Published: Aug. 21, 2001

Meg Campbell, assistant professor of marketing at the CU-Boulder College of Business, won the best paper award at the Fourth International Research Seminar on Marketing Communications and Consumer Behavior.

Her paper, "Brand Familiarity and the Onset of Advertising Wearout" was selected from among 36 papers for the award.

The conference, sponsored by the Institute d'Administration des Enterprises, was held in La Londe les Maures, France, in June.

Campbell's research found that consumers are more tolerant of advertising repetition when a brand has strong awareness in the marketplace. All products experience varying degrees of advertising wearout, she explained, which occurs when consumers begin to develop negative attitudes toward a brand after too much exposure to repetitive advertising.

An established company such as Nike, however, can run the same advertisement for a longer period of time than a new company, Campbell said. Consumers are familiar with Nike products and they are more lenient toward seeing the same ads over and over.

"Known companies can spend less money on advertising because they don't have to create new ads as often to get the same effectiveness from their marketing efforts," she said.

Campbell's research interests include consumers' responses to branding tactics and consumer understanding of persuasion. She earned her doctorate degree from Stanford University.