The Ad Contrarian Lays Down The Law
I’ve known Bob Hoffman, aka “The Ad Contrarian” for many years now, back from when we were both blogging (remember that?) back in the late 00s. So, it was a pleasure to actually get to hear him present at NAB last week.
Bob’s thesis is, and always has been, that digital is overrated. That while it has its purpose, the ad industry was far too quick to throw out the baby with the bathwater and dump TV.
Hoffman opened by pointing out the many, many digital experts who’d announced television’s death over the past decade or so, along with the death of the thirty second commercial. (Which was, funny enough, the actual title of a book by one of these digital pundits.)
He then went on to explain where digital advertising—both display and social media falls short and where it succeeds. It’s useful, Hoffman concedes, when the target is already a customer of the brand or when the goal of the ad is to make a direct sale to someone who is in the market for that particular product.
But where digital falls short is where TV succeeds—the ability to create a lasting brand image, to actually build a brand. Hoffman contends that no major brands have been built on digital advertising alone. (Some DTC brands may beg to differ, but their argument would hinge on the definition of “major.”)
No one would dispute TV’s continued ability to create strong emotional bonds with consumers, or that the power of a thirty or sixty second mini-movie is far greater than that of a very earnest Instagram post.
That’s a message the industry itself has been pushing this year—the fact that people still remember television commercials that ran during their childhood whereas they’re hard-pressed to remember a banner ad they saw 10 minutes ago.
That dichotomy serves to emphasize why TV advertising is enjoying a resurgence as brands realize that consumers don’t necessarily hate TV commercials as much as they hate too many TV commercials, especially when those commercials are not well targeted and thus irrelevant.
Echoing Hoffman’s point is Videa’s VP of Platform Adoption, Mary Barnas, who says, “The power of not only television, but local television holds strong. There was a ton of conversation at NAB this year around the desire to have easy access to TV advertising inventory, not only from the station groups but from the agency side as well. This further proves that TV is still a key element of the marketing mix for both buy and sell slide ad budgets.”
Hoffman saved most of his barbs for the advertising industry however, pointing out how the rise of digital had allowed the “math men” to supplant the “mad men” and how the de-prioritization of creative had put the entire industry into a freefall, with consultancies and “in-housing” (bringing ad functions in-house) rapidly replacing the once mighty agencies.
The crux of his message can be summed up by one of his more powerful slides. It’s a quote from Winston Churchill that reads, “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
As more brands go back to looking at the results, they’re finding that the ones they get from television are the results they really want. That’s good news for the industry and for true believers like Bob Hoffman.