This morning whilst listening to ABC Radio 702 I couldn't quite cope with Virginia Trioli's guest, advertising guy Russel Howcroft from George Patts, raving about how spectacular advertising is. Russel was beside himself with excitement about advertising. He said that throughout history there were significant examples of the success of advertising.
Really Russel? Would that be the Budweiser "Whassup?" campaign which won more awards than any other ad in history? Yes that was hugely successful.... for the agency, shame about the client. Real pity that the ad didn't create any increase in sales. In fact sales actually decreased from 50 million barrels in 1990 to less than 35 million barrels in 2000.
We all know the Milk moustache ad even though it didn't run in Australia. A clever ad with celebrities such as Naomi Campbell, Christie Brinkley and Jennifer Aniston featuring a milk moustache. The ad was loved and acclaimed around the world. Yet milk sales went down, significantly. Why? Because they didn't listen to the consumer feedback that they don't drink milk because it's fattening. The ad didn't tackle this major issue. Instead the ad agency created a brilliant ad creating enormous interest and talk. Sadly at the cost of the client and sales.
These are just two examples of many failures of major ad campaigns. I couldn't resist challenging Russel this morning so asked him about two recent local failures - the Carlton Draught Big ad and the Australian Tourism "Where the bloody hell are you" campaign.
Russel defended the success of the Big ad, what a surprise. His agency, George Patts. created it. He said that "a newspaper article" claimed the Big Ad wasn't a success but that they had to do a retraction because sales went up in NSW. This was a surprise to the journalist who wrote the article, Julian Lee.
But wasn't this a national campaign? Yes. So what about the other states?
Julian Lee Marketing writer at Sydney Morning Herald has written a couple of articles about the Big Ad and in his article "Big Ad struggles to convert plaudits into sales" (20 April 06) he states that
"While Carlton Draught sales are rising and were doing so before Big Ad's launch last July, the brand's share of the volume and value of the $8.5 billion Australian beer market has left the industry underwhelmed."
A follow up article in October "Fosters claims big sales from Big Ad" is hardly a "retraction". It reports that
"NEARLY a year after Big Ad's launch, Foster's Australia claims it is responsible for a significant lift in Carlton Draught's market share, proof it says that an entertaining ad can sell. Carlton Draught's share of the $1.4 billion NSW full-strength beer market in the year to June 30 rose by 1.44 percentage points - which translates to roughly 36 million extra stubbies - to 9.2 per cent, according to AC Nielsen figures."
So in NSW sales increased 1.44 per cent. Is that a success considering the big cost of the big ad? And what about the other states? Importantly did sales in other states remain stat or decrease?
I also challenged Russell on why if advertising is so successful did Australia's Advertising's guru, John Singleton, launch his own beer brand Bondi Blonde using no advertising but PR instead. Doesn't that say something about the effect of advertising when he doesn't use advertising for his own beer?!
But alas Russel said that PR is advertising and everything is advertising even, for example architecture! Those crazy advertising guys! They are so out there! Now repeat after me Russel, advertising is when you pay for media space. PR or publicity is media space entirely at the discretion of the Editor or Producer. You can not make the media include you in their publication/program.
So let's get this right. Of course advertising works for certain products but it is certainly not the be all and end all. It simply doesn't work with certain products, budgets, objectives, etc. And success should be determined by the increase in sales not winning creative awards or entertaining audiences.
The advertising industry has for decades rubbished PR because they say it doesn't have a measurement model. That's rubbish. We can easily evaluate, and do, our clients results from a campaign and, importantly, from individual media coverage. We know what results they secure from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald or BRW or an interview on 2GB. It's very clear. But, thankfully, we don't pat ourselves on the back for a fantastic media strategy! And, unfortunately, we don't all run off to Cannes for a adfest each year. We're too busy getting results.
