The familiarity effect is activated when we tend to prefer things that are more familiar to us rather than things that are new. This avoids risk and potential disappointment. Repeating previously successful decisions may be seen as wisdom!

Familiarity is a crucial element in the survival of humans and indeed all animals. When our ancestors saw a potential predator or animal that didn’t try and attack them every time they saw it, they appreciated that it had no intention of attacking them for their meal. Over time, having built up this knowledge and confidence, they lowered their guard and put away their hunting tools. As a result, regular friendly exposure to these animals gave them the confidence to feel secure knowing that the animal was nearby and meant no harm.

This innate desire for familiarity is still is something crave as humans today as it is now hardwired into our evolutionary system. It’s highly enticing and affects us all in some way or another – we all love to belong and be in a position of familiarity.

We crave familiarity so much in fact that when something is familiar, we lower our guard and become more open to engaging with it.

Product familiarity is the same. Traditionally this has been measured by having prospective customers assess their own familiarity with the product based on their past knowledge, experience and recommendations from friends, family and or colleagues.

The familiarity effect is a powerful influence technique to persuade prospective customers to engage with brands and particular products too. However, it comes with a risk. The risk of over-exposure must alos be considered. For example football teams and their sponsors, football ground naming rights etc etc. Used with a degree of finesse as part of your overall marketing strategy, leveraging the familiarity effect can really benefit and help organizations increase consumer brand awareness and help drive conversion rates and at the same time increase sales as a result.

The Familiarity Principle can also be referred to as the Mere Exposure Effect. Both are essentially a psychological force in humans that increases their preferences for a particular product or service in response to repeated exposure to a stimulus. As a result, effectively applying and employing the familiarity principle into a negotiation or sales strategy can increase the impact and success of your marketing efforts. If you add into this a cohesive messaging that reflects your value proposition and  you apply this consistently across your different marketing channels, then you will reap much better results than a simply changing your brand identity and message. 

By keeping with the same identity and message, allows your audience the opportunity to grow familiar with who you are as a business. This is one of the reasons why retargeting ads in the digital space is such an effective technique in online advertising and goes far beyond increasing your conversion rates. By repeatedly creating multiple touchpoints between your brand and your prospective target market, you are able to build a positive association with your brand and organization, building trust and brand recognition and loyalty as you go.

When your client is in a position or decides to buy or interact with your goods or services, they’re already predisposed to favor your offering over your competitors. As a result, you’re no longer an unknown entity – you’ve now activated the familiarity effect in them.

In summary – the familiarity effect, also called the mere exposure effect suggests that the more you see, feel or experience something, the more you will like it. Ultimately, the more familiar something is,  the more positive the associations you will have with it.

Much the same as other influence priniciples, this is also a heuristic or a mental shortcut that we regularly take when making buying decisions. It’s a powerful factor that affects which people, products or brands that we trust, become loyal too. It’s the same for the type of music we like or football teams we support. It is one of the reasons why big brands so much money on product placement or sponsorship deals. It’s another reason why (as we see a lot in movies) people who spend any length of time together get more attracted to one another.

The familiarity effect is a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal and if you are serious about influencing people to buy your products, it’s well worth applying this principle.