"One thing that hasn't changed, though, is that we still have to hear the new ad 2 or 3 times before it begins to affect us, even when we're already familiar with the advertiser in question and have a positive opinion of them"
About this Quote
Advertising’s dirty little secret is that goodwill doesn’t equal persuasion; repetition does. Roy H. Williams, writing as a businessman who’s spent a career translating attention into revenue, isn’t marveling at human irrationality so much as budgeting for it. The line lands because it treats familiarity as a floor, not a finish line: even if you already like the brand, your brain still won’t reliably “act” on the message until it’s been heard enough times to feel inevitable.
The specific intent is practical and slightly corrective. It pushes back against the common marketer fantasy that a clever spot or strong brand equity can do the work in one swing. Williams is arguing for frequency as a behavioral lever: the first exposure is recognition, the second is processing, the third is permission. He’s also quietly defending the annoyance factor. If you’ve ever wondered why ads keep chasing you after you’ve already decided you’re fine with the company, his answer is: because “fine” is not the same as “moved.”
The subtext is about cognitive friction. People don’t live in a decision-making lab; they live in distraction. Repetition isn’t just persuasion, it’s retrieval practice. It drags a message from the background into the “available at the moment of choice” slot, which is where buying decisions actually happen.
Contextually, this reads like a field note from the era of media saturation: more channels, shorter attention, lower patience. The tactic hasn’t changed because the hardware hasn’t changed. We’re still pattern-recognition machines who trust what feels familiar, even when we know we’re being played.
The specific intent is practical and slightly corrective. It pushes back against the common marketer fantasy that a clever spot or strong brand equity can do the work in one swing. Williams is arguing for frequency as a behavioral lever: the first exposure is recognition, the second is processing, the third is permission. He’s also quietly defending the annoyance factor. If you’ve ever wondered why ads keep chasing you after you’ve already decided you’re fine with the company, his answer is: because “fine” is not the same as “moved.”
The subtext is about cognitive friction. People don’t live in a decision-making lab; they live in distraction. Repetition isn’t just persuasion, it’s retrieval practice. It drags a message from the background into the “available at the moment of choice” slot, which is where buying decisions actually happen.
Contextually, this reads like a field note from the era of media saturation: more channels, shorter attention, lower patience. The tactic hasn’t changed because the hardware hasn’t changed. We’re still pattern-recognition machines who trust what feels familiar, even when we know we’re being played.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marketing |
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