The “Mere Exposure Effect” is a scientific term for people’s tendency to like things just because they have been exposed to them repeatedly. This term could even be applied to the ads featured in VideoAge since one might assume that acquisition executives who have seen those ads over and over become convinced that the shows depicted are good ones.
This is because the “Mere Exposure Effect” is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things — in our case, TV programs — that are more familiar to them than others. Repeated exposure increases familiarity. This effect is also known as the “Familiarity Effect.”
The earliest known research on the “Mere Exposure Effect” was conducted by German physicist, philosopher, and psychologist Gustav T. Fechner in 1876. The effect was also documented by the English psychologist Edward B. Titchener in 1902, who described it as the glow of warmth one feels in the presence of something familiar.
But the “Mere Exposure Effect” is an important strategy when it comes to advertising. The effect seems to be very helpful when a company or a product is new and unfamiliar. Prior exposure increases the so-called “processing fluency” at the time acquisition executives have to make a decision. This means that the more often executives see a piece of information the better they can process it and the more fluent they become with it. Human beings like easy processing, so they stick with familiar things. This may be the explanation for their positive feelings towards an ad or brand.
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