Apocryphal? Not likely. One of the greatest risks to marketing communications effectiveness is the tendency of clients and agencies to get bored with a campaign that is highly effective and kill it when it's delivering solid bottom-line results.

That restlessness is certainly understandable.

We recently spent two years developing a print, TV and internet campaign. We weren't unnaturally slow. Technical and organizational issues kept pushing the client's launch date back. But by the time the campaign broke, everyone involved was ready to move on to something else. But the target audience was just seeing it for the first time!

We work hard at persuading clients that a campaign they've seen in depth and detail for years hasn't lost its effectiveness with consumers who may see it a couple of times a week, if that often. Why? We have never seen evidence that campaigns wear out. Campaigns can lose effectiveness under a number of circumstances:

• The benefit is no longer relevant to prospects.
• Other brands are perceived as offering the same benefit.
• Other benefits have become more important to prospects.
• The advertiser is no longer perceived as a credible provider of the benefit.
• Competitors have developed more or less effective campaigns.
• Competitors have entered or left the market.
• The basic factors of the market have changed. 

But unless and until one of those market factors changes, a campaign that works will continue to work for a long, long time. Some examples:

• Bush Beans "Secret Family Recipe" campaign has taken their share of  market from 11% to 52% over fourteen years. Not only has the basic thrust of the campaign stayed the same, so has the executional device. Jay
• Bush's faithless golden retriever Duke has been spilling the beans for a long time now.
• Over the last decade, Tennessee health insurer Cariten has run a sequence of four executionally-similar versions of the same campaign, all created by a BrainPosse principal. The campaign took them from a $14.7-million loss to a $10.6-million profit. Although we parted ways a few years ago, Cariten has resisted the urge to change the campaign just because they no longer work with us. In fact, they're still running commercials we did four years ago.
• The Avis "We Try Harder" campaign has been effective for more than 40 years.
• The Miller Lite "Tastes Great. Less Filling." campaign ran for 25 years and built the product – and the light beer category – to leadership in the U. S. market. (Bud Light has since taken the top spot.)
• The Aflac duck has been building awareness and recall for eight years.
• A single Discount Tire Company commercial has run continuously since 1975. In the 10-second spot a little old lady throws a tire through Discount Tire Company's window, during which the audio and images convey the message:   "If ever you're not satisfied with one of our tires, please feel free to bring it back. Thank you, Discount Tire Company."
• MasterCard's "Priceless" campaign has been effective for nine years and 160 commercials.
• For twenty years winners of major sporting events have come off the field and said "I'm going to Disney World."
• Tony the Tiger, the Jolly Green Giant, Prudential's Rock of Gibraltar and the Merrill Lynch bull have all symbolized companies and their attributes for decades.

These campaigns have kept on running like the Energizer Bunny (another long-term success) because they just keep working.

Executions within a campaign may need to be refreshed, though probably not as often as many clients and agencies think. Media may need to be changed. Language must be updated to stay current with the target audience's idiom. Photos and commercials may need to be re-shot as hair styles or fashions become outmoded. But an effective campaign simply doesn't wear out.

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