Why brand familiarity works

Whether it is an impulse purchase like a candy bar or a package of cigarettes or an infrequent and highly deliberated purchase like a washing machine, a refrigerator, a vacuum cleaner or a mattress, the biggest single thing that advertising can contribute is a friendly predisposition toward the brand—a whole complex of thoughts and emotions which give the purchaser peace of mind in the choice he makes.

We shun the unknown. We are naturally drawn to the familiar.

You might call this simply “friendship for the product”.

Your best friends are people whose qualities you like and admire and whom you enjoy being with—but they are usually people you see frequently.

The principle of frequency in advertising has long been recognized. Several great brands have been built around rigid adherence to this principle rather than through the content or power of any single advertisement.

Brands do not need customers to love them. Being the name that causes the least mild panic at the shelf is already a magnificent commercial asset.

This sounds terribly unromantic, which is why marketing prefers words like devotion and community. Yet a cereal box wins because it is recognised before breakfast has properly begun. Accounting software enters the shortlist because the buyer has heard the name for two years and assumes it will still exist next Tuesday. An appliance badge reassures someone who cannot sensibly compare the engineering in a shop.

Familiarity does not make the decision exciting. It makes the decision feel less like gambling.

That value is routinely vandalised by teams bored with their own brand. They change the colour, voice, line and campaign device because everybody internally has seen them 400 times. The customer has seen them four. The grand reinvention arrives precisely when recognition was beginning to compound, and the marketers celebrate by presenting research showing low awareness.

Of course repetition can become wallpaper, and no amount of friendly exposure rescues repeated disappointment. Familiarity needs a recognisable character and a product that does not punish trust. But I would rather stretch one distinctive idea for years than stage an identity house-fire every season. Customers are not waiting to discover how creatively restless the marketing department feels. They are trying to buy something without regretting it.