From mad men to bad men – how advertising went from a love to hate relationship

Interrupted, followed and cheated. No, I’m not talking about your ex. I’m referring to someone that, unfortunately, is much harder to get rid of. And it doesn’t matter that 6 out of 10 Swedes dislike him. That 80% find him annoying. Because Mr. Advertising is here to stay. In fact, you’re spending more time with him than ever before. But how did he become so annoying? And how can marketers use him, without pissing people off?

According to a recent study by Novus and Sveriges Annons?rer, only 12% of the Swedish population enjoy watching ads, which represents a decrease from 44% in 2005. David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach just turned in their graves. What was once seen as a fairly pleasurable experience, has now turned into a burden. What happened?

Some say that advertising is a reflection of society. And we might actually find some answers in that statement. Because if we look at consumer spending, we can see that we are pouring money into online gambling. And when our wallets are empty, we just fill them up with quick and ridiculously expensive loans. Money talks. Well, in this case, it’s mostly dirty money. TV spots are dominated by gambling and quick loan companies. It doesn’t matter if those ads include Teletubbies, Dolph Lundgren or even Zlatan. Putting makeup on a fast-growing tumor has never worked for Mr. Advertising. We’re not that easily charmed. The numbers speak for themselves. In this advertising medium, linear TV, only 4% enjoy watching ads. But we can’t just blame these companies, the challenge is far greater…

Mr. Advertising has a new weapon of mass media destruction: ads travelling at the speed of light, following you to the deepest corners of the Internet. It’s commonly known as digital marketing. An industry that has been growing fast—disruptively fast.

Today, every second advertising dollar is spent on digital advertising. The vast majority of that money goes to either Google or Facebook. On one hand, you can argue that these companies have created new marketing channels that Mr. Advertising is using to help consumers find the products and services they need faster than ever before. Particularly products from smaller brands with small budgets, who are now able to compete against marketing giants in industry niches. In fact, 80% of Facebook ads come from small enterprises. But on the other hand, it’s within these digital channels that we find the most alarming numbers.

The ability to measure each move you make has obviously impacted Mr. Advertising’s character. It has made him more short-term focused and aggressive. This is because he quickly figured out that the winning formula was to push that discount, free trial or $100 sign-up bonus. And if the message didn’t convert to sales the first time, he simply used the stalker functionality (re-targeting) to follow consumers, so they eventually give in. Reflecting on his new behavior he thought, why spend time on creative copywriting when Google Analytics keeps telling me that it’s not improving my ROI? It was about that time he changed his title to Mr. Performance Marketer. Many of his colleagues followed. Not a coincident that the use of ad blockers continues to grow.

But is it all that bad? If you are good at math, you may have figured out that the numbers don’t add up to the 12% of people that enjoy watching ads that I referred to at the beginning of the article. That’s because some advertising mediums are actually performing okay. 

Why? Because they are generally less intrusive, more creative, fun and distinctive. But are they effective? Advertising liking and its impact on marketing effectiveness has been a debatable topic in marketing research. But the general consensus is that it has a considerable persuasive impact on consumer behavior, and in some cases, can be the most accurate predictor of advertising effectiveness and sales. However, it should not be assumed that advertising likeability independently provides the most effective indication of advertising success. We need to take all components of the advertising into consideration.

My point is not that you should show all your ads in cinemas, nor that performance marketers doesn’t play an important role. My point is that there is an opportunity to become more effective by optimizing how you market your brand across multiple channels. So, regardless if you’re Mr. Advertising, Mr. Performance Marketer or someone else with marketing responsibility, let me share an idea that might help you to make your marketing more effective, and liked. 

I call it the Epic Marketingsplit. The idea is based on one of the most popular contrary marketing research studies in recent time by Les Binet and Peter Field. It requires some explanation. So, hang in there, the point is worth it.

Binet and Field simplify our marketing world by dividing it into two consumer types: (1) in-market and (2) out-of-market. In-market consumers are ready to buy your product or solution right now. Out-of-market consumers are not ready to buy today, but will be in six weeks, a year or ten years. They argue that these two consumer types require two different marketing approaches: (1) push and (2) pull. Push marketing increases sales right away, but the results decay quickly and its effectiveness doesn’t increase over time. Pull marketing, on the other hand, is more long-term focused, as its effect compounds over time and influences future sales from future buyers. As you can see in the illustration below, you need to adopt different messaging, distribution and measurement strategies for these two types of marketing approaches to match the need of its consumer types.

Now, ultimately, you need both push and pull marketing to grow your business. The balance between them is of critical importance. But we’ve recently seen an imbalance. The combination of a global pandemic and explosive digital growth have caused marketing budgets to shift towards push marketing. This is, what I believe, the root cause of why Mr. Advertising has become so unliked.

So, what is the right balance? According to Binet and Field, it’s achieved at a 40/60 percent split between push and pull marketing. And if you compete in categories with lots of online research, online buying and subscription services, their research suggests that growth is maximized at a 36/74 split. I would recommend a 50/50 split to start with, then you’ll avoid the risk of getting fired in the process as short-term sales is likely to decrease.

If you follow the recommendation and stick with it for the long run, I promise you that it will make your marketing more liked by consumers and consequently more effective, which will also please investors who care about durable, long-term growth. By some estimates, 80% of the value of your stock is based on sales 10 years in the future, not on the performance of your latest Black Friday campaign. This is because there’s simply much more money to be made in the long-term, than in the short-term. Byron Sharp and his friends at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute estimate that at any given time, only 5% to 10% of customers are in-market in a given category. Obviously there’s going to be many more consumers out-of-market over the next one to three years. Pull marketing will help your brand to become a part for the consideration set of those future consumers.

On this topic, a recent study from LinkedIn has shown a 6x performance lift in conversion rate for consumers primed with pull marketing followed by push marketing. Binet and Field’s research points at similar improvement rates. This is because people like to buy from brands that they know of. If you don’t believe me, try it yourself by removing your brand logo from your push marketing and watch your CTR (Click Through Rate) plummet.

Will this then be enough to make Mr. Advertising liked again? Probably not, but definitely a step in the right direction. I’m confident that more and more brands, particularly digital ones, will start to shift their marketing split to include more pull marketing. Future advertising liking statistics will tell me if I’m right.

But what about Mr. Advertising? Like in the pilot episode of a new Netflix series, when you have acquainted yourself with an interesting new character, you want to continue watching. Keep calm, the story of how to make Mr. Advertising more effective, regardless if you like him or not, has more chapters. Stay tuned for the next episode, hitting your LinkedIn feed soon.

Happy Christmas and stay safe.