Advertising Solutions

What is it about advertising that allows so many to waste so much money on programs that fail mightily only to be recognized by their peers as innovators and experts?  For years, the advertising business has had virtually no accountability for “strategic performance” built into it.  Great ideas were deemed GREAT by those that created them.   Over the years, clients have spent billions of dollars on programs that were complete failures.  We don’t care what medium we use, there are principles that are as certain as gravity that if ignored or not executed properly will doom your advertising program to failure.

I remember a seminar where an executive from a major consumer products company extolled the fact that they were reducing their use of mass media because it “did not work” and there was no way to measure results.  In the back of the room I wanted to raise my hand.  I knew the answer.  And it had nothing to do with the medium of choice and everything to do with the flawed execution model that their agency deployed.  In the 90’s a major auto manufacturer’s agency won multiple awards for its creativity on a re-branding campaign.  Millions of dollars were invested in TV – only to have the company lose a large portion of it’s market share.  Why?  Who was held accountable for this failure?  Was it because the products were inferior or was it just a bad campaign with a poor execution model?  Can you afford that kind of tactical error?  Apparently they couldn’t.