The urge to ‘breathe new life’ into the brand with a new campaign can be hard to overcome. There’s a good reason agencies and advertisers should keep relying on the same campaigns, despite their strong desire to move on: the existing campaigns nearly always work better than anything new they can come up with.
We identified 109 new campaigns that were launched by our clients’ competitors, despite the fact that research results indicated the old campaign was still working. 74% of campaigns were replaced for no good reason.
The MAYA Rule (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) asserts that people are most drawn to new things that are already familiar, rather than totally original. So if you want to breathe new life into a brand, building on what consumers already know and associate with it – while adding just enough newness to keep it fresh and engaging – works better than confronting them with something completely unfamiliar.
Jeri Smith. Why research shows you’re better with your existing ad campaign. July 10, 2010. The Drum.