Combating Ad Fatigue

An interesting piece from the Wall Street Journal earlier this week examining the challenge marketers face in making sure that their advertisement's don't run too often in one medium so as to turn consumers off. Advertising wear-out - as it is called - has been researched primarily in the television commercial format, leading to conclusions that an ad can be viewed 3 to 25 times before losing its effectiveness, or can be brought back in the original format after being off air for at least 12 weeks and regain its initial effectiveness. The short of the article being that maximum reach and success require creative ways of adapting a single creative work across multiple mediums and formats. Nothing mind-blowing there.

However, for us music marketers, it is interesting to take up the question of consumer fatigue as relates to the job we're trying to do. In our business, the music itself is always the biggest marketing tool, and everyone is familiar with the concept of a song being "played out." Still, leading up to an album's release, our focus becomes getting a song played on as many music channels, sites, and radio stations and formats, and anywhere else, as much as possible. We aren't in the business of managing against listener fatigue, and I don't think we ever will be. But as we continue to play with questions for how long to lead with a single to radio before an album's release date, or whether to make a radio single available for download at first detection, it may be worthwhile to consider listener fatigue as affects purchase behavior during different time periods of song exposure.