October 20th, 1930, Painted Dreams premiered on WGN Radio Station. It was a fictional story of an ordinary family woman, Mother Moynihan, a widowed Irish-Catholic matriarch navigating life in Chicago with her grown children. 

Written by Irna Phillips, a schoolteacher who worked part time at the radio, Painted Dreams introduced a new genre of brand visibility that lived on for decades after it was born. 

The show was a 15 minute daytime drama series running 6 times a week on radio. It is what we now call Soap Opera, a name that has a rather interesting origin. 

When Irna wrote the drama series, it was purely for entertaining audiences, mostly housewives going about their homesteading business in their homes. The drama was not sponsored at first. 

For six days a week, Painted Dreams kept radio listeners hooked for the first year without sponsorships. 

Now, let’s delve a bit into the context around which the show was created. Radio was booming and major corporations loved advertising to radio listeners. But these early adverts were disruptive. They distracted listeners from radio entertainment. Brand visibility, then felt like a nuisance or an unwanted break from something enjoyable. So 15 minutes of an entertaining drama series that kept women hooked was a welcome experience…The end of each episode, a cliff hanger that kept them coming back for more, day after day. 

Predictably, brands made a discovery.

A New Genre of Brand Visibility

The very first sponsor was a meat company that came knocking a year later. Then a major retailer followed. 

By this time, businesses had realized wives, who were mostly housewives, played a major role in decision making when it came to consumer spending. But instead of the usual disruptive adverts, brands began to sponsor these daytime dramas with brand visibility weaved neatly into the dramas themselves. Sometimes storylines were altered to make room for brand sponsorships…almost in a similar style as influencer marketing today.  

Soap companies became the biggest advertisers in these dramas, later leading to the nickname “Soap Operas” as we know them today. Next came a content marketing revolution that grew from this drama format.

Brands like Procter and Gamble realized they did not have to simply sponsor Soap Operas. They wanted to own the narratives, the copyrights and the creative control. So they began producing their own shows, all while maintaining brand visibility while the narratives changed and the audiences stayed hooked. 

Brand visibility became more natural and acceptable to audiences. It was not forced or disruptive and so brands managed to stay visible without risking audiences fatigue.

Taming Audience Fatigue

Audience Fatigue is when audiences disengage from an ad, a campaign or a brand due to repetitive content or messaging. Sometimes when a brand’s spokesperson becomes too visible, audiences disengage.

Brands have always wrestled with the pressure of staying visible while maintaining novelty and mystery. “Familiarity breeds contempt” is one quote that summarises this phenomenon. Visibility itself is not a problem, given that brands need repetitive exposure to position themselves in people’s minds. But unvaried exposure can be problematic. 

So when does Audience Fatigue kick in and how can a brand stay relevant and visible without desensitizing audiences. 

Learning from Kenya’s Fintech PR Strategies

Drawing from lessons we learned from Visibility Audits for top ten Fintechs in Kenya, here’s what stood out about leading Fintechs when it comes to visibility:

A lot of fintechs in Kenya, right now are introducing new ideas or re-inventing services that have existed for long. To create a strong user base these fintechs rely heavily on visibility. But it is a competitive landscape and so creativity and diversity is required to avoid eroding audience interest. 

• One of the most interesting discoveries is that Fintechs in Kenya are very proactive when it comes to media PR. Fintechs that scored very high on our Visibility Index invested in omnichannel visibility;

• However the top scorers all invested heavily in increasing their media Share of Voice; a metric that tracks a brand’s media presence compared to competitors, is where the heavy weights led the pack. 

• Most top scorers scored 5 out of 5 points or 4 out of 5 points under Share of Voice.

• Most of these had at least 6 to 10 minimum media appearances in a year or more. 

But how exactly did they stay relevant with consistent media mentions?

Diversifying Media PR to Increase Perceived Brand Value

We discovered that the Fintechs with a high share of voice diversified their media PR strategy and evolved from founder led media appearances. The 10 or so media appearances were spread out across founder stories, new partnerships with reputable brands, product roll-outs, funding announcements, ventures into new markets and event PR in some cases. These fintechs also invested in both earned media and paid traditional media. 

Ultimately, the consistent visibility increased their perceived brand value, thus attracting more partnerships, more adoption, more funding and general brand growth. 

So to answer the question: : “How much visibility is too much for a brand”? 

Or “Is your brand underexposed or over-exposed?”

Keeping Novelty Alive

There isn’t a specific number of media appearances or the number of times a brand should run a campaign. However, when novelty fades, then the visibility becomes too much. 

Media PR for instance, does not need to involve a founder sharing their story multiple times in different media outlets, podcasts and LinkedIn posts.

The stories need to be fresh each time and the formats too should evolve. Brands need to explore report launches, new hire announcements, event PR, product launches, creative content marketing series, sponsored content and other diverse visibility formats that keep the stories as exciting as day one. 

Visibility isn’t measured by how often people see your brand but rather how organic it feels every time they experience the visibility. 

Would you like to learn more about your brand’s visibility footprint, you can learn more about P&B Communication’s Visibility Index, get your brand audited and book a strategy session to explore what your scores mean. 

At P&B Communication, we don’t chase coverage. We build visibility that compounds 

This article was first published on P&B’s LinkedIn Newsletter: …And Other PR Stories.