The Creative Alliance, Strategic Marketing, Interactive, Public Relations

Threat Level Orange (or…How Frequency Can Kill Your Brand)

One early morning recently—we’re talking 4:00 am or so—I came to the office to finish a design project that had to go out before break of business day.

I entered our company offices and somehow triggered the burglar alarm. The eardrum-splitting wail would not stop even after I entered the deactivation code.

Tried again. Still blaring.

Called the security company. They’ll send a guy out later. They don’t do 4:00 a.m.

Choice: A) Disappoint the client? B) Save my hearing?

Well, that one’s easy.

I settled in at the computer which just happened to be under the darn burglar alarm.

Stage One: near insanity as the sound reverberates off my molars.

Stage Two: a weird thing happens. I get so engrossed in the project, that I no longer hear the alarm. I was an hour into the work before I realized I had somehow ignored the sound which was still going strong. Some sort of noise-cancelling brain cells had kicked in.

Well, if I could do that, what’s the chance that a clients’ customers may be getting numb to the messaging we help them create?

It’s all reminiscent of the Threat Level Orange* warnings at the airport, having now become some sort of government-inspired Haiku/Muzak hybrid that millions of travels hear but no longer listen to.

Think about the frequency that the Threat Level Orange message has achieved: In just the twenty busiest US airports alone, over the past eight years, this phrase has been heard 35 billion times.

But nobody’s listening.

Is it possible to have too much frequency?

That seems counterintuitive—sort of like you can’t be too thin or have too much RAM in your computer. But it’s true. Frequency is crucial to marketing, but there is also a tipping point where frequency has to hit…another frequency.

It has to reach people from some new angle, with some new hook. Frequency blended with newfound relevance and creative engagement will always trump brute frequency alone.

That’s why, while appreciative of media buyers’ penchant for reach and frequency metrics, I’m convinced that without creativity, frequency is just more threat level orangeade. For example, new research is showing that creative, animated online display ads are far out-stripping their higher frequency cousin, the basic banner ad. Social media is instantly rewarding print and broadcast ads for their creativity by fostering commentary on them and recommendation of them.

Frequency, like any commodity, is necessary but not sufficient. That’s because creativity will always be the ultimate non-commodity.

* By the way, be sure to read the WIRED Magazine story about Threat Level Orange and why we’re perpetually stuck there. The TSA wonks have determined that if they go to red, they’ll freak everyone out. If they change to yellow and, something happens, they’ll be blamed for whatever happens. Net result. Americans are not one whit safer.