Say again? Repetition is your friend.
Photo: Jason Leung
For years, there was a sense in the music industry that the big labels were “buying hits” by…um, incentivizing…radio stations to put certain songs into heavy rotation.
Even a cursory look at the size of audiences in the U.S. reveals the impossibility of actually buying a hit. There are just so many people, it’s not feasible. And yet, in many ways the rumor was true.
Psychologist Robert Cialdini’s research into the science of persuasion reveals something fascinating: Familiarity does not, in fact, breed contempt. Quite the opposite – familiarity breeds liking.
In a series of experiments, researchers asked college students to rate a song. The control group heard it for the first time, while the experimental group had been exposed to the song multiple times in the days leading up to the evaluation.
The result? Students who’d heard the song a lot rated it higher than their counterparts. The experiment has been repeated with paintings and other subjective-judgment scenarios, and the results are the same.
Clearly, repetition is important. But how do you keep from becoming boring?
The key is to remember the principle of theme-and-variations. While the core of your message should remain the same to harness the power of familiarity, continuously finding new approaches will keep people curious about what’s new.
If you’d like your marketing to rock the charts, email Rustle & Spark today.