Does your message really work?

Didn't look at it that way, but absolutely.

I know reading your writing out loud works to find flaws, hang-ups and such, but never considered having someone read it to me.

Wish I could find the source where I'd first seen it. But it was a subconscious thing that just stuck.

I remember this exercise (from a few years ago). And it's still true, that with around 95% (or more) of the ads, they don't answer the questions very well at all.

In fact, without the pictures, it's often hard to tell what many of the ads are even advertising.


If only that were true... but alas, it's not.

I've worked with a couple ad agencies over the years (on a temporary / contract basis) and I can assure you, they did NOT always have the best and brightest minds in the industry.

Sure, for the most part everyone knew about the 4 P's... The 4 C's... SWOT analysis... etc. But many of them were more concerned about just keeping their jobs. And they barely had ANY understanding of consumer psychology, and/or buying motivations.

Some of the (geniuses?) actually believed that focus groups could provide true insight into the consumer mind. (because focus groups is the way it's always been done, right?)

As if asking a group of people, specific questions (in a controlled environment) would yield responses that truly indicated how these people feel in their day-to-day lives.

When in reality, in that environment most people will give controlled answers they "think" you want to hear (or answers that they think make themselves sound informed and intelligent)



Here's a test for you... Watch those advertisements. Then see which ones are still playing 60...90...120 days later. Those are the one's that might be worth studying.

Even though most of them (nearly all of them) are not direct response (no real tracking metrics) at least most advertisers will be watching for increased market share. If sales don't increase, they end those ads and try something else.


Even many of the $30,000,000 SuperBowl commercials, are all but forgotten a few months later. That's because while they get praise from critics, and win AMA awards... they didn't increase sales.


So if the criteria for a good advertisement is how cute, clever, or controversial it is; Then yeah, many of those ad agencies are brilliant.

But, if the criteria is how much ROI the ads bring back; Then many of them are not so brilliant. Which is probably one of the main reasons many big businesses (the one's with deep pockets) bounce from ad agency, to ad agency, at the end of each fiscal year.

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