“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” – John Wanamaker, US Department Store Merchant
John Wanamaker got it right a long time ago I think. Both in terms of the message and the medium, there is so much subjectivity in gauging advertising’s effectiveness. In developed markets, they use sophisticated models to measure ad effectiveness. So much so that ad agencies are prepared to be paid for performance of their campaigns. To get to that stage, you have to trust the metrics. And agencies have to be trusted by clients with confidential sales performance info.
In T&T and the wider Caribbean we are basically guessing. But because we are all guessing, no one is disadvantaged. We rely on media studies that are years old or non-existent. We base a lot of our media choices (clients and agencies do this) on personal preferences rather than what the people you are trying to reach prefer. We spend more time worrying about the size of the logo than about the relevance, credibility, sustainability and single-mindedness of the message. The other night there was a hardware ad on TV using 7 adjectives to describe how great it was. My 17 year old son innocently exclaimed: ” Wow, can they be all of that? ”
Advertising for me should be the expression of the one thing you want your brand to be remembered for. And we should be able to tell if that’s what our customers think of when they think of us. And if it is influencing them to choose your brand. Unless we stop our guessing ways, then we won’t make Stephen Leacock a liar.
“Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.” – Stephen Leacock
