Meerkat Wearout

This advert has an issue, but the issue with does not (necessarily) lie in the advert itself. It is victim to 'wearout', because it has been overused. In an experiment by Calder & Sternthal (1980), participants were tested with 3 independent variables which manipulated how many times participants were exposed to adverts between television programmes which participants were told were the main design of the experiment. Participants were asked to evaluate the product being advertised and if they were shown the advert multiple times during the showings of the television programmes they evaluated the product more negatively. With this very well known 'compare the meerkat' advert, and all of the subsequent adverts of the same theme, the advertisers have risked wearout and have likely caused negative brand evaluation.

Calder, B.J., & Sternthal, B. (1980). Television Commercial Wearout: An Information Processing View. Journal of Marketing Research, 17, 173-186.