Brand identity, ad campaigns and content: Why the only person bored with your creative is you.

In a world that constantly serves up newness, how can clients and agencies create great brands and campaigns that last?

‘Wear-out’ is an overlooked side effect of creative work — something the ever-brilliant Mark Ritson examined in forensic detail in a recent article. In it, he argued that marketers are too quick to change ad campaign creative. They assume that because they’re sick of the sight of an advert, everyone else is, too.

We see wear-out happening in brand development, too: a client comes to us and commissions a new brand identity. We present a creative concept, they fall in love with it, we fall in love with it, and then we roll it out. And, as we move from concept into living, breathing brand identity, fatigue sets in. Our client starts looking at the creative through narrowed eyes. Should we change the tagline? Switch up the design? Dial down that graphic?

Completely forgetting, of course, that no one other than us has seen the work. It may have occupied almost all of our collective brain-space for a year or more, but it hasn’t yet troubled anyone else’s.

So, what’s going on? Let’s start with the theory. The concept of advertising wear-out has been around for decades. Based on academic research, it argues that an advert stops being effective after you’ve seen it four or more times. Yet it turns out that a good advert can work hard for years. People don’t get bored or annoyed by creative they’ve seen before. The people who do — well, that’s us. The brand-makers, the creatives, and the marketers.

To prove it, Mark Ritson looked at data from four new studies. All said the same thing: the original research was wrong. Analytic Partners looked at, for example, “50,000 ads in 2020 and found only 14 exhibiting wear-out when they were replaced. The others were pulled despite the fact they were demonstrating no signs of wear-out at that time.”

But there’s more to wear-out than outdated research. We work in a world that constantly serves up newness: content, insight, music, fashion, launches, announcements. Whatever industry we’re in, we’re always scrambling to be the one who gets to say something new — and it’s this we need to resist. We don’t always need a new idea. We just need one idea that’s good. An advert that generates click-throughs, year after year. An identity that’s a genuine reflection of what a business stands for, and that doesn’t, as a result, need a ‘rebrand’ every few years.

Think about the identities for the heritage brands that have shaped our lives — Burberry, Hunter, the Co-op, even IKEA. Sure, they’ve modernised but, by and large, they’re still the same. We’re about to launch a brand identity for the 137-year-old Henry Boot PLC. Have we completely reinvented it? Of course not: Henry Boot has prospered through wars, recessions and boom times for good reason. Its new identity needs to reflect both its past and today’s modern, progressive business.

So, Mark Ritson is right. Wear-out is not a thing. The best brands and campaigns, based on great creative, solid ideas and deep strategy, are gifts that will keep on giving. And if that’s the case, then there’s real value — more value — to be had in keeping faith with great ideas, executed well, than there is in ripping it up and starting again.