The power of Media Frequency

Media frequency is an essential tool for measuring the success of any communication campaign whether it is on owned media, through a PR campaign, or in a paid-media campaign. Usually, it is associated with the unique reach figure (unduplicated reach). It indicates, for communication and marketing specialists, how many times a piece of content was viewed by an individual user/customer.

The general rule is that we need a higher frequency to create an impact. Many factors are contributing to this need, such as awareness level as the fewer people know about something the more frequently, they need to see it before taking action. In addition, there is competition around what we try to communicate, there is another competitor, or another argument being communicated to the same audience by someone else. Hence, to overcome this, we need to communicate as frequently as possible to influence the audience in a way that they will follow us over our competitors and make the decisions we wish them to make. Moreover, the type of audience and their demographic will influence our decision on the right frequency level, not all types of people react in the same way to our messages, and they have different levels of media consumption and exposure.

 The more complex, the more expensive, and the more personal the decision we want our audience to make, the more we need to communicate it to them, and the more communication materials we use the more we need to communicate with them frequently, this is a central concept in agenda-setting theory and cultivation theory in media studies.

https://helpfulprofessor.com/cultivation-theory-examples/

https://helpfulprofessor.com/agenda-setting-theory/

On the other hand, the less we communicate the message the less effective the result is, communicating something too little can be a waste of time and money. Nevertheless, communicating it excessively is surely a negative thing, it can deter and disturb the audience, and they can react negatively, whether it is an ad being shown over and over way too much, or an article on a news site, eventually, people will start to ignore it, causing a loose in the investment and creating a negative perception. Some advertisers think that placing an ad additional time is okay and is not going to harm because they got this additional space for free or for a low price, not knowing that they are causing themselves more harm than gaining a benefit.

There is no one specific set of numbers for what is a good level of frequency, so how to go about it and know that we have assigned the right number of frequencies for each piece of material that we communicate in the media? It is a challenging task at the start, especially for new users whether you are launching an advertising campaign a PR campaign, or simply just a general information campaign. The simple answer is results, look at your results and what you are trying to achieve. There is usually a slope, numbers tend to increase at the beginning and start to decline at a later stage, you need to know at which point of declining you should stop, and not continue to post beyond it even if it is free of cost.

Here are a few things to consider when assigning the frequency level to your media campaign:

1. Type of message (Awareness vs. Call to Action)
2. Other messages you are running/planning to run in parallel.
3. Type of campaigns you are running/planning to run in parallel (Owned channels, PR, Paid-ads)
4. Competitors benchmark
5. Setting the frequency level in your booking (Offline and online)
6. Defining the target results
7. The number and type of creative materials you are using.
8. The budget you have
9. The media platform and how much content are circulating on it (impressions, ad break, programs, outdoor circuits, etc.).
10. Users habit in media consumption

The impact of media frequency can vary significantly depending on several factors, including the context, content, audience, and goals of media communication. Here are some ways in which media frequency can be powerful:

1. Reinforcement of Messages: The more frequently a message or content is presented to an audience, the more likely it is to be remembered and internalized. This can be a powerful tool for reinforcing certain ideas, values, or brand messages.

• Awareness and Recall: Frequent exposure to media content can increase awareness and recall. When people encounter a brand or message repeatedly through various media channels, it can lead to better recognition and recall when making decisions or purchasing products.

• Behavioral Influence: High media frequency can influence behavior. For example, seeing advertisements for a sale multiple times might encourage people to visit a store or make an online purchase.

• Agenda-Setting: Media frequency plays a role in agenda-setting, a theory in media studies that suggests that the media can influence which topics and issues are considered important by the public. When media consistently cover certain topics or events, they can shape public perception and priorities.

• Cultivation Effects: Long-term exposure to certain media content can lead to cultivation effects, where individuals’ perceptions of reality align with the portrayals they see in the media. Frequent exposure to violence in media, for example, may lead to a perception that the world is more violent than it actually is.

• Behavioral Change: In public health campaigns, frequent media messaging can be used to promote behavior change. For instance, anti-smoking campaigns often use high-frequency advertising to discourage smoking.

• Political Influence: Political campaigns often use high-frequency advertising to reach voters. Repeated exposure to political messages can influence voters’ decisions and perceptions of candidates and issues.

• Social Media Amplification: On social media, frequent posting and engagement can amplify messages and trends. Content that goes viral often benefits from a high frequency of sharing and engagement.

It’s important to note that the effectiveness of media frequency depends on various factors, including the quality and relevance of the content, the target audience, the media channels used, and the overall communication strategy. In some cases, excessive or intrusive media frequency can lead to audience fatigue and backlash, so finding the right balance is crucial.

In conclusion, media frequency is powerful enough to impact the results of our communications either positively or negatively. It is imperative that we know and set the right frequency level, hence, this must be part of our communication strategy. In today’s media world, there are endless measures to assess our performance, depending on what we want to report. For instance, high reach, high impressions, high engagement, high conversion rate, high GRPs, high Ad recall, high brand recall, and so on. Without linking these measures to the frequency level, we can be misled for a while before we realize that we are not doing good enough and that we wasted our investment.

Along with the Unique Reach figures, an ongoing assessment of our Media frequency is our safeguard to ensure that we are getting the right results and the right cost and to the right market share/size. We would know where we are, and what we can get from that point and forward. Never underestimate the power of media frequency, it can be too late to make up for its negligence.