In marketing, we talk about advertising pressure to describe the number of advertising messages to which the brain is exposed daily, for which we are using working memory. Although studies on this subject give widely varying figures and are not necessarily up to date, it is reasonable to say that on average we receive between 350 and 1200 advertising messages daily. Think of the logos on the sides of soccer fields, the Coca-Cola can, carefully positioned in a TV series, or sponsored content on social media.
Advertising can be a form of visual pollution. And with it, the risk that an advertising message, however the result of more or less expensive work of thought and creativity, goes unheard. We, therefore, speak of message cannibalization. How many promotional emails do you receive without even opening them? So if you’re doing digital marketing, it’s about standing out, and being as relevant as possible so that your story and message can be told properly.
Working memory is short-term memory, which gives access to long-term memory. It is the ability to withhold information temporarily so that it is processed by our neural networks, before it is translated to perform a task, such as reasoning or acting. Working memory performs tasks that have a purpose¹. Working memory focuses on the essentials. Working memory makes it possible to find a quote read several years ago that is relevant and related to an action that we are in the process of carrying out today. Advertising acts on this working memory permanently.
Meanwhile, working memory can reach a saturation point. This is especially what happens when we are facing too many choices. Especially in children, working memory quickly becomes saturated. The more choices you have, the more complicated it is. It’s best to explain things step by step, limiting the number of steps. Likewise, one should avoid doing several things at the same time. Multitasking, as stated in lots of resumes, is heretic. The same goes for digital marketing: although there can be a marketing mix, there’s no need to pollute the listener with inaudible messages, to communicate just to communicate. Let’s not speak much, but speak well. The performance of the messages addressed depends on it.
Furthermore, to record new information, the brain needs to understand what it is recording. The memory stored in the brain has to make sense. Memories are organized by topic, like in a library, like a tree with different branches and leaves attached to it. There can be several keys to access it: a word, a quote, an image, the author’s name, a subject. And the good news is, the more there are relevant entries, the more accessible information becomes. My advice for your digital marketing: be clear, be relevant, do not overload your audience’s working memory and be visually appealing.
¹BRILLANT Martine, Guide du cerveau pour parents éclairés, Actes Sud, 2019, p.115-140.