Study: Dear Ad Agencies: If the creative sucks, nothing else matters

Listen up ad agencies, CMOs, CFOs and CEOs - if your online advertising is failing, blame the creative and stop concentrating on targeting, ad format and interruption technologies. That's what a recent study by web research firm Dynamic Logic says.

I say, amen.

In fact, creative quality is not only important in driving critical brand metrics including brand favorability and purchase intent, Dynamic Logic found that the worst performing ads had the ability to negatively impact brand metrics. In other words, lousy ads can have a negative impact on your bottom line.

Dynamic Logic is holding a free online seminar about their findings on Tuesday, Oct 27 at 1:30 p.m. Sign up here.

What could really be more dramatic, dynamic, and intriguing than the individual stories of the athletes who devote their lives to their sport in hopes of someday winning a gold medal? Yet NBC chose to run a blob of copy and an annoying countdown clock showing how many days until the Olympics. Zzzzzz.

I told them, more than once, that their ads sucked. They didn't listen. And I am quite certain that their agency, like many others who create absolutely dreadful online advertising, concluded that blog advertising doesn't work.

Let me conclude with one of my all-time favorite Hugh Macleod cartoons. I have considered getting it as a tattoo.

Bonus Link:
Debunking Five Myths About Blog Advertising

Online advertising isn't the only problem. TV ads are even worse.

I don't watch much TV, but I've seen enough of it---and enough bad commercials---that I often mutter the words "dumb, dumb, dumb" after a particuarly bad one, like the idiotic Geico ads that show the pile of dollar bills with the pair of eyes on top of it.

Who hires these agencies anyway, and who in their right minds would sign off on these ads?