Jay Mitchell, publisher and editor of the Small Market Radio Newsletter gave me permission to share the following article with you -- hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Ebbinghaus Revisited—But I Forget Why
by Jay Mitchell
This newsletter is known for its back-to-basics philosophy, and nothing is more basic than the work of Hermann Ebbinghaus, who, in 1885, did a series of experiments on himself and arrived at his most famous finding, the Forgetfulness Curve. (It should be noted that in the over 125 years since Ebbinghaus conducted his seminal research, it has been validated myriad times and never discredited.)
Ebbinghaus found that
• After 33 seconds, only 58% of what is learned is remembered
• After one day, only 34% is remembered
• After six days, only 25% is remembered
• After 31 days, only 21% is remembered
A related study focused on retention of meaningful material; the findings:
• After one day, 72% of what is learned is remembered.
• After five days, only 56% is remembered.
• After ten days, only 47%
• After 30 days, only 30%
The Ebbinghaus study is an illustration of retentiveness; the brain retains information it considers important to the individual and discards information not deemed relevant.
We use Ebbinghaus’s research in radio sales to illustrate the importance of reminders—ideally, in the form of radio advertising— to counteract the effects of forgetting. As logical and persuasive as the argument might be, heretofore it has lacked fancy-graph findings to prove the point.
But no longer. Here is a graph showing what happens to memory when the material is reinforced at
regular intervals:
As the graph illustrates—what we in radio know intuitively—the more repetition, the more and better the recall.
When Ebbinghaus did his research, he used meaningless three-letter combinations—in English, things like CAJ, DAF, MOT, etc.—to disassociate meaning from recall. But as noted above, even meaningful material is subject to the vagaries of the human brain.
Here’s the really important point: all information is meaningless until we’re ready to use it. Hence,
telling your listener about a product or service he/she isn’t in a position to consume is tantamount to
running a spot that says, “Cav mog dag nej. . .” It’s only when there is a true need or desire to hear the message does that message sound like English.
So the regular repetition over time (weeks and months and years) of your advertiser’s message serves
two purposes:
• It ensures that the message is there when the listener is ready for it.
• It ensures that when the listener is ready, he/she will hear the message enough times to be understood and retained.
And we owe all this to a guy who experimented on himself over 125 years ago. Good thing he’s
remembered.
