Short-term advertising effects can weaken long-term

by Nigel Hollis

I want to return to this post by Faris Yakob in which he replies to an email from Andrew Willshire and tries to explain why advertising can have a short-term effect while still undermining longer-term effects. It is a really important question and while I agree that metrics are the solution, I want to offer a slightly different spin on the issue.

Dramatic shifts in campaign focus can often undermine the longer-term effects of advertising simply because lack of continuity fails to develop a network of strong, positive and motivating impressions in people’s minds. Those associations can help improve the likelihood the brand will be bought again (not loyalty, likelihood), encourage people to pay the price asked, and help neutralize the appeal of competitive brands. However, in this post I want to focus on one specific type of advertising effect that interacts with usage.

Willshire proposes that the long-term advertising effect is more a product of the customer experience than the advertising and asks how advertising focused on short-term response could damage the brand in the long term. I have been mulling over this question for a while and I think Willshire is right that experience trumps advertising. You cannot make a bad product or service successful through advertising alone.

However, when Willshire suggests that the most effective role for advertising is getting people to that trial from which a brand experience results, I think he is dramatically underestimating the influence of advertising on the brand. One of the most important roles of advertising is to enhance that brand experience. Enhancement is where a subtle interaction takes place between suggested experience and actual experience. In academic research this effect is often referred to as ‘framing’, people experience what they have been led to expect.

In other words, if advertising has conveyed motivating ideas about what it is like to use a brand, it is really difficult for people not to experience the brand in the way portrayed. The end result is higher satisfaction, increased confidence and higher salience. This effect is not simply a one-off. Advertising helps keep the motivating ideas and associations salient over time so that the effect continues with usage. This is not about explicit communication of functional benefits. It is about conveying a positive impression of usage, what does it feel like?

So, if advertising portrays a brand in a way that is at odds with the experience of existing users, or fails to support previously established associations related to the experience, it may well weaken the strength of the brand associations while still producing a short-term effect. Habit and existing inclination will prevail in the short-term but without continued support will eventually weaken, if only because competitors are busy trying to get change people’s behavior and attitudes.

As I said, this is just one way in which I believe advertising might generate a short-term effect while undermining the long-term but the fundamental issue is one of consistency and coherency. Chasing short-term effects at the expense of existing associations will likely undermine the strength of the brand over the longer-term. But what do you think? Please share your thoughts.