DOES ADVERTISING WORK?

Measuring the effectiveness of marketing communications has always been a dubious science.

Sometimes goods sell, well, because people like a product whether or not they like the ads or PR stunts launched to promote it.

We all know the old canard: “Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted. If I only knew what half, I would cut the budget.” Or some such similar tease.

Daniel Starch, author of The Theory of Advertising in 1923, also founded a measurement service – today known as GfK Starch Communications – which still provides the most reliable statistical survey evidence of advertising's impact in print media.

But is the evidence convincing? Do print ads actually work? There are some celebrated dissenters.

Try Al and Laura Ries. They have argued for years that the impact of advertising (print or otherwise) is grossly overrated, that measurement systems are at best unreliable, and that public relations is actually the only reliable way to kick off a marketing campaign – at least for the newest brands.

The Ries’s in their pieces and in their books are always respectful of the role of advertising in sustaining brand loyalty. Say they, Al and Laura, however, it’s just that nobody really believes a new product launch ad if it’s only the ad-buying seller standing behind the thing.

For a new product, third party endorsement is what gets it moving -- and however the public originally finds out about it, media coverage of the phenomenon is much more powerful that self-congratulations in an advertisement.

Even if you are a devout advertising believer, ad media have diversified so dramatically in our day, it is child’s play in our Tivo and Google age to simply ignore or “go around” even the most elaborate advertising snares that are set these days against a search engine or download ritual.

(Except the child in the house can operate the Tivo better than dad or mom – so maybe we should say, it is “adult’s play.”)

In any event, the heat is certainly on from clients as never before to prove print advertising effectiveness.

So now comes a substantive response to all that from Starch itself– read about it in Stuart Elliot’s powerful advertising column in the New York Times for Tuesday, October 9.

Says Elliot, “Starch has been surveying advertising readership for more than 80 years, interviewing consumers in person. The new service will also report responses gathered online from readers of magazines and newspapers in which the ads appear.”

And I think the changes will make even Al and Laura Ries happy. Starch will also measure in a much more reliable way whether the readers took any action after encountering the ad – and whether they recommended the product to others.

Measuring engagement and involvement – isn’t that what PR agencies have been doing for years now to prove their worth to clients?

It is about time that advertising also step up and put its metrics where its mouth is.