I run a small community magazine, where the advertisers are mainly local shops and tradespeople. At least one of those advertisers goes to the effort of creating a completely new advert every issue, presumably with the intent of pressing different buttons with people. Most run the same adverts relentlessly though, because they don’t have time to think up anything new. And do you know what? I think that gets better results, at least for a product or service that the readers may not need now, but might do at an unspecified time in the future. When they do need it, they may – just may – remember the advert and go back to find it.
With more data-driven search advertising, we might start off with a few ideas, but we quickly home in on what works and then continually refine that. Effectively however, we’re just running the same advert constantly. Repetition in advertising works, particularly when purchases are by necessity and only occasional, as will be the case with most of our businesses. The big splash once a year has its place, not least in impressing the MD, but just ‘being there’ all of the time has always achieved better results from what I’ve seen.