Via Seth Godin comes this beauty – why don’t advertising agencies advertise?
It is a fabulous piece – sprinkled with little gems like this:
David Ogilvy once admitted, “99% of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.” He was right. Fact is, most ads today are ineffective
and this:
If agencies hype the importance of branding campaigns for public companies to enhance their image among investors, why is it that Interpublic, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP don’t support their brand images on Wall Street?
According to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the four holding companies spent a total of $3.7 million to promote themselves in the U.S. in 2005, down 15% from the $4.4 million they spent in 2004.
Considering that agencies recommend their clients spend 10% of their revenues on marketing, the big four are spending .01% of their combined $29.3 billion in global revenue. Mull that for a second or two.
Kinda makes you wonder if the advertising agencies know something about the value of advertising, doesn’t it?
It reminds me of the old saw – why is there only one Competition Authority?
Great. Kinda speaks volumes. Of course this is why the traditional advertising guys are going to find themselves eased out of this game. In one word “empirical”.