The best advertising falls flat if it doesn't get seen

German advertising is no longer in the back seat. Accolades in Cannes and New York are proof that our campaigns are not as dull and humourless as some would like to believe. But why is it that classic advertising no longer works? How is it that customers switch over or switch off, costs-per order are sky high, and in the end hardly anyone can remember the one or other campaign, despite the fact that € 23 billion is spent on advertising every year in Germany alone?

High time for "Brain, not Budget!

The short answer is: while the advertising environment has radically changed during the past few years, advertising strategies unfortunately haven't!
Proof:

• While the amount of media channels and advertising constantly increases, viewer appetite for them is constantly dwindling. In the last 20 years, the amount of time devoted to TV-ads has risen by over 400%, while the number of viewers who actually watch them has consistently fallen.
• With the rise of the internet and peoples' increased mobility, the relevance of classic media is declining. But this fact has had little influence on media strategies: the percentage of online and mobile advertising is still under 10% of total ad budgets. Similarly, although less than 5% of readership (Quelle: Horizont) claim to intensively study print ads in magazines, print remains the cornerstone of many media strategies.
• Advertising is increasingly seen as bothersome, appearing precisely when people don't want it (e.g. Ad-breaks between films, internet pop-ups). But instead of addressing this resentment, advertisers alienate their potential customers even further with such ideas as split-screen advertising (one side program, one side advertising), so viewers miss part of the program if they don't watch the whole advertisement!

These are just 3 examples of how advertisers are increasingly missing their targets. More than just a waste of money, it also risks alienating those whose attention and sympathy one is actually trying to gain.

If your ad approach is 20 years out of date, then no one is getting it!

We are not questioning the value of classic advertising in general. We simply want to stress that successful advertising today is about an effective media mix.
For example:

• Through new, savvy test methods which kick-in at the pre-launch phase (cf. also pre-testing)
• Through response-generating ad strategies, which measurably sell and at the same time provide high quality brand awareness (Keywords: direct-response-TV or radio/internet landing pages; cf. also direct sales strategies
• Through modern communications approaches such as guerrilla marketing and adgames, we can reach audiences whose interests are not well served by traditional ad channels, or whose awareness would be prohibitively expensive to buy (cf. sensation-marketing)