What's Wrong with Advertising

John Michelet, an adverting industry insider with 35 years experience argues that much of today's advertising is ineffective and worthless--especially Super Bowl ads.

Here comes the Super Bowl and the ad industry's annual pitch that "good" advertising is funny, pretty, and clever. Ad agency gurus want us to believe that good advertising is cool, hip, funny and wild--that it has little to do with frivolous things like a product's features, benefits and value to the buyer.

But according to John Michelet, author of "Advertising: Industry in Peril," (Olympian Publishing), the truth is that advertising was developed to give people factual and emotional information to help them make buying decisions. David Ogilvy, Fairfax Cone, Bill Bernbach, John Caples, Claude Hopkins and other industry legends would heartily disapprove of not only the Super Bowl ads, but most of the ads we see today.

"It's bad enough that many big, visible advertisers waste their money on the Super Bowl," Michelet says. "What's a lot worse is that hundreds of thousands of little and medium-sized advertisers look at Super Bowl ads as examples of 'good' advertising, and they try to emulate them, with disastrous results."

As Michelet attests, advertising should bring about changes in knowledge, beliefs and attitudes. Buyers want help making a smart decision. Advertisers are telling them jokes instead.

"When you're looking at this year's crop of ads, try to look past the glitz, glamour and guffaws and ask yourself, 'Does that ad make me more likely to buy that product, or does it just make me laugh?'" Michelet says.

Though Super Bowl ads can be entertaining, the heated debate over which is "best" at persuading customers is another matter. Some products, like beer and sport shoes, are usually sold on image and feel. Others, like cell phones are sold primarily on product benefits. Still others, like most cars, are sold on a combination of image and product benefits. "Next time you think you've seen a good ad, make sure you're talking about an ad that actually brings a buyer closer to buying the product."