Brands that are consistently “in the game” result in momentum for their brands—especially in challenging economic times. In his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki makes the case that “together all of us know more than any one of us does.” He says, “Markets are made up of diverse people with different levels of information and intelligence, and yet when you put all those people together and they start buying and selling, they come up with generally intelligent decisions.”
In today’s complex world of advertising, consistency is like a scorecard on the wisdom of crowds. Consumers know that advertising is expensive, so the more a company advertises, the more successful it must be, right? And the more successful it is, the more valuable it’s perceived and that other people are choosing it. Which means it must be a good idea for you and I to choose it as well. That’s what advertising consistency can do for a brand—the power of positive momentum. First people learn that your brand exists (awareness). With repeated exposure from advertising, people then learn that you are stable and worth considering. With even more repeated exposure, they assume the brand is successful and so desirable—after all, the ability to sustain a long-term advertising program means that you’d have to be. This all then leads to the ultimate goal of advertising which is to purchase the brand.
Even with creative messaging that isn’t the best, what is true of life in general is also true for advertising consistency: never underestimate the power of simply showing up.
