As a Scotsman, I don't particularly appreciate wasting money.

I'm sure this isn't just a Scottish thing. Let's be fair. We Scots got about, so our gene pool and loathing of wasting or spending money lives in many of us. Look at your family tree; there is a good chance a Scots person is in there somewhere.

I also have an issue with wasted time. After all, we only have so much of it, and it pays to use it wisely. 

I digress. That's another Scottish trait. I love to ramble, beg my pardon; I love to ramble with purpose, but I will now get to my point.

I know hate is a strong emotion, but I'm not too fond of brands wasting money.

The online, ad tech and ad targeting world have seen brands waste billions globally year after year. It's frustrating to see more and more research coming out to show that ad tech companies are ripping brands off. Heck, they get gender wrong nearly 50% of the time. You would be better off having a guess. We've known this for years, but brands keep wasting money. Jon Bradshaw wrote beautifully about that - https://www.mi-3.com.au/26-06-2024/data-delusion-does-using-data-target-specific-audiences-advertising-actually-make.

For years, online companies have bragged about attribution, which is generally known to be mostly nonsense. Advertisers don't seem to realise that companies that make 95-100% of their revenue from advertising will say, "We're brilliant and spend more with us."

Plan for reach, plan contextually, and save the ad tech costs and reinvest them in more media to reach more people. This shift in strategy could lead to much better results and more efficient resource use.

Performance media is hurting many brands. It was always a bad name, but those online companies did an excellent job branding it. The focus on ROI/ROAS is hurting brands. They are not even business performance metrics. They are efficiency metrics—the effort it took to get the desired action. You can improve your ROI/ROAS and shrink your business. Tom Roach wrote very eloquently about this - https://thetomroach.com/2022/10/22/beware-of-roas-rois-dangerous-digital-twin/.

You need to focus on incremental sales, sales growth, market share growth, pricing power, margin growth, and profit growth and then worry about the effort required to achieve them. If you're worried about ROI, TV still delivers the best ROI for most categories and brands, as the latest Ad Profitability Report from Thinkbox, Ebiquity, Wavemaker, and EssenceMedicom demonstrates. It's also best for long-term profit growth - https://www.thinkbox.tv/research/thinkbox-research/profit-ability-2-the-new-business-case-for-advertising.

When thinking about advertising, did you know that most ads are completely ignored? Did you know that dull or boring ads require significantly more media spend to make an impact? Peter Field and Adam Morgan produced fantastic research on this - https://system1group.com/the-extraordinary-cost-of-dull.

Brands spend billions globally on ads that have little to no effect. As I type this, thinking about those wasted dollars, euros and pounds, I'm literally crying over my keyboard. No wonder CFOs have concerns!

You should invest in great creative, creative that generates attention and cut through, which will build and reinforce memories of your brand, product and services and run that wonderful shit for years. Try to wear it out. Most ads don't even wear in before folks waste more money on new ones, which will probably be ignored.

We live in a world where most things are average. We should all try and do better than that. Be brave, be better, do it consistently, and watch your business grow.

It feels cathartic to get that off my chest.

Oh, and now I'm sad, as this will mostly be ignored.