The Familiarity Effect: How Brand Recognition Drives Growth
Ever stood in a supermarket aisle, overwhelmed by choices, only to end up selecting a familiar brand?
Based on principles from cognitive psychology, we all have what's called a 'familiarity bias,' also known as the 'Mere Exposure Effect.' Simply put, we tend to lean towards what we know. In the context of brands, this means we often select brands that we recognise and are comfortable with.
Think about the last time you were in the supermarket, surrounded by a myriad of choices. Chances are, you reached for a familiar product. This isn't a coincidence, it’s the result of consistent, targeted advertising. By ensuring that a brand consistently occupies mental space, it’s more likely to become the go-to choice.
Brand familiarity goes beyond brand awareness. Awareness is binary — you either know the brand or you don’t — whereas familiarity is more nuanced. Familiarity means someone has enough knowledge to have an opinion about a brand, and people must first be familiar with a brand in order to appreciate the value of that brand.
One of the most effective ways to increase familiarity is through reaching large groups of people by way of advertising and other initiatives. Advertising, at its core, aims to increase (or maintain) sales by slightly increasing the chances that people will choose your brand. It achieves this by ensuring the brand is easy to think of, accessible to purchase, and associated with positive feelings. Through broad-reaching campaigns that people find interesting and enjoyable, and targeted activation that they find relevant and useful.
The commercial benefits of familiarity
The most effective advertising does more than reach audiences to keep the brand familiar. It drives tangible outcomes — increased sales, market share, and shifts in consumer behaviour or perception. It’s a compounding investment that also mitigates decreases in profit margins over time.
Measure of advertising effectiveness
Every campaign has two primary functions. Firstly, to remind people the brand exists. Secondly, to drive specific behavioural or emotional responses, whether it’s a change in perception, positioning the brand in a new way, or driving an increase in purchases.
Commercially effective campaigns have these three things in common:
Strong creative work which ensures the brand reaches people, stands out, and is memorable.
Solid strategy that makes people think, feel, or do something differently
Right media targeting and investment leading to people buying, buying more, or spending more.
What happens when brands stop advertising?
According to the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, a research institute specialising in marketing science;
Brands that stop advertising experience a significant drop in sales, with an average decrease of 16% after one year and 25% after two years.
The rate of sales decline is stronger for brands that were already declining before the advertising stops.
Smaller brands tend to suffer greater declines than larger brands.
Larger growing brands tend to continue to grow after advertising stops for one to two years, whereas the sales trend quickly reverses for small growing brands.
Brand familiarity is an important driver of growth. It's not just about brand recognition, but the knowledge and positive associations people have with a brand. This ensures that when people are looking for a product or service, they can readily remember yours.
To assess your brand familiarity, we can do these things:
Review your current branding and advertising strategy. Are you effectively leveraging familiarity bias? If not, it might be time to invest in broad-reach activity.
Monitor and measure the effectiveness of your campaigns, ensuring they remind consumers of your brand's presence and build the desired associations. Familiarity isn't just advantageous – it's a core principle of brand growth.