Remember this, “Écoutez et répétez.”
Back in the late 70s (on the days that I attended school), once a week, we were sent to the language lab.
There was a bit of excitement about it, the same kind of buzz you got in the science rooms when you were handed a Bunsen burner and told not to mess around, which was an invitation for us all to mess around. He he!
In the language lab, you’d slip on the oversized headphones, blocking out the noise around you, and then the tape would crackle to life with those familiar words:
“Écoutez et répétez.”
Listen and repeat.
It’s funny how those words have stuck with me, a memory hardwired into my brain alongside the smell of worn-out plastic and the distant fear that the teacher might ask you to go first.
Back then, it was all about repetition. Listening closely. Mimicking the sounds. Trying not to mess it up. And as I look back, I realise how much that phrase applies far beyond the language lab, into business, marketing, even how we adapt and grow by listening to our product and sales teams and repeating their message out to the marketplace.
When I talk to clients about marketing, I often suggest they send one or two newsletters a month to their clients and prospects. And right away, I see the hesitation.
“What would we say?”
“We won’t have anything new to say after the second newsletter.”
“Won’t people get bored?”
“What if we repeat ourselves?”
But here’s the truth about marketing: repetition works. All the big brands repeat, repeat and repeat because, like McDonald’s, they are often selling the same product or service to you, but in many ways, same product, different message.
Take advertising. Anyone who understands this knows that people need to see a message around eight times before it starts to sink in.
Fairy Liquid is a great example. For over 60 years, they’ve delivered the same core message:
Mild on your hands. Long-lasting bubbles. Washes twice the dishes.
We all know these things off by heart.
What’s changed over the years? The delivery of the message.
Their adverts started in the 60s with housewives washing huge piles of dishes, before moving to helpful dads, and then curious kids waiting for the empty bottle to create a rocket, and recently a cartoon biker with a mohawk. But underneath all those changes, these differing ways to present their product, the same message remains.
Most of us only offer a few core services. Specialists in our fields.
Your job isn’t to come up with something new every time, it’s to tell your story in different ways that connect with different people. That’s what we help businesses do.
Marketing isn’t about constant reinvention.
It’s about consistency.
It’s about repetition.
It’s about “Who do you want to talk to?” and “What do you want to say?”
Écoutez et répétez.
Listen and repeat.
