It’s amazing how many marketers, journalists and business leaders have been duped into believing some of the biggest myths, mistruths and outright lies about marketing. Upon further reflection, it’s not that surprising. As human’s we’re genetically hardwired to be biased towards the new. So much so that we often discard the tried and true for the novel and unproven – even when the old stuff is proven to be vastly superior. And so it goes with marketing. Shiny new marketing tactics, technologies and theories become all the rage without a shred of evidence they work. Peddled by marketing con artists and spread by the marketing naïve and boosted by an ecosystem of online platforms that profit from them, dishonesty has become de rigueur and deceit has become dogma.
Armed with a healthy dose of skepticism, a ton of new evidence and a dash of common sense marketing mavericks like Les Binet, Peter Field, Bob Hoffman, Mark Ritson, Byron Sharp, Karen Nelson-Field are setting the record straight. In an effort to dispel and debunk some of the most egregious marketing ca-ca making the rounds, I’ve shamelessly pilfered their findings and shared them here.
MYTH #1: ADVERTISING DOESN’T WORK ANYMORE
Independent research firms, Ebiquity and Gain Theory recently analyzed over 2,000 ad campaigns across 11 categories to determine the impact ads had on both short and long-term profits. “Looking at total profit return on investment (ROI) over three years, the average campaign delivers a profit return ratio of 3.24:1. This varies by channel, but all forms of advertising, except Online Display, deliver profitable returns when you look at their long-term impact.”
TV was found to be the safest ad investment a company can make with the highest likelihood of a profitable return. From safest to riskiest investment Print, online video, radio and out of home followed suit. Read more about the study here.
MYTH #2: ONLINE (DIGITAL) WORKS BETTER THAN TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING
Ebiquity recently conducted the most in depth study ever on the value of different media when it comes to advertising. They compared 10 different types of media to determine which ones were most effective based on the following 12 attributes:
Targets the right people in the right time
Increases campaign ROI
Triggers a positive emotional response
Increases brand salience
Maximizes campaign reach
Gets your ads noticed
Low cost audience delivery
Builds campaign frequency
Guarantees a safe environment
Short-term sales response
Transparent third party audience measure
Low production
They then asked marketers to rank each of those media channels on the 12 attributes above. The results show a striking disconnect between what marketers perceive to be the most effective media versus what media channels really are more effective.
Social media, online video and online display are way less effective than marketers perceive them to be. See the full report here.
MYTH #3: TV, RADIO AND PRINT ARE DEAD.
Despite the influx of thousands of new media channels, many of the old channels (traditional media) are thriving and evolving – delivering more value not less. That’s because traditional channels make online channels more efficient and effective. Offline, mass-market channels are better at growing brands and generating long-term growth. Online, targeted ads are more efficient at harvesting short-term sales. In other words, online advertising – for the most part – is better at direct marketing. Offline advertising – for the most part – is better at brand building. Nothing really new here except the ways we can deliver direct marketing. The most successful campaigns maximize profits by investing in both. Unsuccessful campaigns put too much weight on one or the other. What’s more, traditional media like magazine print, direct mail, radio and outdoor are becoming less expensive and less crowded by advertisers. It’s now easier than ever to stand out on these channels and reach way more people way more effectively. Meanwhile everyone and their mother are advertising online and feeds are becoming crowded while CPMs continue to rise. And while TV isn’t cheap, it still delivers the best overall value. It’s also evolving quickly as more and more people use their TV to watch online platforms like YouTube and TikTok. As large streaming companies like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO and others start offering advertising in their subscription models, things will get very interesting for TV.
In regards to ROI, traditional media is hardly dead. In fact TV, Radio, Newspapers and Magazines deliver a higher ROI than online channels. The smart money in marketing continues to invest their ad dollars into them. With all the data and targeting capabilities in the world online giants Google, Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon spend massive amounts on TV and other traditional media. For example, 80% of Google’s US advertising budget ($569 million) goes to TV. Why? Even with access to the best marketers, the deepest data and insights, and outstanding creative, you cannot achieve the same scale of consumer awareness via digital that you can with a significant investment in television and other traditional advertising.
MYTH #4: ADVERTISING IS BECOMING MORE EFFECTIVE BECAUSE OF ONLINE SEARCH, HYPER-TARGETING AND SEGMENTATION, TRACKING AND ATTRIBUTION
Actually advertising is becoming less effective because of the above. While search, targeting, measurement and tracking have certainly made advertising more efficient, they’ve also made it less effective. Here’s why. Most marketers are wasting money by spending way more than they should on short-term “sales activation” tactics (primarily online, direct sales) vs. long-term, mass-market brand-building ones. Instead of growing their brands and sales by reaching new people, they’re spending too much money reaching targeted people who probably would have purchased their products anyway. Attribution modeling favors online tactics resulting in more online spending. In Effectiveness In Context, world-renowned researcher Les Binet concludes that in order to maximize advertising return, marketers should be spending at least 60 - 75% of their budget on long-term brand-building efforts and no more than 25 - 40% on highly-targeted, short-term, sales activation advertising. Unfortunately, most marketers are spending more than 50% of their budgets on short-term online advertising. Read about Binet’s study here and an earlier study by the ARF that corroborates it here.
Instead of making advertising more effective, the shift away from long-term brand-building to short-term, tech-driven, sales activation tactics have made advertising 50% less effective.
MYTH #5: THE SALES FUNNEL IS DEAD
From a behavior standpoint, people still become aware of, get interested in, consider, buy, experience and re-purchase products like they always have. The only difference is, there are more tactical ways to connect with them along each of these steps than ever before. As Mark Ritson points out, “if you think the sales funnel is dead you’ve mistaken tactics (search, online banners, direct mail, etc.) for strategy(sales funnel).” Read Professor Ritson’s colorful takedown of this myth here.
The biggest issue we see over and over again is an over-investment in bottom and middle of the funnel short-term marketing. Take the 95:5 Rule from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Their research found that for any given product or service, in any category, at any time the percentage of in-market buyers is roughly 5%. Which means most of that short-term, sales activation advertising is reaching the 95% of buyers that are out-of-market. And no targeting with intent data is not the answer. For starters it’s not predictive of future purchases and the past behavior data it’s based on is usually highly inaccurate.
So what should you do? Spend less on your bottom and middle of the funnel efforts and spend more on broader reach brand building ads. Target as many category buyers as you can afford to with advertising designed and written to grab attention and makes people remember your brand. So when they’re ready to buy, they’ll be more likely to choose you. Those in the 5% who are ready to buy will also respond to these ads.
MYTH #6: CREATIVITY IS OVERRATED
Oh boy. I find those who are not so hot at creating great ads tend to spread this whopper. Here are the facts:
75% of ad campaign effectiveness is driven by creative quality. Creative ads are more likely to get noticed, shared and remembered. Which means they do more with less media spend.
In fact comScore found that creativity is 4x more important than media plan quality in driving sales.
Next to a brand’s market size, ad creativity generates the second highest impact on profitability
Creative ad campaigns produce up to 11x more market share growth than average ones
Companies with creatively driven campaigns have 3.5x better stock market performance
And a comprehensive study by Nielsen looking at what advertising elements contribute the most to sales found the Creative Idea the advertising is based on is the #1 contributor by a long shot. Even beating out Reach and Targeting.
MYTH #7: PEOPLE OVER 50 AREN’T WORTH MARKETING TO
The following facts were shamelessly lifted from Bob Hoffman’s blog The Ad Contrarian. Check it out here.
If Americans over 50 were their own country, they'd be the third largest economy in the world -- larger than the entire economies of Germany, Japan, or India
They possess 70% of all the wealth in the country
They are responsible for about half of all consumer spending
They buy 62% of all new cars
Despite the fact that many are retired, they still have 55% higher annual income than some other adult demo groups
And on average they have a net worth about 3 times that of the rest of the people
They dominate 94% of CPG categories
They are the Internet’s largest demographic constituency
They are much easier and much cheaper to reach than any other demographic group
Between now and 2030 they will grow at almost 3 times the rate of adults under 50.
Yet, According to a report by Nielsen, less than 5% of advertising is targeted to them.
MYTH #8: SHORTER VIDEOS, HEADLINES AND BODY COPY ARE ALWAYS BETTER THAN LONG ONES
The only thing absolute in advertising is that there are absolutely no absolutes. So the statement above can be true but certainly isn’t always true. The most effective headlines, body copy and videos are ones that people find interesting. People will spend as much time as it takes to read or watch something all the way through – even advertising – as long as they find it worthy of their time. Effectiveness is about being interesting, entertaining and memorable. Length has nothing to do with it.
MYTH #9: ADS VIEWED ON FACEBOOK AND YOUTUBE ARE JUST AS IMPACTFUL AS ADS VIEWED ON TV
An average second of TV commands way more attention than a second of YouTube or Facebook. And while attention is a combination of active and passive viewing, looking at active viewing alone, TV has nearly twice that of YouTube and 15 times that of Facebook. Read a summary of the study by Karen Nelson-Field here.
MYTH #10: MASS MARKETING IS DEAD. NICHE TARGETING AND SEGMENTATION IS THE WAY TO GO
Despite what you’ve heard, niche targeting can actually stunt growth. Here’s why. By targeting only those who have purchased your brand and/or shown an interest in purchasing a product or service like yours, you are missing out on reaching the biggest source of company growth. For most companies, 50% of growth comes from new and infrequent purchasers. This is in direct conflict with Pareto’s law which states 80% of sales come from 20% of customers. In How Brands Grow, Byron Sharp presents data that unequivocally shows growth is directly correlated with increasing the reach of your advertising and penetration of your product. To maximize growth, you should concentrate your marketing efforts on new customer acquisition – not just old customer retention. To do this, your advertising should reach everyone in your market your budget will allow. Every marketing tactic and every media placement should be analyzed and justified by its actual reach. Every division ad should reach as many customers and end-users as possible. Every brand ad should reach as many potential buyers as possible across all consumer and professional divisions.
MYTH #11: CAMPAIGNS BASED ON A BIG IDEA ARE DEAD
In an effort to squeeze every sale possible out of a short period of time, most marketers tend to generate lots of mini campaigns and one-off promotions with lots of different messaging targeting various targeted audiences. This inconsistency in messaging inherently leads to brand confusion and can destroy any positive impact. A recent study by the ARF called How Advertising Works Today found “campaigns with varied creative strategies can actually cancel each other out and become less memorable”.
On the other hand, having a brand campaign centered around one big, central creative idea with a consistent brand message executed in multiple surprising ways across multiple media channels, with a consistent brand look and tonality can increase effectiveness by 57%. (Good campaigns based around a central create idea are Dos Equis’ The Most Interesting Man In The World or Snickers’ You’re Not You When You’re Hungry.)
On average, cross-media campaigns with a unified look, feel and message are 57% more effective than those that are not. A Kantar Millward Brown study found campaigns unified by a strong central creative idea perform 64% better across all brand KPIs.
MYTH #12: PEOPLE WANT MORE PERSONALIZED ADS
No they don’t. Personalized ads cannot be made without personal data. And people definitely do not believe sharing their personal data to get more relevant and personal advertising is worth the trade off. In fact, in a Pew research study 68% of people viewed targeted ads negatively and around 75% said collecting user information to personalize search results is not ok. Read about the study here. The only people who really think collecting user data to create personalized advertising are martech companies. What’s more a Deloitte study of consumer personal data found that over 70% of it is wrong. Dead in the water wrong.
Want to keep up with the latest evidence-based marketing thinking?
Here’s a list of links to the marketing experts I follow:
Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian
Les Binet & Peter Field (Effectiveness In Context - Video)
Karen Nelson-Field (A non-biased look at the impact of modern advertising - Video)
The Confessions – Digiday’s anonymous confessions of marketing pros
Rory Sutherland – Life Lessons From An Ad Man – Ted Talk
WARC (World Advertising Research Center)
ARF (Advertising Research Foundation)
Eternally Yours,
David Smith | Founder & Creative Leader
919.667.3717: c | 919.969.7500 ext. 3717: o
david.smith@immortologyusa.com
About Immortology
Immortology is a full-service agency specializing in creating legendary creative and strategic solutions that help our clients outsmart, outdo and outlast – not outspend – their competitors. Our secret? We help companies find their true calling and align it with their customers’ true wants and needs in ways their rivals can’t or won’t. Then we unleash it through unforgettable brand experiences that interest and entertain their customers, rally their employees and strike fear into the hearts of their enemies for years to come.
About David Smith
Over the past two decades, David has been the creative force behind some of the world’s most memorable and successful ads. His campaigns have been covered by the NY Times, Adweek, Ad Age, Time, The Wall Street Journal, LA Times and Media Week. Shows such as Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, Inside Edition, CMT and CNN/FN have featured his work. The 4A’s recognized his movement, “Stop The Adness” as the “most transformative idea of 2011”. His campaign for Smirnoff Ice was the most successful product launch in United Distillers and Vintners’ history and his Lipton Brisk campaign has been included in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection. Over 60 million people have viewed his videos for Triumph Boats worldwide.