January 14, 2008

Ads About Ads

One of the dumbest trends of the past year has been ads for ads. You run a "blind" ad (it gives no information about your product or brand) in the hope it will lead people to a website where you will deliver the message.

In other words, you use your ad budget hoping someone will get the message somewhere else. Here's why it's such a stupid idea:

1. First of all, while you have their attention why not deliver the message? Why ask them to take a second step?

2. How many of the people that you reach with your ad are going to go to the website? If you're lucky, 1%. So you're wasting 99% of your money by not delivering a message while you can.

3. Finally, most ads are more powerful than websites. Websites are typically lame, boring, and confusing. By sending them to a website, you're trading down.

Using a blind tv campaign to direct people to your website is like trading dollars for pennies.

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