Say It Over And Over

Again And Again And Again

By Dave Donelson

A single grass seed planted by itself will not grow into a beautiful lawn. Nor will a single ad run one time send your sales soaring through the roof. But many retail nursery and garden center operators expect it to, which makes them continually disappointed in their advertising results.

It may be because advertising is so difficult to measure or because it is such an imprecise science, but many operators have expectations of response to their ads that are way out of line with the reality of the way advertising works. Sometimes they lose faith in advertising’s effectiveness and don’t devote the time and effort it takes to make it work for them. The cure for both these mental states is to remember what Andy Tarshis, of A.C. Nielsen said: "We find that advertising works the way the grass grows. You can never see it, but every week you have to mow the lawn."

Regardless of the media used, advertising needs consistent exposure to the target audience over time if it is to persuade them to get out of the recliner and drive to the store. Repetition counts. The question, of course, is how much is enough? The answer, truthfully, is that nobody knows how many times an ad needs to be seen before it persuades the consumer to take action. All we do know for sure is that it’s more than once or twice.

Break Through The Clutter

To begin with, a fair amount of repetition is necessary to break through the clamor of other ads competing for the consumer’s attention. Americans are exposed to an astonishing number of advertising messages every day. Every hour you watch television, you’ll see about fifty commercials and promos (many are shorter than thirty seconds), and every hour you listen to the radio, you’ll hear as many as eighteen minutes of commercials. The print media aren’t immune, either, since newspapers typically consist of at least sixty five percent advertising. And how many pieces of junk mail did you get today? One way to get noticed is to keep repeating your message.

Another way repetition works is to validate the claims made by your ad in the consumer’s mind. When we’re told it’s “good to the last drop” we may or may not believe the statement, but eventually the claim registers in our mind. Then, the more times we hear it without hearing any evidence to the contrary, the more likely we are to eventually accept it as true. We become familiar with the statement and eventually adopt it as a fact. This isn’t necessarily rational, but whoever said consumers are rational?

The Customer Doesn’t Care

Another thing to remember about consumers is that, for the most part, they don’t care. Choosing one brand of weed killer over another or shopping at this store instead of that one aren’t major decisions to them. The level of involvement in making these choices is very, very low. Buying a car or a house is a high-involvement decision. Picking up a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk isn’t. Lawn and garden falls somewhere in between. This low involvement factor works both for and against your ads. On the plus side, the customer is not going to spend any time questioning or disproving the claims you make in your ads, so eventually they’ll be accepted as true. On the negative, they’re also not

going to pay a heck of a lot of attention to them in the first place. Repetition is part of the cure for this apathy.

In addition to the repetition factor that makes consistent advertising work, there is the timing factor, or when the consumer see the ad in relation to their need to purchase an item. Media consultant Erwin Ephron calls this factor “recency.” As he puts it, “Recency visualizes a window of advertising opportunity before each purchase. Advertising's job is to influence the purchase. Media’s job is to place the message in that window.”

The Last Ad Works Best

A common misconception about most advertising is that it creates a “need to buy” in the customer’s mind. In the real world, the need to buy arises because the customer’s garden hose burst this morning or a skunk dug up the lawn last night. Those events are what brought the customer into the market for a new hose or some insecticide. If they were exposed to your advertising just after those things happened, they are going to be very receptive to your message. Customers tend to respond to the last ad they saw or heard in the window of time after the need arose and just before they make their decision to purchase.

Since skunks don’t attack every lawn in your market the same week, not all customers know they need grub killer at exactly the same time. Some need it this week, some next week; some the week after. The week you’re not advertising, you miss the chance to influence the customers who have chosen to buy that week. Sure, there’s some residual effect from the advertising you did in the previous weeks, but the ad with the greatest impact is the one the customer heard most recently.

So, what does this mean for your advertising budget? Should you spend more? Can you spend less? The answer is a resounding “maybe.” The amount of spending isn’t the issue here. What’s most important is that you find a way to advertise as continuously as possible. Generally speaking, it’s preferable to spread a small budget over more weeks than to bunch it up for more exposure during a shorter period (commonly called “flighting”). Don’t spend your entire month’s budget on one full-page ad. Run one quarter-page ad every week for four weeks instead. Don’t run 300 radio spots in one week, then remain silent for five—schedule 50 spots each week for six weeks. Or even 25 per week for twelve weeks!

This is not to say that you need to advertise at a uniform level year ‘round. You should still vary the amount of exposure you buy according to the sales you expect to generate each period. Nor does this mean that you shouldn’t heavy-up for a weekend sale or other short-term promotion. What it does mean, though, is that one ad by itself doesn’t work. You need consistent repetition to make your advertising work the same way you need lots and lots of seeds to start a lawn.

Dave Donelson writes regularly on advertising and marketing for Nursery Retailer. He’s the author of Creative Selling: Boost Your B2B Sales, and a frequent speaker on marketing and management.

www.davedonelson.com