No one in Advertising appeared to notice...

When it was reported that 65% of all marketing spend in 2007 had no effect on consumers!Despite the fact that working in Advertising is not rocket science, accountability is not a strong factor…creativity is!As more and more evidence emerges as to the failure of advertising to do what it says it does…. Sell products/services, there are some errors that advertising people commonly make.   One is a complete failure to learn from experience.  The other is the advertising ego.  Advertising people hate facing up to information like “65% of all marketing spend had no effect…” because that forces us to acknowledge that they aren’t as clever as they make themselves out to be!These unpalatable truths contribute to the increasing problems facing advertising, like the “meaningless noise” syndrome. Together with a total lack of understanding as to the true meaning of the word “accountability”, or, for that matter “communication”.This declining effectiveness is due, in part, to an earlier perception that over-estimated advertising’s power.  In the industry’s days of dominance, peopled believed it could change the ways consumers think and behave, not just influence them to favour one brand in a category they were already considering.In earlier days there was a faith than when there was little objective difference among products, an emotion-laden image is always used as a motivator.Much of this sense of advertising’s enormous power and the almost inevitable effectiveness of image advertising grew as mass advertising followed mass manufacturing in the 50s’ and ‘60s.   Mass manufacturing led to one-size-fits-all products.   Local, individualised, and speciality products disappeared, and  mass consumerism was achieved, yet strangely the recent statement “Advertising is a no win situation” appears to trouble the Advertising Community not at all!Perhaps that is because their bosses do not see through the fudges.The division of labour that makes companies efficient – in so far as they are – is also a division of knowledge…so why keep a dog and bark yourself?And who really wants (or cares) to discover what communication really is? Frankly it shows us that organisations can’t always be run effectively, even when managed by highly intelligent people.   So why should advertising people pretend that that is not also true of Advertising Agencies?The idea of advertising progress is as enduring as any.   Beyond the occasional doubt, advertising people do need to believe that everything is all right in the world of make believe.So the message of technological innovation, the computer, the Internet or Web 2.0, the Mobile Telephone et al – is received readily.Certainly with regard to effective communication this perception of technological progress is mistaken.   The poor old customer, or in advertising speak, Consumer, does not want to take delivery of even more messages, after all they do not appear to be taking much notice of the messages that exist already!Perhaps we should practice what Virgil preached, advertising should consist of always going forward backwards!