This is a “deep dive” (for me, anyway). Lots of research, etc. If your work with/in Digital Advertising, you should read it, find out just how useless your job is.
Is it all just a big waste of time and money? I’m talking about all types of digital advertising here: video, social, mobile, branded content, native, etc.
I think it just might be.
I see you all scrambling to bring up your latest “engagement” numbers. But each and every one of those numbers is based on a different “formula” than the next one. It’s all skewed — sometimes completely made-up — bullshit, and you know it. “Clicks” mean nothing. “Views,” even, mean nothing.
Above: “Billions in earned media impressions”. How’d that work out, Solo.
Branded content, especially, doesn’t work — nobody remembers the brand. In one survey, two-thirds of those who recalled seeing a “content” ad remembered absolutely nothing about it, and 95% of them didn’t remember who the sponsor was. Ninety-Five Percent. “Engage” with that, modern marketers.
Ten years ago, The Atlantic asked a “dangerous question”: Does Internet Advertising Work at All? Short answer: probably not! Long answer: nobody knows. Nobody. Not even your Ad Tech Daddy, “Big Data.” This includes ALL social ads, particularly Facebook ads, and even Google search ads: All of them are very likely useless. And nothing’s changed about that answer in 2024.
But really: How about social media advertising — all those retweets and shares and likes must add up to something? Yes, they add up to approximately nothing worth anything: Only five percent of people say social media has “a great deal of influence” on their purchasing decisions, according to a well-researched Gallup State of the American Consumer report.
Which brings me to hallowed traditional creative advertising. Being an old school copywriter, I love to say “creativity” is the magical secret to effective advertising, the pixie dust that can’t be measured by an algorithm. More specifically, it’s the “unexpected great visual” that is the key to advertising that works, that sells.
How do I know it works? It just does, because it has consistently worked since the Creative Revolution of the ’60s. People remember great, creative, unexpected ads and they remember the fucking brand. That’s advertising that works.
However, many Millennials, apparently, are — somehow — immune to advertising, even creative ads and videos with great visuals and crackling copy. Way to kill my career, assholes.
You do have options: you can do “un-ads” or a “non-sell”.
One of the most famous un-ads was E-Trade’s 1999 Super Bowl spot “we just wasted two million dollars,” though that ad still had too much “selling” copy at the end. Also check out this 2015 un-sponsorship ad for Optus by Ricky Gervais.
Then, there is the non-sell. This is tough to pull off. Maybe do some of that newfangled “storytelling!” Forget your brand. Nobody wants to watch a snoozy tale about the “legacy” of your car or beer or hemorrhoid cream. You need to create funny or interesting non-ads—try short “films”. But whatever you make better be damn good/damn funny, or you will be brutally mocked by the digital native commentariat.
Advertising may or may not be dead, but in all of its current digital forms, it sure as shit ain’t working.