One More Time - Your Customers Aren’t Bored, YOU Are.
Marketing Unfiltered 72 → What To Learn From Viral Hits & Brand Patience
Good morning leaders, welcome to the return of winter 🥶
Today we have Paul Thomas returning for his second instalment on Marketing Unfiltered serving up a great reminder - maybe we get bored of our ads before our customers do…
One More Time - Your Customers Aren’t Bored, YOU Are.
There’s an advertising concept I’ve always been sceptical of called “wear out”. The theory is that after a while, ads become less effective as audiences get bored of them.
But if that’s the case, why are Jet2 still using “Darling Hold My Hand” nine years on - and why has it just gone viral on TikTok with over a million uses of the sound?
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
The ad that supposedly should have worn out years ago is now soundtracking millions of videos and being parodied live at Jess Glynne concerts.
What if there are vested interests at work here? Because agency commercial models have tended to be linked to production rather than creativity and value, it’s no surprise there’s a push to keep doing new work. As one analysis put it, wear-out “seems like a practical reason to be able to bill for new projects on a regular basis.”
The evidence backs this up. System1 tested 50,000 ads - some very soon after launch, others up to 7,000 days later. If wear-out were real, older ads would score worse. They didn’t.
Analytic Partners ran a similar analysis and found that of 50,000 campaigns pulled for showing wear-out, only 14 were actually experiencing it.
Mark Ritson’s verdict:
“Consumers don’t get tired of ads. Only advertisers do.”
History Repeats Itself
In my first job at HMV I must have heard “Fields of Gold - The Best of Sting” nearly a thousand times across December. No amount of staff pleading could get the in-store CD changed. Why? Because each hour, new customers heard it and bought it.
In subsequent roles I’ve pulled my hair out at perfectly good campaigns being changed because “it feels like it’s time to move on”, or “we’ve been pitched a great idea”, or a new CMO or agency wants to make their mark. It’s wasteful, vain, and bonkers.
I got another reminder at a recent Run For Cover gig. Sweet Caroline - half the band rolls their eyes when it’s on the setlist. As usual, it brought the house down.
They’re not bored of it. You are.
And it’s not just external messaging that this applies to. At EE and Hyperoptic both organisations had a clear “North Star” purpose.
The problem with these strategic goals is that they tend not to change much and progress often isn’t measured in weeks or even months.
The temptation creeps in to “talk about something else” at the all hands or annual company kick off. But, especially where the organisation has a large front line contingent of engineers and customer service call centres, a consistent message around connecting everyone everywhere or bringing full fibre to millions of homes across the UK shouldn’t get old.
Sure, you might remix the delivery for freshness but the vision bears repetition. Just because the privileged few in HQ are tired of hearing it doesn’t mean those with proper jobs are.
Test It
So before deciding something’s worn out check whether the problem is actually you. What’s the data saying? Have you swallowed the myth of wear-out? Pound for pound, making existing assets work harder is likely to give a better ROI than prematurely creating new ones.
If this resonates, it’s exactly the kind of commercial challenge I work through with clients at pro-spective. Sometimes the highest-value thing a fresh pair of eyes can do is tell you to stop changing things and help you get more from what’s already working. If you’d like to explore that, feel free to drop me a message.
Read Paul’s First MU Article ⬇️
Thanks for reading again today and have a great weekend!
Danny & Harry