Don't turn your advertising into chemical warfare

Innocently based on the premise that one of the most important components of television advertising is frequency, there is an increasing tendency to replace a controlled flow of messaging for a raging tsunami. It is probably also some sort of desperate knee-jerk reaction to the ever-present challenge of not being noticed among the intense clutter.

In fact, some of it is so bad it has the same effect on viewers as rapid bursts of toxic gas sprayed into the living room.

Bad reaction

There is a reason why I have chosen the chemical warfare analogy for overdone advertising frequency because advertisers can't see, touch or smell the danger.

Neither can the consumer until it's too late and they react badly to what they're being exposed to during a commercial break.

This phenomenon is particularly evident during prime time screenings of weekly serials such as CSI, Downtown Abbey, Grey's Anatomy and other popular, high viewership programmes.

Week after week, viewers are not only exposed to the same repetitive opening and closing billboards but even worse, excruciating flighting of the same 30 or 60 second commercials over and over again.

I cannot tell you how many emails I get from friends, family and even complete strangers complaining about how intrinsically good commercials start getting on their nerves after weeks of endless repetition. People annoyed enough to swear blind that they will just stop buying whatever product it is that causes them such grief. And that is not an overstatement.

Sickeningly PC

And with in-store marketing so important these days, the last thing one wants is for a consumer to have a nightmarish flashback when they see your product on the shelves.

In marketing audits that I conduct, there seems always to be a complete lack of awareness of this phenomenon by clients and particularly within their ad agencies and media buyers.

A classic example of this is a commercial for car windscreens that appears in every commercial break of a popular series. (No I can't remember the brand or the programme, but I will start keeping notes from now on.)

In the first break it features a white family in a car, all of them wearing cycling helmets with the message being that you don't have to protect yourself to the extreme if your car is fitted with whatever brand it was. The next commercial break features precisely the same ad but this time with a black family all wearing headgear. An identical ad to the first one but just a different colour people.

Not only is this commercial irritating a lot of people with its weekly burst of toxic repetition but it is also painfully politically correct. Annoyingly and insultingly so. A lot of people I know have PVR's and record most of their favourite shows and even though they are able to fast forward through the ads, those repetitive monstrosities still manage to annoy them.

Of course one answer would be to ensure that a series of ads is produced to break the monotony, but with the cost of producing a TV commercials often being more expensive to produce per minute than a Hollywood blockbuster movie, it is small wonder clients try and make one commercial become all things to all men.

Tragic waste

It is little wonder that so many billions of rands are wasted on ill-conceived marketing in South Africa, because so many of those who create advertising and place it are simply unaware of the fact that they are involved in the equivalent of deploying Sarin gas on their target markets.

20% of all advertising in South Africa not only doesn't work but has a negative effect on the brands being promoted. This insane strategy of ultra-high frequency bursts is one reason for that.