When I
began working at Grey media school as we fondly called it in the 80's I was
told: "People need to see your ad three times before they will remember it,
so make sure you have at least a frequency of three."
When I
wrote my first book I looked for the underlying research for the principle to
no avail. But this year I found it. So I thought I would share.
It
dates back to 1885, when German psychologist
Hermann Ebbinghaus published his pioneering study of memory. This included the development of the forgetting
curve, which established the fact that in the absence of reminders, after 31
days retention drops to 21%.
But, he also discovered the spacing effect, which showed that periodic reminders can have a significant positive effect on learning and retention.
But, he also discovered the spacing effect, which showed that periodic reminders can have a significant positive effect on learning and retention.
Note that in the model, after the third repetition
retention is approximately 75%.[i] Add
a fourth review within the 30 day time frame, and the percentage increases to ~85%,
which is why most plans are created to run for an entire month.
So now you know too.
[i]Murre, J. and Dros, J. (2015, July 6)
Replication and Analysis of Ebbinghaus' Forgetting Curve. ncbi.nim.nih.gov. Retrieved May 28, 2016, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4492928/
