The Effects of over-Sensationalizing and Overexposure in Marketing

In today’s society there is not a road that you can travel down where there is not one type of advertisement or another. So in actuality we are faced with marketing all the time and in these times we understand that this marketing does in fact have an effect on us, but have we ever stopped to consider how these effects manifest and what they lead to? Do we understand what the result of being acutely or over-exposed to an advert are or what effects over sensationalising a product really has on both us and the brand marketing the product?

Initially it came as a great surprise to me to hear that many companies overexpose their products and make them out to be far greater than what they really are, for example, FNB overexposed their “Steve” advertisements on the radio. Understanding a small amount about human behaviour got me to think that these companies had awful marketers and that they do not deserve to have the clientele and business that they currently do. But after sitting with the idea for a while I began to see an upside but only when the advertising is conveyed in the correct medium and to the correct target market. By overexposing the product the marketers create a type of security for the consumer by telling them, subconsciously, that other consumers are partaking in their product or service and as we are increasingly seeing in studies, consumers are largely influenced by the purchasing decisions of other consumers and their reviews. The fact that the product is being overexposed causes the consumer to subconsciously believe that others are in fact buying and enjoying their product and that if they want to be part of the society that is moving forward then they too need to involve themselves in the brand or product.

Another advantage that comes with over sensationalising and overexposing a product for the consumer and company selling the product is a human decision-making principle called “plausible deniability”. This means that the consumer purchases...