When Advertising Dies a Little

There used to be a TV show in the UK called amp8220Mondayamp8217s Newcomersamp8221 I would be amazed if more than one or two people reading this remember it it was a showcase for new ads Every Monday morning the nationamp8217s creative departments would sit down turn on their TV and view all the new ads that had aired the previous weekThe practice came to an end not long after some enterprising guy looking for a job made an ad about himself which he aired once on our smallest commercial TV station He thus managed to get his video CV in front of every creative director for an airtime cost equivalent to a couple of pintsThe only ads reviewed like this were TV TV ruled I must have been in hundreds of meetings when I knew full well that the budget wasnamp8217t sufficient to buy any sort of effective campaign and consequently hardly anyone would ever see the ad I and many like me argued internally and with the client but it rarely did any goodMany clients were convinced that the world was waiting expectantly for their masterpiece which they just knew only had to be seen once for there to be a riot as people rushed to the stores demanding the productIt often didnamp8217t work Of course there were exceptions but by definition low impact campaigns were rarely noticed We are talking about an era when creative excess was commonplace and most advertisers understood little and cared less for media argumentsNow we have the exact oppositeDespite a great deal of evidence pointing in the opposite direction many in the client community are obsessed with online advertising amp8220Think of how many millions of people weamp8217ll be reachingamp8221 they say amp8220Even if we only convert 01 think of how much product weamp8217ll shiftamp8221They forget that they may not have the appropriate creative execution for the medium being proposed amp8220The numbers are so huge the work doesnamp8217t matter Itamp8217s a numbers gameamp8221Letamp8217s be clear amp160Iamp8217m not suggesting that digital advertising never works But the way to improve the odds on it working is to plan it just as the planner plans any campaign on anything else Not to buy blind or hand everything over to a realtime bidding system or to abdicate all responsibility to an algorithm and someone at a trading desk who wouldnamp8217t know the ad theyamp8217re placing if it came up to them and said good morningBut still the obsession with huge numbers and what seem on paper to be cheapaschips media prices continuesDigital sales guys whose advertising knowledge can be summed up as amp8220never mind the quality feel the widthamp8221 They are cheered on by agency buyers with an eye to their margins and their agency deals working for CMOs not sufficiently confident to follow the facts over the fads and whose CEOs and CFOs know how to spot a trend especially one thatamp8217s backed by billions of dollarsamp8217 worth of VC cash All of these people look at the numbers and swoonMuch advertising placed like this doesnamp8217t deliver results not surprisingly The agency traders blame the creative work the creatives shrug and point out that noone asked for their opinion in the first place the digital sales guys adjust the algorithms the CMO blames fraud bots adblockers and everything else heamp8217s read about but remains too invested in the process to jump shipThe CEO and the CFO smile sadly and say they always knew advertising didnamp8217t workAnd we all die a littleImage at top courtesy of Corbis The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageMyersBizNet management or associated bloggers

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When Advertising Dies a Little

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Brian Jacobs

The Ad Council, Huntsman Mental Health Foundation and Amazon Announce “The Mind Set” to Support Mental Health - Ad Council InSites

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When Advertising Dies a Little

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