Beware, I’ve been reading.
Not just normal reading either, potentially insightful reading. I’ve been reading all about Herbert Krugman. Now, here’s a quick Herbert Krugman lesson…
Herbert Krugman was born sometime this decade, not sure when as he seems to be a bit like Lord Lucan. Could you fix it for me Jim, for Herb to find me and let me interview him a bit?
He worked at General Electric in the 60’s and while he was there, he had a few thoughts about how television advertising affects the decision making process.
More specifically he looked at the psychology behind decision making. Now, the term effective frequency wasn’t coined by Krugman, it’s been around for a while and there are various conflating opinions on it, but here’s the Jed definition;
Effective Frequency is the amount of exposure a person needs to have their decision making process swayed towards a specific product. IE, the amount of times someone needs to see a PS3 advert before they decide to buy one.
So, a guy called Thomas Smith wrote a guide called Successful Advertising in 1885 and believed that people needed to be exposed to an advert 20 times before they’d be swayed, and each time they’d feel something slightly different;
The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
The second time, they don’t notice it.
The third time, they are aware that it is there.
The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.
The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.
The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
The eighth time, they start to think, "Here’s that confounded ad again."
The ninth time, they start to wonder if they’re missing out on something.
The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.
The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.
The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering.
Now, Krugman decided that Smith was being a bit over zealous, he believed that you only needed to be exposed to an advert three times for it to remain in your conscious. He thought that the third stage just repeated itself until you bought something, so, without further ado, here’s big Herb’s three stages;
Curiosity.
Recognition.
Decision.
If you’re still reading by this point, you’ll probably be wondering why I’m writing about some fella called Herb. Well, my lovelies, Krugman’s theory still stands, but now it also stands in social media.
(Before you jump on my back and hit me on the skull, I know that there are a wealth of distinctions between advertising and social media – but psychological theory applies to every discipline of communications.)
Social media, and more widely the internet, are ADHD inducing mediums. People want information by the second, not hour. So people only have time to give media three opportunities… Here’s how I see things;
Curiosity – this is the brands job, they need to innovate to spike curiosity.
Recognition – the content should then enable recognition.
Decision – providing the context is correct, the decision should have already been made. This is still a key stage though.
Something I’ve been thinking about a lot at Wolfstar is an educational understanding of how to explain social activity to brands – it’s too easy to stay within the bubble and expect the world to understand their RSS from their iPadio.
So, a simple explanation (quickly followed by tons of examples) to good social activity is;
Innovate
Provide content
Do both in context
That’s it really, probably my most longwinded post this year, but I think it was necessary and hopefully you’ll disagree with my ideas and we can fight it out for a bit.
So, thoughts?