Part 2 of 2

Right at 8:30a the sales team filled the room.  I was still sitting there with my fresh pad of paper thinking about the implications of what Dick was about to share with the rest of the sellers.  Dick quickly drew us to order and then gave us an update on our sales figures and a couple of housekeeping items before opening up the doors to the whiteboard and asking for definitions of a 3-Frequency.

Nancy jumped right in and said, "A three frequency happens when an advertising schedule reaches its target three times."

Others agreed.  Dick asked whether the three-frequency needed to occur within a specific period of time.  There was some confusion on this point as some felt that a three-frequency had to happen within a week while others thought a month and a few believed it depended on the length of the campaign.

Dick asked if a three-frequency meant that all of those reached with the message had been reached a minimum of three times.  Some of us thought it meant that some of those reached had been reached three times and others thought it meant at least 50% of the audience had been reached three times and others just didn't know what it meant.

Dick asked why a three-frequency was important.

Tommy volunteered this time and he said, "A three-frequency is required in order to get listeners to take action."  Many of us agreed with that until Dick said, "What if I got on the radio and said that Bruce Springsteen was going to perform for free at Optimistic Park this Friday at noon.  How many times would I have to say it to ensure that at least a thousand people would show up?"

Silence filled the room as it became obvious that Dick would only have to say that one time on the radio and, probably, ten thousand people would show up.  Then, Dick handed out the article that he had shown me right before the meeting started and here's what it said:

                        A FREQUENCY OF THREE

How a Marketing Researcher at General Electric Named Herb Krugman Gave the TV Networks Something Better Than Money: The Gospel of Effective Frequency

By Erwin Ephron

Years before General Electric thought of buying NBC, a tall, courtly GE psychologist named Herbert Krugman gave the networks a gift better than money. He had a theory that seemed to say, "heavier TV weight is better."

Krugman convinced advertisers that a message communicates in three stages. And Krugman's "frequency of three" eventually became the Gospel of effective frequency planning which helped support larger and larger television budgets.

But Krugman never said three exposures are necessary, and misrepresenting Krugman on frequency became a continuing media scandal. Here is what Krugman actually wrote:

"Let me try to explain the special qualities of one, two and three exposures. I stop at three because as you shall see there is no such thing as a fourth exposure psychologically; rather fours, fives, etc., are repeats of the third exposure effect.

"Exposure No. 1 is...a "What is it?" type of... response. Anything new or novel no matter how uninteresting on second exposure has to elicit some response the first time...if only to discard the object as of no further interest...The second exposure...response...is "What of it?"...whether or not [the message] has personal relevance...

"By the third exposure the viewer knows he's been through his "What is it's?" and "What of it's?," and the third, then, becomes the true reminder . . . The importance of this view . . . is that it positions advertising as powerful only when the viewer...is interested in the [product message]...Secondly, it positions the viewer as...reacting to the commercial—very quickly...when the proper time comes round.

"There is a myth in the advertising world that viewers will forget your message if you don't repeat your advertising often enough. It is this myth that supports many large advertising expenditures...I would rather say the public comes closer to forgetting nothing they have seen on TV. They just "put it out of their minds" until and unless it has some use . . . and [then] the response to the commercial continues.

According to Krugman there are only three levels of exposure in psychological, not media, terms: Curiosity, recognition and decision. What Krugman calls "frequency" is not what media planners would call "frequency." Krugman doesn't discuss media frequency at all.

Today serious students of advertising understand there is no formula answer to the effective frequency question. They believe most exposures are reminders so a single exposure, if relevant, can make the sale. They also know frequency for repetition to teach messages, as if they are the multiplication table, is a red herring, because advertising has greater relevance to the consumer.

There was a great deal of discussion during which the meaning of this analysis of Krugman's work was debated.  I don't remember any of it as I was lost in thought.  For me, the most important part of the article was just two lines.  First:

The importance of this view . . . is that it positions advertising as powerful only when the viewer...is interested in the [product message]...

That meant that no matter how many times we repeated a message, if it had no relevance to the listener then it would be forgotten.  Conversely, if the message was very relevant and important a listener might need to hear it only once before taking action.  What I couldn't figure out was how would we make sure that our messages were relevant.  After all, our audience was measure in the hundreds of thousands.  What could possibly be relevant to a crowd of that size?

Secondly, it positions the viewer as...reacting to the commercial—very quickly...when the proper time comes round

Krugman seemed to be saying that after we delivered our relevant message we needed to wait for the proper time before the listeners would take action.  That was troubling because my advertisers expected their phones to ring or people to show up in the stores immediately after the messages starting airing on our radio station.  Another troubling aspect of this realization was that if listeners didn't react immediately how would we know that the message was relevant in the first place? 
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Unfortunately, the truth about a 3-frequency didn't change much of what I did back in the early 90's.  The article explaining the fallacy of the standard interpretation of Krugman's work did not make an impact on the majority of advertising agencies nor media sellers and we continued to do what we had always done.  Me included.

That all changed in 2010 when I started to explore a greater understanding of the relationship between marketing and consumer behavior.  Over the next several posts, I'm going to share them with you and give you the tools you need to become a far better media seller for the next eighteen years.

And, I'll bet that I won't have to tell you three times to get you to take action.