BOW Thought: 2.2

A bright and sunny Sunday for another Let Me Think newsletter.

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Just a little beginning of week inspiration to be better.

Onto the thought…

BOW Thought

Earlier this year, I wrote about how click through rates are so low, the same statistics are used by other professions to proclaim improbable events.

It was a suggestion that we shouldn’t strive to be an industry that champions such low and meaningless metrics.

But a new set of metrics should also smack us in the face with concern, dread, and a pledge to strive for more.

Mark Ritson’s Sunday articles on Marketing Week are an absolute must read.

This week, he perfectly captures another piece of bullshit in the advertising world: wear-out.

I once thought that wear-out should actually be considered a good thing.

It meant that people actually noticed your ad in the first place, enough to be fatigued by it later.

In a world of massive fragmentation, the former seemed like an accomplishment, even if people started to dislike it later on.

But nevertheless, it turns out wear-out is more of a marketer’s concern than a consumer one.

System1 is a great research company that determines, among other things, “Star Ratings” for TV advertisements.

These Star Ratings are 1-5, and “predict the brand building potential of ads.”

Of the 50k ads they looked at, the effectiveness score barely budged over time.

Meaning the ads didn’t exactly wear-out, as much as they stayed steady.

But what was even more concerning wasn’t that the scores didn’t oscillate over time.

It’s where the scores started, and therefore, ended.

The average score of all the ads was 2.2.

2.2!

44%.

Meaning, the average effectiveness of an ad they measured - its destiny - was to be liked by less than half of people it reached.

All of this work, all of this strategy, all of this hand wringing.

All so that less than half of people could like the finished product.

How pathetic.

So what can we learn here?

First, read Ritson’s article. You’ll learn more there than any of my newsletters.

Second, the 2.2 should be seen as a general attitude towards advertising.

I’m not sure if consistent 5’s is really possible. Ads are ads, after all.

As much as we want to believe they are “films,” as creative agencies say, they are commercials - a word I never hear a creative agency utter, for some reason.

But surely we can strive for the average to be…average, instead of below average.

Third, wear-out isn’t the problem. Crappy creatives are.

If you have an ad that is 2.2 out of the gate, it ain’t getting better.

And worse, if it starts below that, you really need to change course.

Thus, the only argument for pulling down creatives isn’t that they’ve been on for too long - it’s that they will be on for too long.

Fourth, it’s no wonder that people are worried about AI coming for creative jobs.

If the average score for ads is below average, why couldn’t an AI do that for less?

Striving for better work is not only something that will make campaigns perform better. It’s a good way to future proof the profession.

And finally, we have to drop the act of pushing for more creative work just for the sake of it.

Ritson hits it on the head that creative agencies will not like hearing they should make less ads.

With less agencies on full-time retainer and kicked to the curb once the spots are made, I understand the need or want to push for more spots, more pieces of work, etc.

Cannes, after all, did a great job peddling that this year to CMOs, CFOs, etc. -that each platform deserves its own bespoke piece of creative, and therefore, agencies should be making more work for a campaign, not less.

While that may be true, it comes off as self-serving and unreliable given the messenger. I wrote about that here.

Ultimately, it’s like a media agency pushing for more targeting - it’s worse for the brand, but makes the client more reliable on the agency for flimsy ad tech, shoddy expertise, and unnecessary consultation.

I know this is not easy and requires an evolution of business models, something that I alone am not smart enough to suggest ideas for.

But at the end of the day, let’s recognize we are in the service business.

If our services are not currently required, let’s not invent reasons for it to be.

Stay thinkin,

Danny