The Law Of Conservation Of Stupidity

One of the most annoying aspects of reading anything written by ancient ad guys like me is our habit of glamorizing the old days of advertising.

Recently I've seen a movie and read a book that have had a lot to say about the silly practice of glorifying the past.

The first, Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris is an entertaining tale about the silliness of romanticizing earlier times. The second, At Home, by Bill Bryson, is a vivid and absorbing history of the past we never learned about in school.

Woody Allen's story is a gentle and playful reminder that the past always seems more attractive to those who didn't have to live through it. Bryson's story is centered on exploring the history of the contemporary idea of the home, but he manages to turn it into a fascinating but sobering description of the harsh realities of former times.

This leads us back to advertising. According to old ad guy legends, apparently there was a time when advertising was just one big party with lots of drinking, lots of screwing, pliant clients who would do whatever they were told, and a lot less stress and aggravation.

I must have been sick that week.

As far as I can tell, advertising was every bit as stressful, every bit as competitive, and every bit as aggravating 20 years ago as it is today. Or 30 years ago, for that matter.

Advertising, like every other enterprise known to man, attracts a few exceptional people and a whole lot of mediocrities. And where mediocrity goes, stupidity is sure to follow.

I spend a whole lot of time here ranting about the stupidity of the advertising and marketing businesses. But the truth is there is no more stupidity today than there ever was. It's just a different kind of stupidity.

Like the law of conservation of energy, stupidity can neither be created nor destroyed -- it can only be transformed from one form to another.

A Lot Of Mouths Yapping

We all know that "buzz" is a lot more valuable than paid advertising.

How do we know this? Because the experts tell us so. And how do the experts know this? Because they go to conferences and convince each other.

According to an article entitled "Publicists Pump Up Value of Buzz; Don't Believe the Hype" in the The Wall Street Journal recently...

"...public-relations specialists, reasoning that news coverage carries greater weight with consumers than paid advertising, put a news article's value at three times an equivalent-size ad...

....publicist Max Markson...multiplies news coverage by five when assessing for clients the return on their investment..."

Asked how he arrived at a value of $10.5 million for a nice bit of buzz for one of his clients...

"Mr. Markson says he 'pulled the figure out of thin air'—because the reporter was on deadline."

But what if buzz is no more valuable than an ad? What if the experts are wrong and ads are just as persuasive as buzz?

This can't be possible, can it? The experts have assured us that there is a new breed of human being out there who no longer wants to be marketed to. She pays no attention to ads. She is immune to the "interruption model" and we need to get her "permission" to market to her.

Not so fast, says the Journal...

"David Michaelson, principal of David Michaelson & Co., a New York-based company that studies measurement of communications effectiveness, has compared the effect of publicity with traditional advertising in a controlled experiment. He and a co-author presented research subjects with a faked ad for an invented product, and a faked newspaper article about the same product. On a scale of 1 to 10, the article was a 10 "from the standpoint of a publicist's dream article," Dr. Michaelson says. Yet their study showed that the article was no more effective than the ad in building brand awareness.

Now here's something to think about. I have no idea of the validity of this study. But if it's true that people are not terribly moved by "buzz" in reputable media like newspapers, how much power do you think buzz has in dopey social media like blogs, and Twitter and Facebook?

Maybe buzz is exactly what it sounds like -- just a lot of mouths yapping.

Anyone In Advertising Still Interested In Facts?

Here at The Ad Contrarian World Headquarters, our commitment to our readers is so intense that we actually pore through media research studies to provide you with the most up-to-date, relevant information available.

Sometimes we even do it with our clothes on (I don't know what that means, but it seemed funny.)

I have just finished reading Nielsen's "Cross-Platform Report" for the 1st quarter of 2011 and, let me tell you, it was no Great Gatsby.

Besides suffering from Melted Brain Syndrome, I am sitting here in shock and awe. I am amazed at two things.

First, I am amazed at the resilience of television.

Second, I'm amazed at how the media world continues to ignore this story.

Over the past decade, if there is one story that is absolutely astounding, unexpected, and in complete disjunction with the opinion of experts, it is the incredible resilience of television.

Yes, web usage has grown. Yes, social media is an interesting and important social phenomenon. Yes, DVR's have become commonplace. But with all the new media and all the new technology no one expected TV viewership to behave as it has.

And yet, the trade media and media research companies continue to ignore this story, and instead report on the sexier, trendier new media stories.

As I have commented before, traditional TV viewing is at its highest point ever in history. People are watching, on average, over 35 1/2 hours a week. How much more stupid TV can these nitwits watch? Five hours a day isn't enough?

And it's continuing to grow! Over the last year, TV viewership grew another 22 minutes a month, on average.

Meanwhile, with all the hysteria about TiVo, and YouTube, and mobile, no other video medium even comes close to live TV.  Here are the numbers:

The average person in America watches 38.7 total hours of video a week

• 92% of that is real-time television
• 6% is time-shifted television (TiVo, etc)
• 1.5% is online video
• Less that 1/2 of 1% is mobile video

(And, by the way, the average person spends 6 times as much time on television as he does on line.)

As a service to all of you who are under the thumb of web maniacs, here is a simple chart I've created that you can click on and print out and stick up their...well, on their desks, anyway.