Whaile frequency of an ad does get its place in top-of-mind awareness importance, when does an ad become annoying and becomes painful while reducing its effectiveness? Philip Jay LeNoble, PhD.

COMMENTARY

Will Netflix Learn Erwin Ephron's Lesson?

• by Maarten Albarda , Featured Contributor, October 14, 2022

When the Albarda household cut the cable cord, we did so being equal part excited and worried. But when we found the combination of good old “over-the-air” TV via antenna (now delivered in HD), coupled with our platforms of choice, we never looked back.

Spectrum has not given up the fight, and is bombarding my inbox and mailbox with about one “exclusive for you” offer per week. But we ain’t going back, so save yourself the trouble already, Spectrum marketing team (you have tried for a year!).

And now there's an offer for an affordable version of Netflix. The ad-supported version is priced very competitively in comparison to the likes of Hulu and Paramount+ (all ad-supported as well).

But there is one thing I would like to ask of Netflix before I commit to adding it into our TV menagerie. And I was, in part, reminded to do so because of the Spectrum beggathon to come back to cable.

I have written about this annoying element of the platform advertising universe before: ad repetition and frequency. General Motors’ Chevy brand is the biggest culprit in our area (southern North Carolina), followed closely by IHG Hotels. When we watch content via any of the ad-supported platforms, including those made available by our local news stations, almost every ad break is filled with these advertisers.

The other day we counted seven (!!!) repeats, back-to-back, of the same Chevy truck ad on local news. And chalked the same IHG ad in literally every break on Hulu.

The late, great Erwin Ephron taught us that recency, not frequency, matters -- and that, in general, reach should be preferred over frequency. It’s clear that these wise lessons have not reached the Chevy and IHG media teams. They are, in fact, accomplishing the exact opposite of what I presume was their advertising intent.

For Chevy, it’s clear they want to sell me on both the versatility of the Silverado truck, and the wide range of accessories available to personalize it. And IHG is selling me on its wide range of hotel brands under its umbrella, so that I can guest how I guest (I also don’t know what that means, but IHG’s new slogan is “Guest how you guest”).

And clearly the platforms do not care about ensuring ads remain effective, either. Or are they that using ad annoyance as a way to upsell consumers to the more expensive premium offerings without ads? That goes diametrically against ad effectiveness, so as an advertiser I would make every effort to not be used as such.

IHG and Chevy spend big money on producing big ads and then placing these ads on screens. There are hundreds of people involved in this food chain: agencies, brand managers, media managers, maybe an in-house programmatic team, insights analysts, account managers, and many more. None of these people have taken the initiative to test their media schedule against a simple metric, taught to us by Erwin Ephron: How much is too much?

So, Netflix: if the collective of agencies, advertisers and platforms can’t or won’t do it, will you? It sounds to me like a real differentiator. And you might win my loyalty by doing so.