Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
Why sales don't matter if they're a product of bad advertising.
When Norman Berry was the Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather, he said,
I’m appalled by those who judge advertising exlusively on the basis of sales. That isn’t enough. Of course, advertising must sell. By any definition it is lousy advertising if it doesn’t. But if sales are achieved with work which is in bad taste or is intellectual garbage, it shouldn’t be applauded no matter how much it sells. Offensive, dull, abrasive, stupid advertising is bad for the entire industry and bad for business as a whole. It is why the public perception of advertising is going down in this world.
and he isn’t wrong.
I ask those who defend campaigns based on sales; Would you shoot my family to get my attention? It would work, but would you?
I hope not.
The cynicism we face as an industry has been brought upon us since we started allowing this vapidity to reach consumers and steal their time without providing anything valuable for them to see.
It’s no longer a shock to see advertising practitioners trade last as the least trusted professions.
This must stop, and we all are equally responsible for ensuring that advertising gets back to what it was meant to do - to reach people with products and services that can benefit them.
As much as we pay attention to the impact of advertising on both top and bottom lines, we must also pay attention to what we stand for as brands and what message we genuinely believe is worth sharing with customers.
Sales are necessary but not at the cost of bad advertising. Believe it or not, the downside of creating bad advertising is that it’ll negatively affect your sales in the long term, even if it is selling like hotcakes right now.
Let’s do better. Let’s expect better. Let’s create better.
We’ll discuss brand equity in later issues of Adamant. Stay tuned!
Listen to this Spotify Playlist I made that goes well with everything you read here at Adamant 👇🏼