FROM THE CREW
Hey there 👋 – The Crew here!
Happy Thursday to the 28,867 marketers reading today 🙂
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Here’s a little story from one of our Crew members. Back in November, before winter came in full force, they went shopping for a winter coat.
They decided on a yellow one. It was comfy, but also uncommon. Not many people were wearing yellow coats at the time.
Then the next day, half the people were wearing a yellow jacket or coat. What gives? That’s what we’ll unpack in today’s newsletter.
Reading time: 3 minutes and 55 seconds.
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PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT
The Frequency Illusion
This illusion affects everyone on a regular basis, but as with most “tricks” our brains play on us, we rarely notice it.
The Frequency Illusion (or Frequency Bias) simply means that once you become aware of something, you see it occur more frequently, even though the actual frequency has not changed.
The increased frequency is really an illusion.
You might also hear this called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, named after a terrorist group in West Germany. After someone read about them in the newspaper, they saw their name pop up everywhere.
So, how can marketers apply the Frequency Illusion in their strategy? We have three ideas.
Three Examples Using The Frequency Illusion
1/ Retargeting.
It’s a fundamental part of a marketing strategy, and it works off of the Frequency Illusion, at least to some extent.
The more often someone sees a product, the more popular they think it is, so they are more likely to “give it a try.”
That’s one reason retargeting campaigns are so useful and have such high ROI for paid marketing.
2/ Enhance the reach of positive reviews and testimonials
You know what’s even better than someone being aware of your product?
Someone being aware of how good your product is.
One way to enhance your results using The Frequency Illusion is to give your positive reviews and testimonials more reach.
Put them on your website.
Use them in your ads.
Just be aware of The Blemishing Effect as well when you do this.
3/ Launch with a big splash to create a ripple effect
This might be the most powerful tactic that benefits from this bias…
Because of the Frequency Illusion, once someone has seen your product once, they will start to notice it everywhere.
When one more person becomes aware of your product, they notice more often. And that increases the chances of them telling others about it, creating a ripple effect.
That’s why launching a product with “a big splash” can produce a lot of hype.
So, put points 1 and 2 together with point 3, and you have yourself a product launch strategy that will make your new product seem just as much of a household name as Coca-Cola.
OK, maybe not Coca-Cola, but you have to start somewhere, right?
CLICKWORTHY
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✖️ Twitter—or X—keeps making changes. The platform is removing the “Promoted” tag from on-feed ads and will display a less visible “Ad” tag on the top-right instead. The native-like feel could potentially improve ad clicks… if it complies with FTC rules, that is.
🗞️ Good news at last. The ad market is showing its first signs of recovery, and growth analysts believe ad spend will keep improving as we approach the end of the year. Right on time for the big holiday season…
🛒 Speaking of ads… it appears online retailers are the biggest spenders. Both Meta and Google reported an increase in ad revenue for the second quarter, saying “online commerce vertical was the largest contributor to growth.” More positive signs…
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ICYMI, last week we looked at the Peak-End Theory.
