Articles

3.6.2010 What Is Double Jeopardy?

Andrew Ehrenberg, the dean of advertising research, established a basic law of brand marketing he called "double jeopardy."

Ehrenberg observed that brands with more buyers were also purchased more frequently. And since brand loyalty seemed tied to brand penetration, the obvious goal of brand marketing should be to increase the total number of buyers.

Based on Ehrenberg it can be concluded that the early indicator of success, increased penetration, should be a single immediate standard of advertising effect. The reasoning: increases in penetration can be measured quickly so that ineffective campaigns can be discarded and effective ones supported, saving a lot of money. In contrast, our complex and popular ROI measurements need a year's worth of ad spend to tell us what happened.

That's also pretty simple. But in a different way.

B.L. 3.6.2010

Source: Edwin Ephron