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Advertising Has To Change. The Time Of Ads For Ad’s Sake And Confusing Messages Is Over

August 22, 2009

Advertising Has To Change. The Time Of Ads For Ad’s Sake And Confusing Messages Is Over Adam Lovejoy writes: Advertising has become an industry that exists mostly for its own sake rather than for the sake of companies that are trying to promote their goods and services. I sometimes have a feeling that advertising agencies live in some fantasy world and have absolutely no idea what was is good for their customers and what is not.

There have been loads of adverts, mostly on TV, that contained messages with the names of brands and companies somehow getting lost in all the fancy scenarios. It was basically a case of arts for art’s sake, or rather ads for ads’ sake.

The makers of TV ads have become so complacent, so arrogant, so self-centred and so pretentious that they were producing adverts that the businesses in question simply did not need. I would even go as far as saying that there have been some TV adverts that had undermined the brands rather than promoted them. These include some of the car and cosmetics advertisments and some of the adverts for groceries and non-alcoholic drinks.

This is bound to change now, of course, as companies have become more selective, due to the recession biting them hard. And, obviously, many of the fancy ad agencies will simply lose a lot of customers, or even disappear. Even some of the established names in advertising and marketing will probably suffer.

In a sense, advertisers were partly responsible for the current mess in the economy, as they have been losing their sharpness and their edginess during the ‘anything goes’ years of the economic growth. In those days companies had extremely high tolerance levels for any ads, even the stupidest ones, simply because their goods had been selling well anyway. It was more about ‘brand awareness’ and satisfying the vanity of company execs, who wanted to be seen as cool and sophisticated in agreeing to pay for fancy advertising campaigns that made litle or no saense.

That was why useless celebrities were employed to plug goods on the basis of the false perception that people would buy them simply because they would associate the products or services with a famous name or a face. And all sorts of silly gimmicks and stunts were used to supposedly ‘implant’ the image of the products or brand names into the minds of consumers.

But the days of reckless and ineffective advertising campaigns are gone now. The stark reality of an economic crisis has brought home one simple message: advertising has to be simple, direct, well targeted and clear in its message. There is no room in ads for artiness and silly gimmickry anymore. And the value of the celebrity factor has plummeted now. Celebs may appeal to the lowest common denominator but for most intelligent customers are not convinced that they shoul dbuy tea or coffee that some celeb supposedly likes.

And the days of huge advertising campaigns that had allegedly helped to drive sales up are gone now. Who said that anyone needed these wall-to-wall promotions? Advertisers, of course, because they wanted their clients to spend as much money as possible on their ads. And they always insisted that sales of this or that product went up only because of the massive promotion they had recieved.

Let us get our message across to millions, the admen would say. And let us have a face of a huge celebrity as a driving force behind the product. Look, we’ have got loads of A-list celebrities willing to promote your brands for a lot of money. Would you be interested in meeting them and hanging out with them? Would your lovely wife be interested in going to a party and mixing with the top names in showbusiness? And how about your children? You can all go if you want, Mr X. You’ve goot such a geat feel for advertising.

And it is exactly the same in politics. I remember what fuss was made around the election campaign slogan of 1979, devised by those supposedly geniuses of advertising, the Saatchis, that stated: ‘Labour Isn’t Working’, with a line of unemployed pictured in the background on the billboards. That image supposedly had won the Conservatives the general election.

What absolute rubbish! Who on earth could have fallen for that drivel? The Tories had won because Labour was, first of all, absolutely hopeless then and, secondly, because voters have had enough of them. Any slogan would have worked then. Especially, as, unlike the current lot, Labour in those years had not yet mastered the art of spin and deception.

The advertising industry in its present form is only good for promoting itself. Yes, it is very good at creating myths about its effectiveness. All those top company execs, who have no idea of how to sell their products, fall prey to these masters of deception. Smoothtalking ad men have been convincing company directors to spend huge amounts of money on bland advertising campaigns that did very little to promote the brands.

And how about that brand awareness con? Hundreds of books have been written about it although, just like the theory of evolution, it is just a myth. It states that you have to constantly remind consumers that you exist. According to this great idea, you should never let people think that you are not there anymore. Otherwise someone else would take your place. So you should pay millions to advertising agencies or else.

We, at StirringTroubleInternationally, are actually thinking about creating our own advertising agency to help companies develop effective advertising concepts to promote their products. We are also at the moment setting up an advertising team on our website that would be producing ads for our customers to be posted on our website. The images would be catchy, easily remembered and coming straight to the point. There are many companies out there that produce good quality products and offer excellent services. They will not go down in this recession; especially if they play their cards right and promote themselves properly. Sure, they would have to be more careful with their money. But it does not mean at all that they would have to close down.

I bet you a lot of this panic originates in the advertising industry itself that is seeing its preposterous campaigns being rejected. What is so bad if businesses get back to basics and develop their promotional and marketing strategies more carefully and less wastefully? Good for them.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong in spending less on TV advertising. What is the point of spending millions on confusing messages? Plus, TV companies have become complacent and they actually think that they can get away with making rubbishy programmes and still get companies to place ads with them. I have always found it very strange that some of the big names in the industry and commerce were ready to be associated with the worst possible TV programmes.

By the way, advertising on the web is growing, unlike that on TV and in newspapers. Because it is targeted advertising, because it reaches the exact audience that you desire. These are not some wall-to-wall meaningless promotions that are reaching a lot of people, who don’t really care about the products or the services on offer. Ads on the web are more selective and imaginative and can combine elements of static ads, moving images, animation and good catchy messages. And the consumer can watch and listen for free, many times over, if he or she missed the message in the first instance.

Advertising on the web is the future. And it looks bright for the businesses that know the potential of the web. That is why we, at StirringTroubleInternationally, would welcome all the good companies out there that are keen to keep their customers aware of their fine goods and services.

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