Twelve Reasons Why Advertising Fails

Roy Williams’ book, The Wizard of Ads (Bard Press, 1998), is probably the best book about copywriting that I’ve ever read. I use it as mental floss when I second guess myself on how to write copy effectively.

Here is an excerpt about why advertising fails.

Assuming the Client Knows Best

The business owner is uniquely unqualified to see his company or product objectively. Too much product knowledge leads him to answer questions no one is asking. He’s on the inside looking out, trying to describe himself to a person on the outside looking in. It’s hard to read the label when you’re inside the bottle.

Bad Freaking Copy

Too many ads today are creative without being persuasive. Slick, clever, funny, creative, and different are poor substitutes for informative, believable, memorable, and persuasive.

Confusing Reaction with Results

The goal of advertising is to create a clear awareness of your company and its unique selling proposition. Unfortunately, most advertisers evaluate their ads by the comments they hear from the people around them. When we mistake mere response for results, we create attention-getting ads that say absolutely nothing.

Creating Ads, Not Campaigns

It is foolish to believe a single ad can ever tell the entire story. The most effective, persuasive, and memorable ads are those most like a rhinoceros; they make a single point, powerfully. An advertiser with seventeen different things to say should commit to a campaign of at least seventeen different ads, repeating each ad enough to stick in the prospect’s mind.

Event-Drive Marketing

A special event should be judged only by its ability to help you more clearly define your market position and substantiate your claim. If one percent of the people who hear your ad for a special event choose to come, you will be in the desperate need of a traffic cop and a bus to shuttle people from distant parking lots. Yet your real investment will be in the 99-percent who did not come! What did your ad say to them?

Improper Use of Passive Media

Nonintrusive media, such as newspapers and yellow pages, tend to reach only buyers who are actively looking for the product. They are poor at reaching prospects before their need arises, so they’re not much use for planting a reticular activator or creating a predisposition toward your company. The patient, consistent use of intrusive media, such as radio and television, will win the heart of the customer before she’s in the market for the product. Tell her “why;” wait for “when.”

Instant Gratification

The ad that creates enough urgency to cause people to respond immediately is the ad most likely to be forgotten immediately once the offer expires. Such ads are of little use in establishing the advertiser’s identity in the mind of the consumer.

Late Week Schedules

Advertisers justify their obsession with Thursday and Friday advertising by saying, “We need to reach the customer just before she goes shopping.” Why do these advertisers choose to compete for customer’s attention each Thursday and Friday when they could have a nice, quiet chat all alone with her on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday?

Overestimating Audience Quality

Many advertisers and media professions grossly overestimate the importance of audience quality. In reality, saying the wrong thing has killed far more ad campaigns than reaching the wrong people. It’s amazing how many people become “the right people” when you’re saying the right thing.

Too Much Reach

For a media mix to be effective, each element in the mix must have enough repetition to establish retention in the mind of the prospect. Too often, however, the result of a media mix is too many people reached without enough repetition. Will you reach 100-percent of the people and persuade them 10-percent of the way? Or will you reach 10-percent of the people and persuade them 100-percent of the way? The cost is the same.

Slaving to the Unwritten Rules

For some insane reason, advertisers what their ads to look and sound like ads. Why?

Unsubstantiated Claims

Advertisers often claim to have what the customer wants, such as “highest quality at the lowest price,” but fail to offer any evidence. An unsubstantiated claim is nothing more than a cliché the prospect is tired of hearing. You must prove what you say in every ad. Do your ads give the prospect new information? Do they provide a new perspective? If not, prepare to be disappointed with the results.

You can also visit Roy’s website www.WizardofAds.com.

Here are other articles I have written on this topic:

• The Most Important Element of Good Advertising
• New Television Spot for Appellate Court Judge Mary Schostok
• Joe Birkett Endorses Dan Cronin
• New Television Campaign for Appellate Court Judge Mary Schostok
• Two New Commercials for Dan Cronin
• Back In the Studio
• God Wants Me to Purchase Baseball Tickets? Really?
• Catholics Come Home to Chicago, Joliet and Rockford
• New Television Commercial for Dan Cronin
• Shooting and Editing This Week