Latest / Marketing Psychology with Fexingo: Behavioral Triggers, Persuasion, and Consumer Behavior / The Practice Effect How Repetition Shapes Brand Preference
Transcript
- Lucas: So you walk into a grocery store and you see two jars of pasta sauce side by side. One brand you've seen in a dozen TV commercials, heard mentioned on podcasts, spotted on a billboard. The other is completely new to you. You've never heard of it. Which one do you grab? Luna: The familiar one, almost every time. Even if the new one is cheaper or has better ingredients on paper. Lucas: Right. And that instinct — that pull toward what we've seen before — is not random. It's a well-documented psychological phenomenon called the mere exposure effect. First formally studied by a psychologist named Robert Zajonc back in 1968. Luna: I've heard of Zajonc. He showed people random shapes — Chinese-like characters, actually — and then measured how much they liked them based on how often they'd seen them. The more exposure, the higher the rating, even though nobody had any context for what the symbols meant. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the core insight: familiarity breeds liking, even in the complete absence of any meaningful information. The subjects didn't know if the symbols meant 'peace' or 'danger' — they just knew they'd seen them before, and that was enough to tip the preference scale. Luna: So how does that translate into a modern marketing budget? Because I assume this is not just about running the same ad a hundred times. Lucas: No, and that's where it gets interesting. The effect is real, but there's a curve. Too little exposure and you don't build enough familiarity. Too much, and you cross into what marketers call wear-out — the point where repetition starts to irritate rather than reassure. The sweet spot varies by medium and audience, but there's some solid data on it. Luna: Give me a number. Lucas: One well-cited study in the Journal of Advertising Research found that for a typical consumer packaged goods brand, three exposures per week over a six-week period boosted purchase intent by 18 percent compared to a single exposure. Beyond about ten exposures per week, the effect plateaued and in some cases actually declined. Luna: So the Goldilocks zone is somewhere in that three to ten range per week, depending on the product. Lucas: Right. And the interesting nuance is that the effect works even when the exposure is subliminal — or at least unattended. You don't have to be actively watching an ad for the familiarity to build. Just having the brand logo in your peripheral vision during a YouTube video or on a bus shelter as you walk past is enough to nudge your subconscious. Luna: That explains why brands like Coca-Cola spend billions on outdoor advertising and event sponsorship, even when they already have near-universal awareness. It's not about informing you — it's about maintaining that warm, familiar glow. Lucas: Precisely. Coke's marketing isn't trying to teach you anything new. It's reinforcing a relationship that started decades ago, often before you were born. And it works because the mere exposure effect doesn't saturate easily with a brand you already have positive associations with. The wear-out is more of a risk for newer or less-liked brands. Luna: What about digital? Because online, you have the ability to track exactly how many times someone sees your ad. There's no mystery about frequency anymore. Lucas: Yeah, and that's both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, you can optimise frequency in real time. On the other hand, the data shows that most programmatic campaigns massively over-expose people. A 2023 analysis by a firm called AudienceProject found that the average display ad campaign delivered 40 percent of its impressions to just 8 percent of the target audience — the same people seeing the same banner dozens of times. Luna: So they're hitting the wear-out zone without realising it. They think they're building familiarity, but they're actually building annoyance. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why frequency capping matters. The industry standard is typically three to five exposures per user per campaign, but that's per campaign — not per publisher or per channel. If you're running across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and podcasts, a user could easily see your brand ten or fifteen times in a week without any single platform realising it. Luna: So cross-channel frequency management becomes a real competitive advantage. Not many brands do it well. Lucas: And it's not just about avoiding annoyance. There's a second psychological layer here: the mere exposure effect works best when the exposure is varied. Showing the same exact creative every time wears out faster than showing different creative with the same core message or visual identity. Luna: That's why McDonald's can run thirty different ads in a year, but they all feature the golden arches and the same red and yellow palette. The core visual remains constant, but the context changes. You never get bored of the arches because you're always seeing them in a slightly new scenario. Lucas: Next time you see a McDonald's ad, notice that the arches are almost always in the top left or top right corner of the frame. It's deliberate. They want that shape to be the constant that your eye lands on, even if the rest of the ad is about a new McFlurry flavour or a charity partnership. Luna: So for a small business or a startup without a massive ad budget, the lesson might be: pick one visual signature — a colour, a shape, a sound — and repeat it everywhere, rather than trying to create a new look for every campaign. Lucas: Exactly. And I'd add: don't underestimate audio. The mere exposure effect works for sounds too. Spotify's branded playlists are a perfect example. They create these mood-based playlists with brand names — like 'Focus Flow' sponsored by a productivity app — and then people listen to those songs repeatedly. The brand name becomes associated with a positive, familiar experience, even if nobody's paying attention to the sponsorship message. Luna: And if these marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used — maybe you've applied the mere exposure effect to your own brand or noticed it in an ad you saw today — a handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these. No ads, no sponsors, just people who find value and want to keep it going. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small group already, and every new person helps keep the whole thing ad-free. Appreciate anyone who considers it. Luna: Alright. So the mere exposure effect — we've covered the basics, the frequency sweet spot, the wear-out risk, and the cross-channel challenge. But I want to push on one thing: are there situations where the effect backfires entirely? Where familiarity actually breeds contempt? Lucas: Yes, and it's usually tied to context and initial impression. If your first exposure to a brand is negative — say, you see an ad for a product that's misleading or you have a bad customer service experience — then repeated exposure can actually deepen that negative association. The effect amplifies whatever valence is already there. Luna: So it's not a blank check. You need a product that delivers on the promise. Lucas: Right. The mere exposure effect is a multiplier, not a creator. If the underlying experience is good, repetition builds trust. If it's bad, repetition builds resentment. And there's another condition: the effect is stronger for stimuli that are initially neutral or slightly positive. If someone already hates your brand, showing them your logo a hundred times won't flip them — it'll just make them hate it more. Luna: That makes sense of why brands invest so heavily in the first impression — the packaging, the website, the retail experience. Because once that initial association is set, repetition locks it in. Lucas: And that's also why rebranding is so risky. If you change your logo or name, you lose all the accumulated familiarity. You have to start building the mere exposure effect from scratch. That's why companies like Coca-Cola and Apple have barely tweaked their logos in decades — they're sitting on a mountain of accumulated exposure. Luna: There's a famous example from the 1990s: Tropicana changed its packaging and lost tens of millions in sales within two months. People couldn't find the brand on the shelf because it didn't look familiar anymore. Lucas: Exactly. That's the mere exposure effect in reverse. The product was identical, the taste was identical, but the visual cue that people had been exposed to for years was gone, and so was their preference. They switched back to the old design within a year. Luna: So if I'm a marketer listening to this, what's the one concrete action I should take this week? Lucas: Audit your frequency. Look at how many times your average customer sees your brand across all channels in a typical week. If you can't answer that question because you don't have cross-channel data, that's your first problem. Second, if you're below three exposures per week, increase frequency. If you're above ten, pull back or vary your creative. Third, pick one sensory signature — visual or audio — and make sure it appears in every single touchpoint. That consistency is what builds the familiarity that drives preference. Luna: And for anyone building a brand from scratch, start with that signature early. Because every exposure from day one is compounding. Lucas: Exactly. The mere exposure effect is essentially compound interest for brand preference. The earlier you start, and the more consistently you show up, the more that familiarity builds. Over years, it creates a moat that competitors can't easily cross, because they can't buy the accumulated exposure you've already earned. Luna: Alright, so next time you find yourself reaching for that familiar jar of pasta sauce, you'll know exactly why. And maybe you'll think twice about whether it's actually better — or just more familiar. Lucas: That's a good note to end on. For Marketing Psychology with Fexingo, I'm Lucas. Luna: And I'm Luna. See you next episode.