Too much advertising kills advertising

Or so does one of the latest articles of the Platt Retail Institute suggest, based on the studies of several researchers and psychologists in the field of consumer behaviour. While at least 50% of the purchasing decisions are made in store, positive actions and attitudes could be blocked by an excessive quantity of ads also labelled as ”advertising clutter”.

Imagine you’re in the middle of browsing items in a shop  and comparing prices but you’re continuously bombed with commercials from various sources, with contradicting messages (for competing products) that impede you from concentrating, making the entire buying process much longer and more complicated than it ought to be. What you as a seller end up with is a dissatisfied customer who isn’t likely to come back for more (because hey he/she’s already being served some 3,000 marketing messages in other places throughout the day as studies show).

Researchers acknowledge three consequences of this ”clutter” and it’s all about advertising not  helping anybody in the end:

1) negative attitudes towards brands and seller: decreased likability and trust/increased scepticism;

2) avoidance of advertising messages and decreased attention (your message will just go past their ears);

3) confusion of brands’ advertising messages and their products (since people can’t focus their attention on too many stimulus at a time). That’s definitely the last thing you want as advertiser and reseller.

The researchers seems to suggest that crowding your venue with too many ads actually disrupts and impedes the search process thus making advertising in any form (printed or digital) being perceived as intrusive giving way to an avoiding behaviour.

As Pascal Cübb put it in his interview to us too many screens end up in being ineffective and ”too much advertising  kills advertising”  and its usefulness. While the benefits of in-store commercials supported by digital signage platforms remain in place (‘triggerring memory recall, effectively introducing new products, promoting sale items and educating consumers”, PRI) their effectiveness could be diminished or totally cancelled  by too many marketing messages.

So here’s the take away- keeping ”a clean environment” would actually help your venue perform better in terms of sales and putting messages across. Assess the best time to advertise and the most effective ads in order to determine the ones that need to stay as you’re striving for some very limited resources: your clients’ attention, patience and eventually money.

To read the PRI’s study in full click here.

To find out more about digital signage click here.


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