Advertising wear out is a myth. And a costly one at that.

Thanks to data from Kantar, System1 and Analytic Partners it turns out that ad wear out is a complete and total myth. In a study of 51,232 ads retired by marketers for new work, only 14 showed any signs of wear out.

THIS is absolutely Stunning.

It means the +/- 30% of marketing budgets spent on creating new ads is a waste of money. What’s more, it could be costing marketers much more than that. Replacing old ads that work with new ones that don’t work as well can have a big negative impact on revenue. Remember Dos Equis’ “Most Interesting Man In The World” campaign? It catapulted the beer to superstardom and tripled sales between 2006 – 2016. When they retired the character and tried to replace him with a younger actor, sales tanked and continue to do so.

a few more things the study revealed:

• Ads that don’t perform well will not perform better over time. Bad ads will just continue to be bad ads.

• Ads that perform well will continue to perform well – theoretically forever. For example, the “How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To The Center Of A Tootsie Pop?” commercial has been running in its original form with no changes for over 50 years with absolutely no wear out in performance at all.

• Ads for specific events – say a concert, political rally or sporting event – will not be as effective if it runs after the event. Duh.

Some implications:

• You will grow tired of your ads before your customers do.  

• Your agency will try to pressure you to make new ads before you need to. (That’s one of the biggest ways we make money.)

What you should do:

• Be very patient. It takes the average ad at least 3 months to “wear in” and sometimes over a year to maximize effectiveness.

• Keep running ads that work. If you’re a new CMO, don’t stop running old ads that are proven to be effective.

• Only create new ads when you need to:

• Replace ads that don’t work

• Demonstrate a new benefit

• Connect with a completely new audience (Be cautious here. Don’t repeat Bud Light’s mistake. Make sure the work you create for the new audience you want to reach doesn’t alienate your current audience.)

• Dust off those old ads that worked and run them again. (Why invest in a new unproven idea, when you have a proven one ready to go?)

• Put the money you save on producing new ads back into media and buy more reach.

• If you’re ads stink, work with an agency like Immortology. We create ads that will earn you an unfair share of attention, memorability and profits – forever. We don’t call ourselves Immortolgy for nothing.