Yes, it’s chaos…now market in it
There are many extrapolations of daily brand impressions: 3,000 daily brand exposures is one of the estimates (Finegan, 2001). At a certain point the number fails to matter, for we have exceeded any reasonable expectation for cognition. When the human mind recognizes approximately 80,000 words and when there are millions of brand permutations to respond to, most brand promises don’t even get in line. With 64 television and cable networks joined by more than 500 channels, 900 annual direct-mail initiatives per person, 5,000 radio stations, 10,000 print options, billions of Web pages with four million additional pages added daily (the list is conservative), you physically cannot be anywhere at anytime without some sort of brand intrusion (Garfield, 2005).
Compounding this communications log jam is the mind-saturated stiff arm that audiences are giving marketers. As a culture, our society’s cynicism toward marketing has ripened over time. In an attempt to stabilize the chaos surrounding us, our commercial-battered psyches have taught us to filter and ignore. Three-quarters of Americans are turned off by commercials; even more are tuned out or simply skipped (Garfield, 2005). Weaned on modern marketing, we unconsciously screen out most contacts and retain little. Marketing professionals have seen the explosive evidence, and to a great extent the institutions of marketing have failed to grapple with it—not for lack of concern or apathy, but for lack of new models that have demonstrated impact.
Most affected, in particular, are consumer products and services companies that have national or global markets but have local or regional budgets. These companies are most vulnerable because
of the financial metrics of traditional mass media. Local budgets on an effective national or global scale are woefully starved, rendering voice to the imperceptible. In a media environment that dictates ideally effective reach and frequency numbers (150–400 GRPs), a company in the metropolitan Chicago area would spend upward of $4 million annually. Multiply that by all the top national markets and you will quickly exceed $40 million to $50 million in paid media annually. Guess what? Ninety-three percent of American companies spent less than $20 million and 70 percent spent less than $3 million in 2004 (Kelly, Scott & Madison, 2005). For the profound majority of companies, budgets for national campaigns, let alone global campaigns, reach the equivalent of less than what is ideally needed in a single market like Chicago.
What worked for marketers 50, 25, even five years ago is not working today—evidenced by not only the increasing cost of reaching consumers but by the limited effectiveness of that reach. Mounds of evidence exist for the permeated decline of communications access to intended consumer targets. In a recent survey, 1,000 consumers were asked to recall taglines from 25 of America’s most well-known companies, including Wendy’s, Coca-Cola, Kmart, and Sears. Fewer than half were recalled by 5 percent of the respondents, and one-fifth were recalled by 1 percent or less (Newman, 2005). These are companies spending millions annually on paid media and they can’t create a lasting impression of their primary message beyond their brand name. Take the test yourself. Do you know Ford’s latest tagline? They hope you do. On average they’ve spent $2.2 billion annually in the U.S. since 2003 (“U.S. Company Revenue,” 2004). The contact points themselves are also becoming less effective in reach. In 1957, the “I Love Lucy” show on any given night routinely garnered a 67 percent audience share. In more recent times, the widely popular and highly anticipated “Seinfeld” and “Friends” finales reached 22 percent and 20 percent of the audience share, respectively (Kelly, Scott & Madison, 2005). Most publications have slivers of share. And Ford’s tagline? “Built For the Road Ahead.”
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