Insightful articles, opinion and commentary about mobile and web.

By Simon van Wyk

Following on from this month’s podcast, I decided to look at the arguments for and against the death of advertising. This week’s post looks at the evidence that advertising is not in its death throes.

Since Ad Age columnist Bob Garfield has been the most vocal herald of the death of advertising, much of the recent defence of advertising has been aimed at Bob and his treatise.

In a guest column in Ad Age, copywriter and partner of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners Jeff Goodby says he gives Bob’s argument 2 stars out of 5 (admitting that, while having read the original “Chaos Scenario” article, he hadn’t read the book).

He writes, “Fifty years ago, San Francisco advertising man Howard Gossage said, ‘People read what they want to read. Sometimes it’s advertising.’”

“The fact is, much of the internet is not paying for itself, especially in the media realm. Bob would say: Great – then die, media realm, die. I, on the other hand, believe that very soon the internet will finally wean us off the expectation that everything’s free online. And it will do so through a combination of micropayment entry fees and, yes, advertising that people like.”

From the Escape Pod blog, written by anonymous staff of the Chicago-based ad agency Escapology, comes the prediction that Jeff Goodby’s view will be found to be right and Bob Garfield’s wrong. Why? Simply because Jeff works in the advertising industry and Bob doesn’t. The blogger writes “I for one, have had just about enough of laptop quarterbacks telling me how to do my job without ever once actually having it done it themselves.”

“We in the ad biz understand that people don’t like advertising. Believe it or not we get that bit. We also understand that the internet has fundamentally changed commerce and communications permanently. Everybody gets that. But to suggest the advertising industry will just go away is patently absurd.

“Advertising will no more disappear than prostitution will. Prostitution isn’t the oldest profession in the world. Advertising is. The world’s first hooker had to first engage in some kind of promotional activity. Purring “Hey Ugg, you want some of this?” while slowly and salaciously raising the hem of her bearskin dress.

“Advertising was and is just a means to an end: increase sales. It will shape shift into whatever means of communication exist at any given time. It has always done so.”

Simon Billing, director of strategic planning at Reason Partners, a Canadian ad agency, writes in his blog that “The most glaring flaw in the ‘death of advertising’ debate is that its proponents generally conflate the effects of the internet on media and control of media channels, with advertising…. (which) is the communication of a product’s commercial proposition, to its prospective purchasers, in such a way as to positively affect how they feel about that product.

“Barack Obama may have had a hell of a social media campaign, but it was his brilliant oratory that moved people. And I doubt that Churchill would have convinced too many beleaguered Brits to stay the course in the dark days after Dunkirk if he’d tweeted out his message. Technology doesn’t change human nature, but it occasionally adds to the ways in which you can appeal to it.

“Will new media change the form of advertising? Absolutely. Is it bad news for advertising? Absolutely not. The real story is the exponentially expanded opportunity for creativity in advertising. Where once the media dictated the form of the message (:30/:60; full page/half page; etc.), in the future its creators will.

Simon concludes that, “The internet is the best news for advertising since Marconi invented the telly.”

Meanwhile, a piece in NetRegistry says that, “Advertising has changed and evolved over the last few years. It now includes visual, audio and electronic media. In fact, if you do a Google search for advertising, you may feel overwhelmed by all the options available to you now.

“So is traditional advertising - which includes billboards, radio, television, newspaper and magazine - dead? Not by a long shot. According to one top advertising mogul, traditional advertising methods are still around because they still work. The trick is to figure out who your target market is, what they want, and how they look for that information.

“Mark Twain said, ‘Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.’ If you know customers, you can spend your advertising dollars on the mediums they use to look for answers.

“Remember, if you’re giving your customers what they want, they don’t perceive your ads as a nuisance, they see them as a service. Traditional advertising is not dead and you can use it to your advantage if you pay attention to who your customers are, and what they want.”

Finally, in an example of the “at least my traditional medium isn’t declining as fast as the others” defence, BusinessWeek writer Jon Fine writes that predictions of a 6% drop in ad spending on broadcast TV in 2009 are a victory for broadcasters, because overall ad spending is expected to be down more than 10 per cent.

He writes: “You may reasonably expect, given current realities and consumers’ ongoing fascination with everything digital, that this will be the year the roof caves in on network TV spending as well; at first, I did. Now I’ve been persuaded otherwise.

“….I’m not saying the big networks will be rolling in rose petals after this year’s upfronts. But if total U.S. ad spending declines by around 10% and the networks’ dollars decline around 6%, they grab market share. It’s not that advertisers want to boost spending on network TV. It’s that they are pulling away from other media much faster, and will continue to.”

He finishes up with another classic defence: inertia.

“Who in charge of ad budgets will try radical moves today, when everyone knows a failure will cost them their jobs? This is a comfort-food environment, and no ad form is more familiar to a chief marketing officer than the good old 30-second spot. (Old maxim: No one was ever fired for buying a prime-time TV ad.) Multiply a rush to the familiar throughout a marketplace, and the result is higher prices.

“The networks maintain enormous built-in advantages. They still own their airwaves and still tightly control limited airtime. Network TV remains the cornerstone of most companies’ ad plans.”

Are you convinced? What are your thoughts on the debate?

Next week: The case for the death of advertising

Tags: Advertising, Media