The “Rule of Seven” is an old advertising adage that holds that a customer is not motivated to buy until he has seen a company’s marketing message seven times. In all likelihood, the “Rule of Seven” was dreamed up by a clever advertising sales representative eager to get repeat business from his customers. Nonetheless, there is ample research that demonstrates people often don’t internalize your message until it is repeated.
Recently, following a spate of tragic air show accidents, a veteran performer called to say that he sometimes wondered why ICAS repeated so many of the same themes in its Ops Bull articles. Then, following these accidents, he wanted to tell us to keep it up. He said that air show professionals need to hear the same messages over and over.
At an ICAS Convention session many years ago, air show legend Bob Hoover said, “We’re not dreaming up new ways to kill ourselves. We’re making the same mistakes over and over again.”
The repetition in Ops Bull is deliberate. You will see the same messages, sometimes even the very same articles, because there are patterns to air show accidents that do not change from one year to the next. We repeat the articles so that you will begin to internalize some of the messages contained in them.
