I’ve often been asked how long is takes an advertising campaign to work. The snide answer is something like, when it produces the desired results – that’s how long it takes. Let me try to offer something a little more useful.

It’s been over 25 years since I’ve read it, but I seem to remember that David Ogilvy, often referred to as the father of modern advertising, detailed something called the three hit theory in his landmark book Ogilvy on Advertising. His theory basically went something like this –

All marketing messages must be received at least 3 times by a target audience member. The first so that she senses that you are communicating. The second so that she understands your message. The 3^rd so that she decides what she wants to do.

With so many marketing messages bombarding your audience, my experience, particularly when a message includes a call to action – like in lead generation (or any good marketing message for that matter) – the 3 hit theory actually behaves more like a 3 x 3 x 3 hit theory.

It takes 3 exposures for your audience to realize you are communicating to them, 3 x 3 or 9 exposures for them to grasp what you’re asking them to do, and 3 x 3 x (nearly) 3 or 24 exposures for them to decide whether to accept your request for action or not.

I should clarify that a little bit. The 24 exposures is required to be absolutely certain you have exhausted any hope of having a citizen (Seth Godin’s word for a member of the universe) make a final decision to accept or reject your request for action.

Are your expectations realistic in light of this? Are you prepared to make sure your message is received 24 times by your target audience?

Posted by: Steve Banis