Contrary to the classic marketing "rule of seven," recent research shows that focusing on two to three high-impact, emotionally resonant messages is more effective than mass repetition. In a noisy environment, concentrated, potent creative breaks through where sheer volume fails.

It takes many impressions for a message to stick. Marketers, who see the creative daily, often get bored and change it too soon. This "content drift" hurts brand recall and performance, as the audience is just starting to register the message.

Acknowledging that "relevance" is subjective shouldn't lead to creating generic, one-size-fits-all campaigns. Instead, it demands a high-volume creative strategy that produces dozens of distinct assets, each tailored to be hyper-relevant to a specific consumer segment or "demand state."

The most effective long-term campaigns use "disguised repetition"—keeping core brand assets consistent while introducing fresh creative elements, like Aldi's Kevin the Carrot—to build memory structures without causing audience fatigue.

Contrary to the belief that ads quickly wear out, strong creative often performs better with repeated exposure. This concept of "wear in" justifies patience, allowing a new campaign to build familiarity and emotional connection with the audience, as stories grow resonance over time.

With Meta's Andromeda algorithm automating audience targeting, the primary reason for poor ad performance is no longer incorrect targeting settings. Wasted money is now almost exclusively a result of insufficient or non-diverse creative, making creative strategy the most critical component of a successful campaign.

Tushy's BFCM ad strategy involves three layers: 1) Keep top-performing evergreen ads running as-is to capture momentum. 2) Create simple offer-based variations of those winners using text overlays. 3) Launch a diverse portfolio of net-new concepts to achieve 'horizontal scale' and find new winners.

Once ad copy proves to resonate with a target market, it may not need to be changed. A multi-million dollar ad campaign ran for a full year with the same copy, focusing solely on testing and rotating new creative visuals to maintain effectiveness and reach new audiences.

The common marketing belief in ad "wear out" is wrong, as familiarity breeds contentment, not contempt. Consequently, marketers often pull their advertising campaigns right at the point where repetition is making them most effective.