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Episode 89

When Does Ad Fatigue Actually Matter?

36% of US brands and agencies cite frequency management as a top concern this year. And 81% of consumers unsubscribe when brands send too many messages. So when should you worry about showing your ads too many times?

Elena, Angela, and Rob explore what truly causes ad fatigue, why it's different from creative wear-out, and how to prevent both. Plus, hear surprising research on why positive ads wear out faster than negative ones and why video ads tend to cause less fatigue than static ads.

Topics Covered

• [01:00] Key stats on marketing fatigue across channels

• [03:00] The role of negative vs positive emotions in ad wear-out

• [06:00] What makes CTV a major offender for overly high frequency

• [09:00] The difference between creative wear-out and ad fatigue

• [14:00] Why the "first frequency" drives the most response

• [19:00] Favorite and most annoying ad jingles of all time

Resources:

2024 eMarketer Article

Today's Hosts

Elena Jasper

VP Marketing

Rob DeMars

Chief Product Architect

Angela Voss

CEO

Transcript

Angela: I think everyone would probably agree, even without a data set, that it makes sense that the more times you see an ad, probably the more likely you are to remember.

Elena: Hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research-first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions.

I'm Elena Jasper, I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects, and I'm joined by my co-hosts, Angela Voss, the CEO of Marketing Architects, and Rob DeMars, the Chief Product Architect of Marketing Architects.

Rob: Hello, y'all.

Angela: Hey, guys.

Elena: We're back with our thoughts on some recent marketing news, always trying to root our opinions in data research and what drives business results. Today, we're talking about ad fatigue, which is generally defined as your audience becoming less responsive to an ad campaign due to repeated exposure.

Today, we're going to share some research on ad fatigue, talk about when it becomes a problem, what you can do about it and more. And to tee us up, I chose some recent research from eMarketer. This is from an article titled "Five Key Stats on Marketing Fatigue on CTV, Email and Beyond,” and it's by Sarah Lebo.

The first stat is 36 percent of US brands and agencies cite frequency management as a top concern this year. Second, programmatic CTV ad spend forecasts were reduced by 1.37 billion this year due to frequency capping and measurement challenges. Third, in indirect channels like email and SMS, 81 percent of consumers unsubscribe if brands send too many messages.

Fourth, 35 percent of US adults find email marketing annoying when brands bombard them or it feels redundant. And fifth, 54 percent of consumers open marketing emails when they find them relevant or personalized. So those are just a couple of recent stats on the challenges of ad fatigue. And I personally think the toughest thing about ad fatigue is the fine line that marketers sometimes have to walk between being known, being remembered, being top of mind versus annoying or fatiguing customers.

And of course, there are some channels that are greater offenders than others. And the eMarketer research highlighted most of them. They include email marketing, CTV, social display, SMS, and just a general programmatic advertising category.

So I want to try to find something a little bit surprising or shocking. And one thing I found was from an article in the Journal of Advertising titled "Stay Away From Me,” by Tai Hung Bake and Mariko Morimoto. And they found people tend to avoid ads they find irritating or that raise privacy concerns, but personalized ads can help reduce this avoidance somewhat.

Another study titled "The Emotional Effectiveness of Advertisement" by Javier Otamendi and Dolores Lucia Sutil Martin found people tend to get fatigued from positive ads faster than negative ones. And that's because our brain pays more attention to negative emotion, making those ads feel more engaging, even with repeated exposure.

And finally, a study titled "An Examination of Different Explanations for the Mirror Exposure Effect" by Jiang Feng, Surendra Singh, and Rohini Aluwalia found video ads tend to cause less ad fatigue than static ads because they create positive emotional reactions through dynamic, engaging content, keeping viewers interested even with repeated exposure.

So hopefully some of that was interesting. There's actually a lot of research to go through here because ad fatigue, you know, surprise is nothing new. But Rob, let me ask you this. Why do you think it's recently become such a hot topic?

Rob: I think one of the things is you can blame it on remarketing or retargeting. I mean, just think about it - it really amps up the creep factor. It makes it feel like brands are stalking you online. You visit a website about baking biscuits and all of a sudden the Pillsbury Dough Boy is in your grill 24/7.

Second, I think the algorithms are serving your customers messages. So while you're not even advertising that much, the weight of both you and the category being pushed to the eyeballs of your consumers makes you guilty by association. And lastly, I think as marketers, we're training consumers to be more savvy and they're becoming more critical of the tactics being used.

Angela: I also wonder just with where we're at in terms of understanding data, having access to data. I mean, media companies and ad tech platforms have little incentive to debunk traditional frequency myths, perhaps. And so as marketers have gotten more savvy with their own data and start seeing patterns, whether it be too low, too high, we start to debunk maybe some traditional thoughts about what effective frequency might look like.

Elena: That's a great point. I know that there has been a lot of debate even within recent marketing effectiveness research around how much frequency do you really need because a lot of digital platforms will push super high frequency because that benefits them.

I think one other thing that could contribute to it is the rise of CTV in the past few years because CTV is such a big offender for over frequency, and it's been growing so fast, I'm guessing that it's top of mind for everybody. And I want to talk a little bit about CTV because we don't purchase email, social or display for our clients, but we are experts in streaming.

And like I said, it's one of the biggest offenders of over frequency and I think everybody listening again knows all too well what I'm talking about. So Ange, could you talk a little bit about why over frequency is such a problem in CTV in particular?

Angela: Of course. Yeah. I mean, this is really rooted in the fragmentation of the platforms. Lack of unified measurements, just the complexities of the programmatic buying environment. There's no cross-platform tracking viewers often encounter the same ad across multiple apps and programmatic buying across DSPs just lacks that coordination around frequency caps.

So then high ad demand, limited inventory, and financial incentives to maximize those impressions compound the issue just leading to this repetitive ad exposure that we've all witnessed on occasion.

Everyone I think has experienced that where you're sitting in your living room and you're like, "Oh I've seen this 7 times in the last 2 hours." I think CTV is just lagging technology and inconsistent audience data prevents effective frequency management. I think it happens within platform too, regardless of lack of cross-platform ability to control or ability to manage and understand how the audience lays out. You have brands that maybe just aren't aware of what they need to be doing from a frequency capping standpoint. And so you'll see a brand five, six, seven, eight, nine times over the course of an hour.

Elena: I haven't seen any research in particular on the effect that has on a consumer, but that would be fun to do. What happens when people watch TV for a couple hours and one brand, you end up seeing it 10 times within 30 minutes. I'm guessing it changes your perception of the brand, but again, it would be fun to see.

Angela: It is annoying. And I think the other thing that complicates this a little bit is memorability versus the ability of a brand to drive immediate response. And I think everyone would probably agree, even without a data set, that it makes sense that the more times you see an ad, probably the more likely you are to remember.

Attention is an issue in television. How many people are even seeing the ad that's on television on the screen if they're looking at their phone or doing something else in the living room, so there's that component of it too, that I think just creates a little grayness around what is effectiveness. Is it the ability to drive brand recall? Is it the ability to drive immediate sales lift?

Rob: It's funny to think about how we might be perceiving the redundancy. It's sort of like when you watch a really great comedian and he's just hilarious or she's awesome, super funny. Then you see them again. And in the middle of the set, they tell the same joke and you're like, "Yeah, that was funny."

And then the third time you're like, "Come on, you have more stuff." And then by the fourth time, you're like, "This just feels phony." Now it felt so off the cuff before. Same thing with ads the first couple of times - it starts to wear when they're stuck in those pods like that.

Elena: Well, we know that seeing a brand in the Super Bowl or on national broadcast makes you think more highly of them. So I guess the opposite would be true. If you see a brand 10 times in a row, even though it's probably not the brand's responsibility, it's whoever is placing the media, but you're probably not going to think as highly of it.

And that's a good point that when we're talking about frequency, that's obviously not a good idea to only have people see your ad one time. But if you were just looking at performance, you might choose to do that. And that's why it's important to have lots of different metrics that you're looking at short and long.

But one thing I want to talk about as a part of this discussion is a difference between creative wear out and ad fatigue, because they are related, but not exactly the same. Ad fatigue is more about your overall volume of ads across channels. So how could that reduce your effectiveness when it gets too high?

While creative wear out refers to when an individual ad becomes less effective. But Rob, we have a little bit of a contrarian view of creative wear out on TV, don't we?

Rob: So this idea is so contrarian. Our data shows - and obviously we work in television, so we're speaking to the channel - but our data shows that creative content burnout just isn't a big factor.

In fact, it's more the category or particular campaign where we might see some tired metrics occur, but when it comes to individual creative itself, we just don't see it. And Elena, if I'm not mistaken, you've even seen some research that is contrarian, but supports that notion.

Elena: Yeah, I think, and you've probably seen this stuff too, that System One backs up our point of view where brands often move on from not even a specific creative, but a concept.

And sometimes concepts that they've been running for years or something that was really effective decades ago, they can bring it back to TV and it'll perform better, even if it's been around for a long time.

Angela: I think the headline is that brands often get more tired of their creative before consumers do. They wake up thinking about their brand. What's that next differentiation? How do I keep it fresh? When, in reality, if you have an effective television ad, it's probably a better move to just let it run, to Rob's point.

Elena: Just run it back. It's tempting to want to change everything. When I was looking into this topic of ad fatigue, a few others sort of came along with it. And one of them was creative solutions, which makes sense. If you're Googling ad fatigue, there's gonna be a lot of companies offering some sort of solution.

And one thought that popped into my head was the idea of maybe creating different versions of your ads using AI, which we've heard about a lot recently. And maybe this could help reduce ad fatigue across channels. Rob, as our AI enthusiast, what do you think, do you think there are creative solutions to ad fatigue that we might take advantage of, maybe now, but also looking towards the future?

Angela: I guess I'll take us back to a point that you made earlier, Elena, when we were talking about some of the data on this topic. You had said 36 percent of US brands and agencies cited frequency management as a top concern this year.

So on one side, I would say that number - that 36 percent - should probably be higher. This is a problem and a topic that needs to be managed when you have data to support what is most effective and which exposure drives the best response. It doesn't mean that you can only target one frequency per consumer, of course - reach and frequency are tied together.

So that's not even possible. But the other thing I would say is brands, media planners, et cetera, often treat frequency as a metric that's divorced from creative quality, assuming that every exposure adds value and everything is equal there. But in reality, I think weak creative can harm a brand faster when seen multiple times, and standout creative might need less repetition to make an impact. So how do you think about that lever too, in combination with ensuring that you have effective frequency caps in market?

Rob: I guess my piece of advice would be take on some real risk and experimentation when it comes to the creative ad unit itself and see if that can impact the fatigue. So things like sequential storytelling, user-controlled ad experiences, interactive and gamified ads. And as you mentioned before, that AI-driven content generation or customization, but have some fun, play around with what we're seeing out there in the evolving landscape of how you can even do an ad and see how that might impact your fatigue.

Elena: That's great. I would say one piece of advice is invest in multiple channels. I mean, that's going to help overall - if you're only investing in digital, I'm guessing your ad fatigue is going to get higher faster. When in doubt, add TV. Other things are great too, like out of home or print. The more channels you can add, the better.

Final question. If you could eliminate one ad jingle from ever being played again, which one would it be? And then the opposite, what's one jingle you never get sick of? Along the theme of hearing things a million times. But it just actually ties in really well to Ange's advice about your quality of creative is going to change how often people might tolerate or enjoy seeing your ad. So Rob, why don't you kick us off here.

Rob: All right. Well, I'm a complicated person. So I have a complicated answer. The same jingle is the worst and my favorite. And that is "Save big money at Menards.” I hate this jingle. There's nothing acoustically pleasing about it at all. It was actually written originally in 1972 and it sounds like that.

I have to love this jingle because it's been around for so long. I can't authentically be a marketing person and say I hate this jingle since I bring it up all the time. Every time I drive by a Menards, I sing the jingle in my head. So I have to love it because it is doing its job. It is an earworm. It is sticking in there. So I both love it and I hate it.

Angela: You have to wonder, right? What the conversations inside of Menards have sounded like on the topic of - like someone at this point has had to go, "Guys, really?"

Rob: And that's a great point, Angela, because I would actually be angry as a consumer if they all of a sudden threw in some other jingle. I'd be like, "Where did your other one go? You're dumb. You have a new hire. They changed it. Shame on you."

Elena: No, they are definitely following marketing effectiveness principles by keeping that. Do not change it, Menards - everybody keep your annoying jingles as much as we hate them, don't replace them.

Angela: My annoying jingle is Meow Mix. And my favorite, this was hard for me. Like I had to really narrow it down, but I think I'm going to have to go with the Toys "R" Us "I Don't Want to Grow Up.”

Rob: Ah, that is such a good one.

As a company that went bankrupt, they're trying. They're trying. I didn't do any research on it. I don't know what year it was created or anything, but I do like it. It's a great one.

Elena: All right. The one that I hate is one that I think most of the population would agree with me. It's the Liberty Mutual.

Rob: Yeah, yeah.

Elena: That one I think is pretty annoying, but again, it should never be changed because it works really well, but I find it annoying. And then one that I love is Burger King, and I think this is a new rendition, so I think they did actually change their jingle a bit, but it's the new BK, "Have it your way, you rule.”

I sing that whenever it comes on. I just, there's something about that. I love it. I love that jingle. So, that one never annoys me. I could hear that a million times. Also, I should say, I know that you probably already thought of this, but you couldn't have said the Marketing Architects jingle. I know that would have been number one for both of you.

Angela: Of course. Yes, absolutely.

Elena: But I will say a jingle is such an effective, distinctive asset. And the process for creating ours was so fun, not overly expensive. And now we can use it with all of our podcasts at the end of all of our video ads. And I think now, Rob, I'm guessing with AI tools, it's easier than ever to create some sort of jingle. So if your brand doesn't have a jingle, you should have some fun and make one.

Rob: You can even play with some of the generators out there. I don't know if legally you can use them or not. That's to decide, but like AppSuno, you can put in your brand and have it come up with jingles. It's pretty cool.

Angela: Cue the Marketing Architects mnemonic.