Reference:
Advertising IS measurable in some respects, the most effective is online advertising as it's a completely measurable source (page views, compressions, sales, referrals...etc). 6 or 7 years ago, Marketing execs would get a budget and just throw it to the wind, not really caring where or how, just getting the brand name out there in the best platform available (the good old days of making easy wedge ). However, since 2007 when whispers of recession caught on, budgets were revised and everything became about R.O.I. (return on investment). It's all about brand awareness, no companies cannot measure successfully the result on tv advertising, but it IS measurable by hikes in footfall to the stores or spikes in visits to the site (especially if visitors are immediately heading for or enquiring about something that has been advertised). The way companies and ad agencies see it, they need to keep an awareness going, either to promote a new product or keep up a presence
Karma, I really hope you don't take offense to this but you sound exactly like every advertising/sales person I've ever spoken to or worked with. Advertising is not measurable through page hits and referrals etc. This is ad spiel that says it's all a numbers game and they were wrong before the internet revolution and they're just as wrong now.It's not all about how many people see or come into contact with your product and that's where your argument fails on every level. You might spend a fortune to make sure thousands of people come into contact with your product and discover not one single person has bought your product as a result. I've seen many situations where advertisers have paid obscene amounts of money for products that absolutely bombed. To the sales and advertising people who worked on those projects it was a great success because they got (in my case) 100 thousand people who directly buy into their market to come into direct contact with their product and I can tell you for 100 per cent fact that the products bombed so while you may have seen your part in the process as a big success ultimately it was all pointless if the product dived.
The only part of your post which is correct is the aspect where large companies promote and maintain brand awareness. This is relevant only to huge companies who are already successful. I maintain that most advertising is futile except in specific cases that have already been mentioned. Like I said, I hope I don't cause any offence, I'm just giving you my own experience of the situation. I have never worked in sales or advertising myself but have worked very closely with ads teams and sales teams and I know it's all about numbers to them and quality of product is really neither here or there for them which is why I take any views they hold on the values of advertising with a pinch of salt.
