Creative fatigue. Sure it exists, but to what degree does it impact your marketing communications. Here’s your chance to be a fly on the wall as Creative Directors Scott Lynch and Brandon Miller discuss their takes on creative fatigue and offer insights on what you can do to proactively and reactively mitigate its impact.
Brandon: We’re here to talk about creative fatigue and does it or does it not actually exist or to what degree does it exist within the minds of audiences? But before we get started, let’s start by identifying what creative fatigue is. Scott, in your definition, in your own words, how would you define creative fatigue?
What is creative fatigue?
Scott: Creative fatigue is when an audience sees the same ad too frequently and the overexposure results in the state where the audience becomes less responsive to the ad simply due to overexposure resulting in decreased overall campaign efficiency. So Brandon, in addition to exploring whether creative fatigue exists, let’s also talk about what to do. What’s the best way to confront creative fatigue in the marketplace?
Brandon: So are you still taking the position that creative fatigue doesn’t exist, though?
Scott: You know, when it was first brought up, I’m like, whoa, I don’t even believe creative fatigue exists. And I still sort of take that position, although all evidence suggests that creative fatigue absolutely exists. Consumers see somewhere between four thousand and ten thousand ad messages per day. As a result, 87% percent of consumers report that they’re seeing more ads than ever before and 91% of consumers report that ads have become more intrusive than before. I think these are all representations of the idea that there is creative fatigue out there. They feel overexposed. There’s too much, but I also take the position that it’s not a quantity issue. It’s a quality issue.
The science behind creative fatigue
Brandon: So where I started was just going back to human nature. Evolutionarily why does creative fatigue exist? What I found is that it comes down to two proven phenomena within all species, not just humans. We have this thing called neural adaptation. Over time we have a decreased responsiveness to certain sensory inputs or stimuli. Once we get used to something, we phase it out because we’re designed to focus on the things that could pose the greatest danger. So when we’ve become used to something, our brains are built to recognize it as something that we don’t have to focus on as much so we can focus on the new stimuli, which may pose a potential threat. Obviously, when we talk about advertising, we don’t see ads as threats necessarily. But that’s how our brain works, evolutionarily.
Scott: I love that you took this to brain science. I absolutely buy what you’re saying. And I think we see this in our own lives, right? I’ve got a golden retriever. And we buy her a toy for Christmas. And the day the toy is introduced, she plays with it constantly. And a week later, it’s familiar and she’s less likely to carry it around as her new toy. So I think you’re right. I think there is something brain-science-evolutionary-biologic about familiarity that becomes a component in creative fatigue.
Brandon: And very closely related to neural adaptation is just habituation, which is just diminishing response to stimuli after repeated and prolonged exposure to it. So again, taking it outside of the advertising world, I have relatives that live in Colorado, very close to the Rockies and they always say that they don’t even really see the mountains anymore. When I go to Colorado, I can’t take my eyes off of them. They’re just so spectacular and majestic that it’s hard not to stare at them. But because they live there and see them out their back door all the time, their brain deletes them, no matter how great and wondrous they are.
When familiarity doesn’t result in fatigue
Scott: You’ve made an excellent point on the creative-fatigue-as-a-byproduct-of-familiarity side of the equation. Now, let me head into a different space as the counterpoint. Look at the familiar and look at communications pieces of art that are extraordinary. I mean the ones that fly in the face of this. They are familiar and yet break through, succeed and connect with the audience over and over and over and over again.
Brandon: So what you’re talking about is, we have favorite songs and favorite movies that we want to watch over and over and over again, right?
Scott: The comparison to a favorite movie is perfect. We’ve just come through the Christmas season. How many individuals, how many “consumers” step and repeated their pattern of consuming the familiar this Christmas season, when they listen to the songs that equate with Christmas and are meaningful to them. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose, right? For some, that’s a really important song. Watching “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which is a masterfully made film. That work is so good that it’s timeless. There is no fatigue. And not only is there no fatigue, but people will go out of their way to interact with it over and over and over again.
Brandon: The counterpoint to that too, though, is frequency. We come back to those things every twelve months, and they feel good. But I remember when TBS ran “A Christmas Story” for like 48 hours straight during the holidays. And I like that movie, but I got fatigued. Even if you really like something, you can only take so much.
Scott: You can only take so much, absolutely. I love “A Christmas Story.” I don’t think I can watch “A Christmas Story” for 48 hours straight. There are not that many pieces of art that I would really want to take in for 48 hours straight. But extraordinary pieces of work, I will take in differently than the 3999 messages a day that I’m trying to not pay attention to because they don’t connect for whatever reason. Again, coming out of the Christmas season and taking it to advertising, Corona had that Christmas spot with the holiday lights on the palm tree and in it the individual is whistling…
Brandon: I love that spot.
Scott: This is what I’m saying. The fatigue factor could have been an issue with that spot. It ran during its original run so often that consumers were exposed to it more than enough. They should have hit creative fatigue, but they didn’t. And not only didn’t they, the spot connected powerfully enough that Corona brought it back the next year and the next year and the next year. And it has this extraordinary run. GEICO is doing the exact same thing with their Halloween spot. You know, “When you’re in a horror movie, you make bad decisions. Let’s go hide behind the chainsaws.” The same thing is happening. That spot should have hit fatigue, but it doesn’t. And I believe the reason is because those are powerful, high-quality creative assets. And that sort of asset is proven to have a longer lifespan and greater impact than less powerful work. My point is if an ad is good enough, consumers don’t tire of it.
A more digital perspective
Brandon: But when you’re talking about digital ads or things that aren’t these huge TV campaigns, it can be very difficult to do such mind-blowing creative that people won’t tire of because you have a smaller amount of their attention for a shorter period of time. And with digital, fatigue is actually measurable because you can see it in the analytics. The longer an ad’s been out there, the fewer engagements you’re getting. And it’s not just due to the fact that they’re sick of it. It’s also due to the fact that your audience naturally dwindles. Because those who engage are unlikely to engage again, so you can automatically remove them from the audience pool.
Scott: You’ve brought it into today and you’ve made it digital, which I think is really important to the discussion. So, I’ll make my point for quality differently. First, let’s agree that ads are a form of content. And now let’s think about digital content of this moment. Let’s take a look at a viral video example. We’re moving out of advertising but we’re staying digital. We’ve all seen engaging and entertaining videos make the rounds multiple times and still get shared over and over. That happens because they break through. They get noticed and they reward the viewer with an entertaining experience. They get remembered and they get shared. And it happens the first time it makes the rounds and it happens three months later, six months later, a year later. We’ve all seen this phenomenon happen. Somebody shares a video with us and you go “Oh yeah, you know, I’ve seen that before.” But it’s still hysterically funny and it’s worth sharing. I say it’s the exact same thing that happens with a great ad, even in digital today. So, my point again is a quality point. If we recognize that there is creative fatigue as a phenomenon, don’t just make more ads to address creative fatigue. You have to make more really good ads.
Breaking through with emotion
Brandon: And I would say, ads that are more successful at avoiding fatigue are those that connect with emotion. Going back to your Christmas movie comparison, those movies aren’t just really good, they strike a chord with people emotionally, either through tradition, nostalgia or whatever. Creating something that makes the audience feel rather than just think will last a lot longer.
Scott: 100%. Emotional connection so it breaks through. It does something a little bit different. It strikes the chord that you referenced, and it makes that powerful connection. And as a result, it transcends. And it’s not just art for art’s sake, you know, which could be reason enough for doing good, right? Because it’s a piece of art and that’s important just in and of itself. But it also makes good business sense because the most powerful work, award-winning ads are shown to be 29% more effective in the short term and then 11% more effective for long-term brand building. So simply stated, better work works better. This is the point of making better work. It breaks through. It connects. It gets remembered. It gets shared and provides a bigger sales lift and longer-term brand impact than non-memorable work.
Brandon: So we both agree that it’s not a matter of does creative fatigue exist, but to what degree does it exist? And how do you overcome it.
Step one is to create awesome work. And not just cool for cool’s sake. Try to strike a note with your audience. Try to tap into something that they’re feeling that they may want to revisit time and time again.
Number two, because frequency can be a factor, is to have alternate versions of your ads ready to go. Not reactively, but proactively. It can be as simple as a tweak in a headline or a subtle change in an image. You don’t have to go crazy and spend a ton of money recreating everything from scratch. It’s just variations of things can trigger the brain to subconsciously notice that it’s something new and therefore something that should be paid attention to.
Number three, especially in this digital world, is to measure. What is the engagement rate over time? And when it gets to a certain point, it’s time to change it up a little bit. It’s a powerful tool because judging fatigue used to be a lot harder to calculate. But now you can see it happen in the analytics and make those adjustments accordingly.
Scott: We both see what’s built into the other perspective. But we also both believe there’s something to our original point of view. Taking this full circle, we recognize that consumers are exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 ad messages per day. The sea of sameness is the problem. The thousands of ads that don’t break through are the problem. And seldom can you fix a problem by doing more of what caused it. So don’t just create more ads. Create more great ads with emotional connectivity to solve the problem, because paraphrasing Bill Bernbach from about 60 years ago, a good ad can achieve in one exposure what a bad ad will fail to achieve after ten.
Brandon: But Scott, this all sounds really difficult. I mean, who out there has the chops to create stunning ads that continue to resonate emotionally over time, the measuring tools to know when something has run its course and the industry knowledge to know exactly where to pivot if it does? It’s not like you can just click a button and get access to people with such a broad yet specific skillset. Hey wait, what’s that little button down there?