"We've gone from being exposed to about 500 ads a day back in the 1970s to as many as 5,000 a day today."

Jay Walker-Smith, Yankelovich Consumer Research

Hard to believe? Well, if you include the brand label on your undies when you put them on in the morning to the box your new tube of toothpaste came in that evening you can conceive you are exposed to branding messages thousands of times a day. This researcher also counted all the junk mail you probably don't read. But 5,000 ads?

A more reasonable figure for the marketing messages you see and hear daily is probably in the hundreds. Think about your average day, from the traffic report brought to you by Bob Jane T-Mart, the bus back for some show at The Star to the flyer for a Thai massage thrust in your hands as you walk past the poster for all-you-can-eat ribs on Wednesday nights. Then a barrage of down down retail ads on the TV during My Kitchen Rules, sponsored by some diet program. And those meet women in your area now!! ads on the side of your Facebook page late in the evening? What’s that about?

Whether it’s 300 or 3,000, we see so much that we register very little – and remember even less.

So if you were advertising your business don’t you think it might be wise to be distinctive and consistent enough to be recognised for something? Of course you would. So why is it most marketing communications is neither memorable nor consistent? Why doesn’t Qantas still call Australia home?

Why would an insurance company kill off its leading actors?

I can understand why an insurance company is killing off a 3 year ad campaign featuring Rhonda who now has a full time gig in a soap, but why did they drop the memorable jingle earlier? What have they got left to ensure we remember their brand? Who was that insurance company you may well ask? Ahhhhh, Allianz? No, when I double checked it was AAMI. You'd be forgiven if you haven’t been paying attention. Instead of keeping the sign off, "Luckyyyy, your with AAMIeeee", the ads no longer end with the sound of the jingle we’ve grown familiar with over 15+ years. Wonder why?

The average tenure of the CEO of an ASX 200 company is around 4-5 years*. The head marketer changes almost as often. Those brand managers on their way up move through more often, leaving behind their mark like my pug does on street posts. Which explains why the labels on all those Lindemans wines changed so often over the last decade. Southcorp then Treasury have destroyed so much brand equity because there were no custodians with a strong thread of brand DNA. Then each new agency wants to make its name, often at the expense of the advertiser.

Why will anyone remember your brand?

I was part of the team that created the "Which bank?" campaign for Commonwealth. It outlasted my time at Saatchi and survived a change of agency, despite their attempts to get rid of it. Brand building is like compound interest, you add a bit every year. And after a while it’s worth a fortune.

'Oh what a feeling' to be a copywriter for Toyota, knowing whatever the concept you come up with, the last 25 years of ads ensure the jump at the end will guarantee recognition by a half asleep viewer. Which is why the most successful marketing campaigns are the ones with legs. They go on and on like a Duracell battery.

It’s a fine balance between testing the new and stretching the offer without breaking the elastic brand. Some brands get it right. While there have been numerous small tweaks and occasional lapses, the VB can and the Coke dynamic-ribbon have survived decades of personnel changes. Less strongly managed brands seem to change annually. So when clients tell me they are getting tired of their campaign or their tag line or the font of their logo, I like to check if it’s busted first.

Sure we live in a world of rapid change, however, it’s more likely business survival and growth will come from product and service innovation and smarter marketing techniques, not from a new typeface. It may be a better strategy to refresh and re-launch rather than completely start again if you want to hold on to some rare customer goodwill. You’re doing well if they already have a small place for your brand pegged out in their cluttered head space.

Mortein tried to kill off Louie the Fly, but after over 50 years the public would have none of it. As John Laws used to say, when you’re on a good thing, stick to it.

Here's a Louie the fly ad from 1962

* Source: A Booz & Company study shows 23.5% of CEOs of ASX 200 companies left in 2011. Median tenure is 4.4 years and falling.