Consistency is a vital form of frequency

Consistency is another form of "frequency". Why does "frequency" matter? It's an old advertising term to describe repeatedly telling an audience something. When we're consistent with what we say to people, the idea becomes memorable, and as I get older, having something top of mind often makes more of the difference in whether or not I do it than say logic or feelings. Between taking care of all the urgent and critical things in my day, when I have a moment, I often make unconscious choices about things I've heard or seen.

I can't help but feel more and more that most of my decisions start and end with "frequency". Sometimes I need to think about a purchase or a decision several times before I acknowledge, process, and make sense of it enough for an opinion, then even more in order to commit to something, and finally to follow through, pay for, and experience it. Whether it's a wall decoration, tickets to a movie, or dinner -- the first time I think of something isn't the moment I can make a decision. Sometimes a question comes up and it may look spontaneous, but that's because I've either already made up my mind before or I have an urgency like hunger that takes priority over optimizing the choice.

So if "frequency" is the secret sauce for convincing people, why don't brands just say the exact same thing in every ad campaign? That works for some places, but not in channels they own like social, or email, where that would feel like spam, and betray subscribers who wanted something. That's OK in a TV commercial, or a banner ad, where you can run the same visual over and over, but "owned channels" are typically subscription based, and they need variation! Variation is the spice of life, the fuel for curiosity. So how does a brand add spicy variation when it also needs to accomplish the goal of repeated reminders? The most vital form of frequency: consistency. That's the magical strategy, the middle road, the invisible process of finding seeds in the fields in our minds, coming back to water the plot, and shining light so that the experience manifests. Consistent frequency with just enough variation.