When I was the publicity directory of a college radio station at a small school, I'd put up 300-400 letter-sized posters to promote a dance with maybe 7-8 distinct designs. This would change the appearance of the campus and pack the house.
A lot of people, doing the same job, would put up 10 or 20 posters of the same design and waste more energy vociferously defending their right to be lazy and that "everybody will see them" than it would take to just make all the designs and walk around putting the signs up.
The main reason people fail at SEO and SMO is that they radically underestimate how much work is required to succeed. That's good news for people who do work hard, because out of 20 potential competitors, 18 of them are easy to beat.