It's An Absolute Disgrace - Advertising Agencies Are Getting Away With Murder

Well... with downright Robbery at least!


Why are they allowed to get away with no accountability at all?

The pollution of advertising messages is getting worse, despite supposed claims to clean the problem up.

And now there's even more bad news, a major study on Internet clutter finds the more ads on a page, the more click through rates, brand impact and product information declines.

Because Advertising Agencies have no answer to the problem of advertising's increasing ineffectiveness, the solution now is an increasing stampede to any new destination, like mobile phones where the greatest risk lies for a new avalanche of commercial content.

Whilst all this is taking place a big assault on television is underway, by, for example Google.

And all of this adds up to...you've got it, more and more clutter.

So whilst more and more marketing monies are poured down the black hole of TV and Internet advertising, there is another threat from the rackets and scams of the digital Mafia.

The problem is so dire that hackers are now conducting online auctions for people's personal details. It has emerged that there is an $8 billion on line black economy centred on credit card theft, corporate blackmail and insider share dealing.

Do you want your advertising to appear in such an environment? Meanwhile Advertising Agencies are leading the rush, together with increasing the clutter, onto that totally unproven, and highly suspect medium, the Internet.

Even that well known advertising personality, Jerry Della Femina is on record as to questioning the value of advertising on the Internet. Jerry has played an enormously influential role in the history of advertising. He states "I don't know any advertising agency that has mastered the Internet yet. Being able to understand it and sell products on it through advertising creates resentment, working to shut down attention rather than elicit interest."

For Media Companies the problem of clutter raises complicated questions of economics, Media companies and their associates won't look at it because they don't think in a multimedia way. Advertising will have to try and deal with the problem.

And the new media has the potential to deliver even more saturation, clutter and intrusiveness than traditional media, so the new media will only worsen marketing resistance.

Any time there's a new destination for people, the assumption is they've got to find a way to put some ads there. That's only going to make things worse.

Under the headline "The Money-waster That Marketing Ignores" AdAge had this to say about Clutter's drain on advertising effectiveness.

"Clutter, the rising blizzard of commercial messages sweeping through TV shows and other traditional and non-traditional communications channels, has become a blinding, deafening force heavily cutting into the overall effectiveness of advertising..

Yet little is being done to quantify the massive financial drain of clutter on marketing campaigns or organise a practical solution to the problem. Advertising Age paints a bleak picture of an industry apparently determined to ignore what may be its largest single money-waster!

However, the truth is that the interruption advertising model that supports television is broken, and without the utility that is currently found only on the Internet, TV will eventually become completely unsupportable.

People don't like to watch ads. The combination of the Internet and DVRs have opened up a Pandora's Box... People know what life is like without the traditional advertising model, and there's no going back. They will willingly sacrifice some production quality if doing so means they don't have to be interrupted. Trying to force people to accept interruption is only going to turn them off more.

The death knell for the advertising agencies?

Advertisers in the US will, for the first time, be able to see how many viewers have watched TV during ad breaks thanks to more detailed viewing data to be released by Nielsen Media Research from next month, according to reports.

According to the Financial Times, Nielsen will provide US TV networks with accurate data on how many viewers continue to watch channels through commercial breaks.
Nielsen said the new audience ad data would make a "big change" to the US ad industry, allowing broadcasters to access the average audience rating for ads during a programme, but it would not rate the success of individual ads.

The changes are being tipped to substantially alter the relationship between broadcasters and advertisers in the US ad market, which is worth $70bn (£35.6bn) annually.

Sara Erichson, general manager of national services at Nielsen, said: "There have been increasing calls from buyers and sellers of advertisers to look at the audience ratings and not use programme ratings as a proxy."

However, the new data could divide the industry, with some advertisers supporting calls for more accurate information on the performance of TV campaigns, but others fearing a dramatic loss in coverage if networks decide some ads are making viewers switch off.

There is, and has been for some years, a very simple solution to the ills that beset the marketing and advertising industries. In the past the advertising agencies have shunned the solution because it does not rely upon creativity, reach and frequency, the current model so beloved by the advertising industry.

It is interactive marketing communication, in one fell swoop Clients could solve all their problems and assist existing media to solve theirs at the same time.

Interactive advertising is richer than all other forms of marketing communication, and it is becoming increasingly clear that it is only a matter of time before Clients embrace the business saving life force of interaction!

Choose your own commercials anyone?

Interactive TV will immediately halt the interruption model on which television is based, that is interactive marketing properly executed will make advertising on terrestrial TV become richer because of the very nature of Interactive Marketing Communication.

Existing terrestrial television need no new technology imposed upon it to create immediately highly successful, totally accountable advertising "Events."