Please comment on my theory dealing with 800-number advertising and company credibility. Am I off base?
I listen to CNBC when I am in the car (XM radio) and sometimes watch it when I am home, like this week.
On XM, in particular, there are many, many advertisers who make a pitch for one investment or another, who repeat their 800-number several times – seldom less than three repetitions, and sometimes as many as five. (it’s hard to believe they can do a sales pitch and repeat a number that many times in 60 seconds!)
My theory is that the MORE that an 800-number is repeated in an add, the LESS credible or believable that advertiser is. In essence, they push so hard in the ad because they have such a schlocky product.
What say you?
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4 Answers
I agree with you, and I think that is the case with many television ads as well, along with the “double the offer” deals that are common.
My formula for company reliability is
P = number of times you have used that product
Q = quality of product
L = length of ad in minutes
N = number of times the phone number / URL is repeated
E = Emphasis placed on phone number / URL
C = Initial cost of object
F = Final cost after whatever “triple/double the offer” deals they have
Reliability = (PQ+1)F / (C(L+NE))
Notice that:
As the length of the ad trends towards infinity, reliability drops to zero.
As the number of “double the offer” deals trends towards infinity, reliability drops to zero.
As they place more and more time and emphasis on their phone number, reliability approaches zero
I don’t think that is true. i think they repeat the numbers because repeating them works to increase the number of callers.
The more they repeat the number, especially if it is not an easy number to remember, the better the chance that someone will remember it or have a chance to write it down.
So I don’t think you can base reliability soley on the amount of times they mention a number.
The repeat is a proven marketing way to increase callers. If people remember anything, they will remember the number jingle.
Does not have any correlation to quality. Business owners want to have a phone number that is easy to recall. Marketing it is another way to help.
Maybe a correlation to their advertisement budget.
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