Avoid Changing Horses in Mid-Stream

There’s a story of a professional body in the UK that ran a high-impact advertising campaign that was very successful. It generated a huge response, including a lot of free press coverage.

Then the campaign changed. And it literally disappeared from all notice.

The obvious question then is “Why change something that clearly worked so well?”

They changed, not because they had tested and measured the effects and found something better, but simply because they felt it was “time to change”.

In doing that, they fell into the trap many companies fall into — change for change’s sake.

Many companies indiscriminately change campaigns mid-stream. As a result, they:

- Don't allow the cumulative effect of a winning concept to work for them.

- Don't allow the dynamics of testing to work for them.

- Make a patchwork quilt of their company's image and position.

The truth is that you get tired of your own campaign long before it's done its work out there in the marketplace.

Don't arbitrarily abandon it. Only replace an approach when you've verified and validated a more effective successor. Again, that requires measurement, management and testing.