The Mere Exposure Effect – Dr. Sweta Bhasin

14th October 2024

During the weekend, my family and I dined at a French cuisine restaurant, carefully examining the appetizer menu. We scanned through the options, contemplating our choices amidst the ambiance of the restaurant. While me and my husband sought out novel options to try, our daughter surprised us by ordering Honey Chilli Potato. When I encouraged her to opt for something different, she expressed concern about fear of not enjoying the taste. Little did she know, she was falling into the trap of the “mere exposure effect,” where familiarity shapes preference without conscious awareness. Our preferences tend to favour things we have encountered before, and this inclination strengthens with repeated exposure, reflecting the influence of familiarity on our choices and increasing our preference over time.

How does this work? This phenomenon underscores the tendency for individuals to develop a preference for things we are exposed to frequently. Often, the mere exposure effect operates subliminally, influencing our preferences without our realization. Interestingly, researchers have discovered that this effect is particularly potent when stimuli go unnoticed by our conscious minds. People experience the mere exposure effect for several reasons, which can be understood through psychological and cognitive mechanisms:

1. Perceptual Fluency: Repeated exposure to a stimulus enhances perceptual fluency, which is the ease with which a stimulus is processed. Familiar stimuli are processed more quickly and effortlessly by the brain.
2. Safety and Predictability: Familiar stimuli are perceived as safer and less threatening. New or unfamiliar stimuli might be associated with potential risks. Familiarity reduces uncertainty and anxiety, leading to a preference for known stimuli, as they are perceived to be more predictable and less likely to pose danger.
3. Cognitive Consistency: Cognitive consistency theory suggests that people prefer to maintain consistency in their thoughts and perceptions. Repeated exposure helps integrate the stimulus into existing cognitive frameworks. People like what fits well within their existing knowledge and expectations.
4. Social and Cultural Reinforcement: Social and cultural contexts often reinforce the liking of familiar stimuli. Shared experiences and repeated exposures in a social context can create collective preferences. Social reinforcement through repeated exposure in media, conversations, and cultural norms can increase the desirability of a stimulus.

Advantages to the marketer

1. Increases Brand Recognition: Repeated exposure to a brand’s logo, name, or products makes it more recognizable to consumers. Higher brand recognition can lead to top-of-mind awareness, where the brand is the first that comes to mind when consumers think of a particular product category. This is crucial for influencing purchasing decisions and gaining market share.
2. Enhanced Consumer Trust and Preference: Familiarity with a brand through repeated exposure can build trust and preference. Consumers are more likely to choose brands they recognize and feel comfortable with. This can result in higher conversion rates, as familiar brands are perceived as more reliable and trustworthy.
3. Effective Marketing Spend: Utilizing the mere exposure effect can make marketing campaigns more cost-effective. By focusing on consistent and repeated exposure, marketers can maximize the impact of their budget. Instead of spreading resources thinly across numerous different campaigns, concentrating efforts on repeated exposure can yield better results in terms of brand recall and preference.
4. Facilitation of Positive Associations: Repeated exposure can be used to create positive emotional associations with a brand. By associating the brand with positive imagery, music, or endorsements, marketers can enhance the emotional appeal of their products. Over time, these positive associations can lead to a stronger brand identity and loyalty.
5. Support for New Product Introductions: The mere exposure effect can be particularly beneficial for new product launches. Repeated exposure to a new product through various channels can quickly build familiarity and acceptance among consumers. This can help overcome initial resistance to unfamiliar products and accelerate the adoption process, leading to quicker market penetration and sales growth.

Key Application of Mere Exposure Effect in Marketing:

1. Advertising Frequency: Repeated advertisements increase familiarity with the brand or product. Marketers often run ad campaigns across various media channels (TV, radio, online, print) to ensure that potential customers encounter the ads multiple times. This repeated exposure helps embed the brand in consumers’ minds, increasing the likelihood of positive brand associations and recall.
2. Product Placement: Integrating products into popular media content subtly exposes viewers to the brand. Brands pay their products to be featured in movies, TV shows, or online videos. This not only boosts familiarity but also associates the product with beloved characters or stories, enhancing its appeal through repeated and contextually positive exposure.
3. Email Marketing: Regular email communications keep the brand in the consumer’s awareness. Companies use email newsletters, promotional offers, and updates to stay in touch with their customers. Frequent, well-designed emails can enhance familiarity and build a stronger connection with the brand, making recipients more likely to engage with and purchase from the company.
4. Branding Consistency: Consistent use of logos, colors, and slogans across all marketing materials reinforces brand identity. By maintaining a uniform brand appearance across packaging, advertisements, social media, and in-store displays, companies ensure that customers repeatedly encounter the same visual and verbal elements. This familiarity breeds comfort and preference over time.
5. Retargeting Campaigns: Online ads targeted at users who have previously visited a website remind them of the brand. Using cookies and tracking pixels, marketers can show ads to users who have shown interest in their products but have not yet made a purchase. These retargeted ads keep the brand top-of-mind and leverage the mere exposure effect to increase the likelihood of conversion.
6. Sponsorship and Endorsements: Associating a brand with popular events or celebrities increases its exposure. Brands sponsor events like sports tournaments, concerts, or festivals, and collaborate with influencers or celebrities who have a large following. These strategies ensure repeated exposure to a broad audience, enhancing familiarity and preference through association with well-liked figures or events.

By strategically leveraging the mere exposure effect, marketers can enhance brand awareness, build positive associations, and ultimately drive consumer behavior in favor of their products or services.

Conclusion

The exposure effect is capable of taking place without conscious cognition, and that preferences need no inferences. This effect is capable of bringing an attitude change by exposure that is more frequent to the stimulus especially a positive one. However, the mere exposure effect is also responsible for creating social norms and reinforcing harmful stereotypes.

Question:

Developing preferences unconsciously kills our exploring nature. Comment.