Art Marketing Boot Camp™: The Brick Wall Theory of Advertising

I recently heard these words from an advertiser who said this: " I am currently debating whether to place another ad in this upcoming Fall issue or to wait until the February issue to post another ad."

Those of us who have spent our lives in advertising understand a principal, which most people don't understand. I call it the brick wall theory.... please bare with me as I share this. Its a little long but important to understand.

Imagine that there is a road with cars going buy. Your goal is to stop the cars so you decide to build a brick wall across the road. So when no cars are coming you build one line of bricks across the road. But because bricks are expensive you decide to stop the project for a little while. Meanwhile a car comes along at 35 mph, hits the little row of bricks, which have no impact on the car... its a little inconvenient bump. But when it goes over the little row it tears it down as it goes over it. A couple months later you decide you have enough money to build your wall again so you build that first row of bricks again, but then you stop until you can afford more bricks. Again a car comes along, bumps over the bricks, tears them down. This goes on and on and one and though you try to build the wall many times, each time the foundation is torn down.

Meanwhile you have a friend who is also building a wall. She builds the first row and immediately on top of it builds the second row. Already because of the second row being a little to much for a car to go over the car comes to a stop and then slowly proceeds around it but not over it, which allows her time to build a third row, then a forth, and so on. Each time the cars slow a little more, and in fact the cars start to back up because the wall is not a real wall and it has to be noticed. Eventually the wall is so big that every motorist knows about it and has an impression of it.

Of course advertising is not a wall but advertising is designed to slow people to take notice, and the more you do it the more they notice until at some point everyone has awareness of the advertiser. Once they are aware, as the wall grows, they pay closer attention to it, then as it increases in size they have to take action.

Advertising is like building that brick wall one layer at a time. If you start and then stop you're merely a bump which barely gets noticed. If you get that second ad the cars notice you more, the third even more, and so on. Once you build a wall you keep that brand alive by keeping advertising alive and once the wall is built its hard to not notice it and harder to tear down.