• by July 27, 2000

Could it be? Could the principles used by traditional advertisers for decades also apply to online media?

With all this talk about technology that prevents users from seeing the same online ad twice, we seem to have forgotten about one of the basics of advertising in general - frequency.

New-York-based advertising research firm Dynamic Logic (DL) - http://www.dynamiclogic.com - has launched a brand new monthly newsletter, in the first issue of which the company states that when it comes to online ads there is a direct correlation between the branding value of online advertising and the frequency of exposure,

By increasing exposure levels from one to four or more, researchers said, "advertisers can virtually double the impact the advertising has on Brand Awareness... the range of lift in awareness spans 5.6% - for only one exposure to 10.4% for four exposures or more."

DL says this finding is important because it contradicts a philosophy among online direct marketers who believe that in the interest of getting the highest possible click-through rate, they should employ a frequency cap of 1 (so that an online ad will be shown to the same browser only once).

"While this may be true for click-through," DL says, "the opposite holds true for online branding." Their research demonstrates that there is value in showing consumers an ad multiple times in order to build the brand, as is commonly done by (ready for this?) broadcast advertisers. Who knew?

According to DL, advertisers should loosen frequency caps to at least 4, develop creative that takes advantage of sequential ad serving and message building, and keep creative constant, especially logo and tagline placement.