Tony Soprano, the Ad Guy

So as it turns out, the Waste Management Business and Madison Avenue have a lot more in common than we previously thought. 100 years, a retailing pioneer by the name of John Wanamaker uttered those immortal words, “half my advertising is wasted; the only problem is I don’t know which half.” Enraptured by a hit to miss ratio of 1:1, the advertising industry took this saying to heart and seemed to get away with a 50% success rate…that is until Mediacheck in Omaha, Nebraska (the same place that brought you Omaha Steaks) revived the spirit of John in their aptly named Project Wanamaker. The findings, as echoed in a recent Business Week article are pretty stark:

• …at least seven new commercials reached 95 to 100% of the test's HH audience within the first week of airing.
• The company said many advertisers are better off having a commercial air for no longer than two-three weeks followed by a week off the air and then running a few days a week.

As echoed in MediaPost, the recommendation along the lines of cutting campaign duration in half are pretty damning both both the media and creative sides in the business. With the average production budgets of 30-seconds spots in the $400,000 range and frequency or camapaign runs extended way beyond the 2-3 weeks range, with limited creative, something’s gotta give…

Combine this with Project Wanamaker’s initial findings about completion rates i.e. of the ads that are viewed, what percentage (in time) of them are viewed to competion, and the results are even more alarming. In the test, featuring brands such as Colgate, DirecTV, Chevrolet, Pepsi and Burger King, Neutrogena did the best with 96% of consumers viewing the ad from start to finish. Other advertisers weren’t as lucky with only 11% of viewers coming along for the ride. The study also concluded that DVR homes are not necessarily skipping ads more than non-DVR homes. That shouldn’t necessarily surprise you. We’ve been skipping ads since the birth of the remote control. The only difference is that only now we can measure it. See you in Cape Town for that next shoot, Sarah Jessica Parker. NOT!