Let's Stop Obsolete Advertising

Recently, I was walking near a park when I saw some advertising on a vehicle for an alcoholic beverage. Three vans each sported a design with the bottle and the name of the product. I wondered: why were they here?

Let's be clear... They were not stopped next to a point of sale. They were not outside a restaurant. They did not advertise any promotion. They were simply there, stopped for people to look at. I don't know how much money the ad cost but I am sure that the ROI would have been almost nil. And it was hardly measurable in terms of views or impressions.

What good is it for me, as a brand, to be told that this outdoor advert had ten or a hundred thousand impressions? There is no guarantee this would even happen. How would I know how many of them were of legal age? How many had purchasing power? It is impossible to know. Placing an ad like this in a city is the same as throwing flyers over the city to see who picks one up and buys one.

The mistake is not in the style of advertising but in how it was applied. What if, instead of vans with hideous banners, they were trucks with transparent acrylic and we could see a live scene, a performance, where the liquid would interact? What if the caravan formed a partnership with a coffee shop and they were outside it advertising Irish coffee for the cold winter? What if, at the very least, the three ads told a little bit of story? What if one could take a photograph with the ad and upload the photo to a social network to participate in an award that involves the product?

I have just spit out four ideas and I think any one of them would have caught my attention and even some could have persuaded me to buy the product.

Simply putting advertisements in shop windows and calling that publicity is dead.

Insight! Insight! Insight!

I agree that the products go through stages of introduction, persuasion and remembrance and that this type of advertising appeals to this last stage as a mature product, however, it must be said that if we do not think of the public before our brand, we better not waste money on these marketing executions that will surely result in nothing.