Wear-in and wear-out

Wear-in and wear-out describe how advertising's effect changes with repetition. Wear-in is the build-up phase: an execution needs time to land before recognition and effect reach strength. Wear-out is the presumed decay afterwards, the moment the audience would be tired of it. In practice campaigns wear out from the inside: the marketing team gets bored years before the viewer, who consciously saw the execution a handful of times at most. Well-made, recognisable campaigns turn out to stay effective for years and even strengthen. The expensive mistake is not running too long but replacing too early.

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