are better off changing it?

We all know that the effect of an ad is finite, that after a certain number of exposures to the ad, the additional effect will be negligible. This phenomenon is generally known as diminishing returns. If you repeat an ad over and over again, consumers will at some point start to dislike the ad or get bored by it. In other words, your ad will eventually wear out.

Pointlogic has built a new tool, which works over the internet and is called Range-Life, to combine both diminishing returns and wear-out effects, enabling clients to determine the optimal frequency range as well as the point where the ad will start wearing out.

One of Range-Life’s outputs is a response curve specific to the campaign at hand (see an example below). Based on this response curve, which includes diminishing returns, the optimal frequency range can be determined. In a second stage this information will be used to determine the wear-out of the commercial.

Figure 1: example of response curve

The tool can be configured to your market based on market data and expert knowledge gathered during a workshop. From this information we determine the relationship between wear-out and diminishing returns. Basically, the idea is that wear-out can be split into two effects:
1. Diminishing returns (again) – beyond a certain point (number of contacts) an additional contact is no longer effective as the commercial has reached its maximum potential effect (increase of awareness, change in attitude, call to action, etc).
2. Likeability effect – beyond a certain point (number of contacts) people will start disliking the ad. Although the full potential effect may not have been reached yet, the effectiveness of the ad will decrease.

We have determined a set of variables that influence both effects. For example, diminishing returns are affected by the brand’s position and status in the market. A dominant position will mean reaching the ad’s full potential more quickly because the start level of brand awareness is already high. This means that diminishing returns will start earlier. In turn, the effectiveness of your ad will decrease at an earlier stage because of the wear-out effect. Likewise, the creative will have a large influence on the likeability effect. For example, if the mood of the ad fits the brand, people tend to like the ad more and the ad starts wearing out later.

There are also variables that influence both the diminishing returns as well as the likeability effect. The resulting effect on wear-out could even be conflicting, and to some extent they could neutralise each other. For example, in the case of a campaign for a typical low-involvement category such as insurance, contacts will be less effective in comparison to a high-involvement category such as cars. As a result, diminishing returns and, in turn, the wear-out effect will start later. On the other hand, people tend to get bored sooner by ads for insurance than for cars, meaning that likeability will decrease and wear-out will kick in earlier.

The user fills in a Q&A section about the campaign and the Range-Life tool then takes this and the various effects mentioned above into account to advise on the optimal frequency range and wear-out for your specific campaign.

Figure 2: example of wear-out effect

In combination with your flighting schedule, the tool will show when the ad starts wearing out and when you should be thinking of replacing the ad or lowering the GRP pressure, which would delay the wear-out effect.

Figure 3: example of flighting and wear-out effect

Figure 3 above shows that, in this illustration, ad wear-out starts in week 4. This means that you should either reduce the GRP pressure or use a new creative execution to avoid your campaign from becoming less effective.

In summary, Range-Life enables you to answer questions on diminishing returns and wear-out of television advertisements in a rational and structured way. If you would like to have a better understanding of when you should replace your ad, feel free to contact us and we can explore how Range-Life may fit your requirements.

To find out more contact Marcel van der Kooi ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).