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It's an Ad, Ad, Ad World |
December 2002
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Does Advertising Really Work?
Sergio Zyman, ex-head of Coca-Cola's marketing efforts, has upset a load of Madison Avenue types with his new book, The End of Advertising as We Know It. It seems the Mexican-born Zyman has dared to suggest that advertising, and its bastard cousin, marketing, actually must show some results to be justified. Winning Cleo Awards comes second to selling stuff to clients who pay the bills.
Naturally, commerce is an ugly and vulgar activity, but Mr. Zyman is absolutely right. If businesses must engage in advertising and marketing, then they ought to show some results. Just compare revenues pre- and post-campaign, or track sales growth in an area where advertising ran against where it didn't. If sales rose, the job was done. If not, who cares if the campaign won awards?
Some year's ago, Alka-Seltzer had a few golden campaigns ("Plop, plop, fizz, fizz"; "I can't believe I ate the whole thing"; "Try it, you'll like it.") These things entered everyday speech, made consumers aware of the product, they entertained. But they didn't sell antacid to people who didn't need it. Advertising never could.
Ideally, advertising should provide information about a product so that potential customers can made a better informed decision, pushing us closer to the ideal of perfect information for a perfect market. That doesn't happen when one doesn't remember the name of the product an ad purports to sell.