When planning out-of-home advertising campaigns, one important aspect a marketer needs to decide, is the duration it will last. It is obvious, as a business you would like more people to see your ad. Thanks to a phenomenon called “creative fatigue” we can assess when the exposure value of that copy decreases. To get consumers to pay attention to your messaging instead of tuning it out, it is helpful to understand the concept of “creative fatigue”. Dialing in to the various unique elements that affect the timeline of an OOH advertising campaign can also inform the right timing.
What is Creative Fatigue?
Also called advertisement fatigue, creative fatigue happens when your ad appears so often that your audience tunes it out and stops paying attention. If a low-quality ad over-serves to the same people, that might have negative impact on your brand’s reputation and drive potential customers away. Creative fatigue can cause your campaigns to become less effective and lower your ROI in the long run.
How to combat Creative Fatigue
Marketers can reverse the effects of ad fatigue by refreshing their existing creatives or building new campaigns. To combat creative fatigue, across various channels, you can also:
- Update the color palette and images of display ads
- Adapt copy of text ads to the audience’s habits and preferences through research
- Follow a strategic schedule, so ads are only served at relevant times
- Rotate ads frequently, so audiences see different creatives
- Monitor campaigns to prevent creative fatigue from setting in
Finding the Right Duration for Your OOH Advertising Campaign
Every brand, target audience, and location is different. Running A/B tests is the best way to address all the unique elements and hone in the timing for your OOH advertising campaigns.
To get the most from your A/B testing effort, use an OOH platform that provides precise data analytics and reporting. Data attribution is a method that allows advertisers to identify who has seen an OOH ad based on anonymous cell phone location data and find out what actions they took online or offline as a result of the exposure.
To conclude, whilst re-using campaigns creatives or messages is sometimes good for a brand, marketers should not let the duration be too long. In Cyprus, we researched that companies rent OOH for a long duration and that might be too hurtful for a business brand image. Don’t overdo it with a campaign, check the schedule, rotate campaigns & ads frequently, so creative fatigue does not kick in with consumers.
