Advertising should be judged only by the goods it sells.
Opinions on Advertising are as conflicting as opinions on Religion. Forty per cent of all the people in the world are Buddhists, and are of the Opinion that Buddhism is the only true religion. Twelve per cent of the world?s people being Roman Catholics, are firm in the opinion that the remaining 88 percent are wrong, and sure of damnation accordingly.
Too many CEO’s seem satisfied to spend their money on mere opinions about advertising when they might have invested it on facts about advertising. Perhaps the salesperson was attractive you they got some good sports tickets. These are the Advertisers whose company must fail before they can be convinced that Branding is not enough and that customers have to be given a reason to buy.
They blindly gamble in Advertising when they might have safely invested in it. If they were to buy any other kind of Service, except Advertising, they would demand tangible proof of its efficacy before they spent money on it. If they hired a Salesman, for instance, they would expect him to prove he was earning his salary by making a satisfactory Record on Sales. They would not accept, for long, statements from him that he was? Making a General impression on the Trade? for his salary. Nor would they be satisfied with the statement that he was branding profitably enough to compensate for lack of sales.
Advertising is and should be “Salesmanship-on-paper.” If it is anything less than Salesmanship it is not real Advertising, but only “name recognition.” And, “General Publicity” admittedly claims only to “Brand,” to make sales easier for the salespeople.
Faulty ads make the same lame excuses as would be made by a Salesman who failed to earn his salary by actually selling goods. But branding, or any other Advertising, should be judged by the same standards as the Salesperson is judged, by the products it is clearly proven to sell and the return on investment it generates
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