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Matthew Burns:
Welcome back to another Crumbs for Giants, where we’ve got not Jack Heald. We’ve got Steven Semple, who is a Wizard of Ads partner and a worldwide celebrity speaker. This guy’s got TEDx talks. He’s all right. He’s done a couple of things in the world, spoken at NASDAQ, and been to a whole bunch of other really cool places.

Anyway, Steve, I said to Jack, “Hit this thing, I want to invite Steve on because Steve has this really interesting way to describe, talk about, and share with marketers and business owners all about repetition. And so I think that bears saying again, you talk really well about repetition. And I want to make sure that people understand that repetition is very important when you’re doing marketing and advertising. So could you do me a favor, just break into something for us on repetition.

Stephen Semple:
On repetition, the hill we die on?

Matthew Burns:
The hill we die on, quite literally, right?

Stephen Semple:
Well, it is. So first of all, let’s define what we mean by repetition, because it’s a word that’s thrown around a lot. And repetition is how often an ad is heard? So in other words, repetition is repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. That’s repetition. And unless your ad is something like Apple’s 1984 Macintosh ad, which was only played once, you need repetition in order for things to be remembered. Because without repetition, you may be heard, you may even be seen, but you won’t be remembered without repetition.

And look, this is how you teach kids the timetables. This is how you teach kids addition: repetition, repetition, repetition. Repetition is what is required to drive short-term memory into long-term memory. And it’s the same for advertising. Repetition is really, really important.

Matthew Burns:
So what you’re saying is that if you repeat things a lot, it kind of gets sticky.

Stephen Semple:
Well, when you repeat things… So there are two elements we need for an ad, or there are a couple of elements we need for an ad. So first of all, an ad has to stand out. It’s got to be seen, got to be heard, it’s got to stand out. And then it needs to be repeated so that it’s remembered long-term.

Matthew Burns:
So saliency. It has to be salient, and it has to be repeated.

Stephen Semple:
Yes. Okay. If it was ignored the first time and ignored the second time, it was ignored the third time, and it was ignored the fourth time, you ain’t got any repetition.

Matthew Burns:
I guess, you know what? That’s a really good way of saying that. Well, wait a second. That’s kind of like pretty much standard radio ads nowadays, where come on down, family owned, free parking. It’s the same whole bunch of stuff all the time, so it’s really easy to ignore those ads. So even though they’re on air a lot, you just kind of don’t think about them.

Stephen Semple:
Correct.

Matthew Burns:
So having a very interesting ad, something that’s salient, something that’s sticky in the mind that makes you go from who gives a crap to “Hey, what did you say?”

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. And this is the reason why I struggle with certain media platforms. So, for example, pay-per-click, somebody clicks on your website, comes to your website. There’s no repetition there. So our hope and our prayer is they fill out our form, and they decide… So if I’m selling something that has this immediate, I’ve got to take action, my air conditioner broke down. Okay, maybe that all works. But for a lot of products and services, it doesn’t because there’s no plan for repetition in that interaction.

Social media, unless I get the person following or I create enough other interesting content, there’s no repetition. And what I find is that more and more marketing plans are created with no plan for repetition. And what’s one of the things that happens when we build out media plans? When we build out a media plan, part of what we bake into the media plan is what our repetition is and how we’re going to manage that repetition.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. I’m still going back to this is the way we teach things. It’s so funny. Again, we’re marketers, we’re ad writers, this is what we do for a living. But when we work with a client at the beginning, a lot of times they want to teach the public something, but if you don’t do it in an interesting way, or they don’t realize that just teaching somebody that you’re awesome or you’re interesting or that you’re funny or that you’re unique is just by repetition.

Stephen Semple:
Right, right. Well, think about it. If you go to a presentation coach, one of the first things that they’re going to tell you to do is you need to tell people what you’re going to tell them, you need to tell them, and then you need to tell them what you told them. Why? Why? Why do you do that?

Matthew Burns:
Repetition. Repetition. Yeah. Right? Oh my God.

Stephen Semple:
It’s baked into so many things we do, and yet people will go, “Well, hey, what media should I do now?” There are two problems with that. They start with media without a message plan and also without a repetition plan. You need the two of them. It needs to be a great message so it’s heard, so it sticks, and it needs repetition that moves it from that sticky in the moment to that sticky long term.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. I’m trying to think of… I mean, obviously, we do the Sticky Sales Stories YouTube channel together, and you’ve been doing it, and that’s a year old now. We’ve been doing it for a couple of years. You’ve been doing it for a couple of years, the Empire Builders. Is there a good example that you can think of of a campaign that everybody really can understand and know that is highly repetitive, and why that is brilliant?

Stephen Semple:
Well, let me give you a great example. Please. Name a fast food restaurant joint.

Matthew Burns:
McDonald’s.

Stephen Semple:
Right. McDonald’s has repetition. They got billboards, they got radio ads, they got TV ads, they got high-visibility locations. They do all of that. And in fact, I would argue that most of the time, McDonald’s every once in a while will come out with a highly sticky, really great advertising campaign, such as their Big Mac one, like what’s in a Big Mac, two all-beef patties… That hasn’t run for 20 years, and we can still all repeat it. But they definitely are at the altar of repetition, right?

Matthew Burns:
I was going to say that’s actually one of the best examples because again, they played that ad enough times that it seared into our brains. There’s nothing we can do to get away from that. I mean, another great example then, if we’re going to go down that line, is, where’s the beef?

Stephen Semple:
Right. Yeah.

Matthew Burns:
Right. It was seared into our brains of this little old lady, which is an odd thing for this little old lady to say, “Where’s the beef?” And so it’s both salient, and then we just heard it a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, right?

Stephen Semple:
Yes. And both those campaigns ran for many, many, many years. So there’s an example of high rep. And I would even argue this. I would go so far as this, Matt, that look, what we want to have is we want to have high-impact ads with repetition. That’s the gold standard. Yes. But I would go so far as this: if I had to sacrifice one, if I could only have one of those, can I have a high-impact ad, or can I have repetition? I’d pick repetition over a high-impact ad.

Matthew Burns:
So would I. I agree with you a thousand percent. Absolutely.

Stephen Semple:
Right. Because we’ve seen lots of okay ads that are done on high repetition that still stick with us.

Matthew Burns:
Okay, ads that did really well. We covered this one in William Mattar.

Stephen Semple:
There you go. Right.

Matthew Burns:
It’s a great example of that.

Stephen Semple:
Right. Hurt in a car, call William Mattar. 444, 4444.

Matthew Burns:
Right? If you live in Buffalo or Western New York, you live in Toronto, Ontario, you live in- Unavoidable. You cannot because it was played, played, played. Over and over.

Stephen Semple:
For years.

Matthew Burns:
Decades. The worst readings, and it talked about the law. It’s like boring crap, but we know who we’re going to call if we get hurt in a car.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, I love that. That’s proof positive.

Stephen Semple:
Right. So now, what is the gold standard? Because if I have a really impactful ad, I don’t need the same level of repetition to get into long-term memory. I can get into long-term memory faster, and I’m getting along. But look, it’s really hard to get there without repetition. Okay. Really hard.

Matthew Burns:
Okay. So I don’t know who’s going to be listening to this. Obviously, we’re talking to marketers, we’re talking to business owners, but I would even argue that we’re going to have some radio reps out there who are probably going to end up listening to Crumbs for Giants at some point because we’re going to be talking about it so much. What would be the advice then? What do we tell a radio station group about how to help their clients with repetition?

Stephen Semple:
Don’t sell broad rotators.

Matthew Burns:
I know I set that one up, and it was a little cheeky of me.

Stephen Semple:
No, but seriously, don’t sell broad rotators because broad rotators don’t, by definition, have repetition because you’re not reaching the same listener, the same viewer, on a repetitive basis. The most powerful thing you can do is design a campaign that has repetition, which means no broad rotators because people have a listenership habit, people have a viewership habit.

So what you want to do is build a campaign that I’m going back to the same person on a regular basis, giving me repetition. And yeah, it’s more expensive. It’s more expensive on a per-spot basis, but way, way more effective. And stop talking to your customer about it, it’s this much an ad. Who cares? That’s right. What it is about is how many people am I reaching and how often am I reaching the same people? That’s what will make it effective.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. I think that’s also the reason why digital media, things like OTT over the top, things like pre-roll on YouTube, that sort of thing, it’s harder to get repetition. It’s harder for your message to become sticky.

Stephen Semple:
And look, and if somebody wants to see for radio and for TV some ideas on that, go to Roy’s book, Secret Formulas. Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads actually lays out some buying strategies you can use to get repetition.

Matthew Burns:
Absolutely. That’s a great reference. I’m actually going to really quickly… Listen, we don’t go far without this book.

Stephen Semple:
Because this is the rule. It’s right in that book. And look, it doesn’t have things for OTT and things along that, but you’ve got to think about if I’m putting ads on OTT, what is my repetition strategy? You have to think about that because if you don’t bake that into whatever your plan is, it’s not going to work.

Matthew Burns:
Okay. Awesome. So basically, what I’m hearing is to be repetitive. First, try to be repetitive, salient, and impactful. If that’s the golden standard, that’s what you need to do.

Stephen Semple:
A combination of the two is the gold standard. Yes.

Matthew Burns:
Right. And if you need help with any of that, get a really good marketing group to do the heavy lifting of coming up with something really creative and-

Stephen Semple:
And challenge them on that repetition because many marketing groups ignore that. They actually don’t put together a plan for repetition. Challenge them on that. What’s my repetition? Absolutely. Because if they don’t have that, don’t work with them.

Matthew Burns:
Okay. No, that’s perfect. So Steve, I’m going to ask you this last question. We have an unofficial sponsor, and when I mean by unofficial sponsor, I mean we don’t get paid. We don’t get paid a dime, but we love talking about the Wizard Academy and all the things that it’s done for us and our careers, but also-

Stephen Semple:
In fact, we give them money. We actually pay them.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. But we believe that, listen, if we’re doing our best service to the world of marketing and business, small business, medium-sized business, we should go there and learn some things about communication. There are amazing things there. So Steve, I know you’re going to double down on this, but tell me, what would you recommend people take at the Wizard Academy if they really want to jump in and learn?

Stephen Semple:
So I’m attending this for the third time, and I’m attending next week, Magical Worlds. So I’ve already attended this class twice. I’m going a third time. And in fact, I’m looking at it, going, I think this is a course I would do every two or three years. It’s a three-day course. It is so rich every time you do it. There’s no other marketing course I’ve taken more than once.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, interesting. Me too. I’ve taken Magical Worlds twice.

Stephen Semple:
So I cannot think of any stronger recommendation than that I continue to reattend this course on an ongoing basis. That’s how good it is.

Matthew Burns:
Okay. Enough said. Guys, go to Wizard Academy. If you want to learn more about this stuff, like what we’re telling you, we’ve learned it there. We learn from each other. You have questions in the comments, please. Steve, thanks, man. I appreciate you jumping over. I mean, you’re a busy guy. You’re on all these other things, and you came over and spent some time with us over here at Crumbs for Giants.

Stephen Semple:
I appreciate you. Repetition is the easy one to talk about because you just have to repeat yourself over and over again.

Matthew Burns:
Well, I was going to say, maybe that’s true. Maybe I gave you the easy button. I’m going to put a link to Steve’s TEDx talk. You guys should all go check that out over at… It’s on TEDx, weirdly enough. And talking about how to build a story, the four ingredients that make an amazing story are: So go watch that. Steve, you’re amazing. I appreciate you, man.

Stephen Semple:
Thanks, man. This was fun.

Matthew Burns:
Okay. Thanks, everybody. We’ll talk soon.

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