The Power of Repetition

We expect the lights to come on when we flick on the wall switch. With usually brief weather-related exceptions, we've learned that's a reasonable expectation in Richmond, Virginia. We've been conditioned by repetition.

Upon seeing anything happen in the same way, time after time, naturally we tend to expect the pattern to continue. For the sake of keeping order we generally rely upon those patterns.

Lock her up!

When we watch college basketball games on television, we expect timeouts to interrupt the live action approximately every four minutes. Then we expect a series of commercials to play out during the break. The same goes for between innings of Major League Baseball games. Experience has conditioned fans of such sports to expect those predictable breaks, chock-full of ads, to last long enough to replenish game-watching supplies from the kitchen without missing a second of the game.

Well, some folks like to argue about how much influence such repetition has on any one individual, but the advertising industry knows that repetition is money in the bank. The repetition of logos, slogans, jingles, claims, etc., aimed at the target audience, sells the ad agencies' clients' products. There's no doubt whatsoever about that. With repetition comes normalization.

No collusion!

Speaking of normalization, give a thought to how many television programs most of us have watched, including movies, that have featured stories with con artists as the charming protagonists. No need to name a list of them, we've all rooted for the scamming rouges to get away with it too many times to count.

My angle here is that in the marketplace of ideas, the repeated words and images have a decided advantage. The significance of repetition in advertising was taught to me by a man named Lee Jackoway. He was a master salesman, veteran broadcaster, and my boss at WRNL-AM in 1971.

Lock her up!

One day Jackoway found me struggling with the writing of some copy for a radio commercial. At the time he asked me a few questions and let it go. But later, in front of a group of salesmen and disc jockeys, Jackoway explained to his audience why what I was doing was wrong. Basically, he said that instead of stretching to write good copy, the real effort should be focused on selling the client more time, so the ad spot would get additional exposure.

Essentially, Jackoway told us to forget about trying to be the next Stan Freeberg. Forget about cute copy and far-flung schemes. What matters is results. If you know the target audience and you have the right vehicle to reach it, then all you have to do is saturate that audience with repetition. If you hit that target often enough, the results are predictable.

No collusion!

Jackoway told us most of the large money spent on production went to satisfying the ego of the client, or to promoting the ad agency’s creativity. While he might have oversimplified the way ad biz works to make his point, my experience with media has brought me to the same bottom line: When all else fails, saturation works.

Take it from me, dear reader, it doesn’t matter how much you think you’re ignoring the commercials that are beamed your way; more often than not repetition bores the message into your head. Ask the average self-absorbed consumer why he chooses a particular motor oil or breakfast cereal, and chances are he’ll claim the thousands of commercials he paid no heed had nothing to do with his choices.

Lock her up!

Meanwhile, good old Lee Jackoway knew that same chump is pouring Pennzoil on his Frosted Flakes because he has been influenced by aggressive advertising all day long, every day.

OK, if repetition works so well in television’s advertising, why would repetition fail to sell whatever messages stem from the rest of its fare? Television has taught many of its viewers that guns will solve problems. Think of how many shootings of threatening bad men the average American has watched on TV.

No collusion!

So why wouldn't a president's words repeated, ad nauseam, brainwash his devoted fans, like Pavlov's dogs. They have come to expect the repetition of slogans and are comforted by them.

Thus, for Democrats to now try to unwash all the brains that have been saturated by Trump's repeated phrases and folderol is mostly a waste of time. Moreover, arguing with one of his trained lap dogs at happy hour or on Facebook just won't hasten Trump's departure from the White House. Democrats simply need to focus on efforts aimed at turning out the vote.

Lock her up!

Woof! 

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