The senselessness of Thinkbox!...

…Of what use is Thinkbox?

It is a complete irrelevance to the more serious Marketing Director.   Why?

Well it is designed to maintain the status quo.   To keep commercial television in existence without changing the fundamental format of the commercial break.

There are many ideas out there that would, substantially, improve the effectiveness of commercial television.  However Thinkbox trots out, periodically, gibberish posing as research, designed to extract as much money as possible from the confused Clients before the existing advertising bandwagon becomes obsolete!

The point is that, without the use of any gibberish, there has been a far superior form of marketing communication available for many many years, however those master of gibberish, the advertising agencies together with Thinkbox, have chosen to ignore it.

An ex-advertising agency person heads Thinkbox, and it must be remembered that these people have no understanding of the word “communication” and also firmly believe in that old discredited mantra “Advertising Works”

Business created mass markets through broadcast advertising, the same bossy voice of command-and-control it used on workers, however in this instance, applied in the market place.  “Just do what you’re told” is not that very much different than “Buy our products.”

And you could effectively tell people to keep quiet, because that element of a conversation was banned in broadcast media – there was never a way to ask questions.   A 30-second TV commercial was never an invitation to converse!

Where once it was thought that commercials sold goods and increased brand awareness, it is now acknowledged that many of them do no such thing. Most people never actually buy the majority of products they see advertised on television!
But if mass-market advertising does not sell products, what will?

Interactive  marketing  communication sells products – cost effectively!

How refreshing to read such a tighly argued, rigourous critique of Thinkbox. Thank God you are here to help those confused clients realise what those evil TV Sales people at Thinkbox are really up to. You've blown the gaff now.

I've heard that Thinkbox organise rallies posing as conferences - where confused clients are subjected to intese propaganda films and speeches. Apparently some clients are taken into so called workshops and actually made to chant the mantras. ("Advertising Works", "Share of Voice means Long Term profits", "TV Makes Your Brand Famous"). Makes me shudder.

Paul, I believe we've sussed it and potentially saved the client community from an evil force.

Kind regards

David

P.S. What do you think about the Newspaper Marketing Association?

 

 

 

Come on now Dave, The various Media bodies, like Thinkbox, are there to serve the vested interests of their paymasters.  They are not designed to improve the understanding of how advertising works.
Consequently what research they do produce is designed to enhance their particular branch of the Media tree!
The ineptitude of the advertising industry to present research that irrefutably establishes that advertising works is, to say the least, astounding!
And nobody produces any evidence to refute the claims of Marketing Professionals when it is reported that they believed that 65% of their marketing spend “had no discernible effect on consumers in 2007”.
The need to believe that advertising is progressing is as enduring as any.  We appear to need to believe that advertising is advancing.  So the message “advertising works” is received readily and without question.
And nothing, nothing at all, is done about the fact that we live in an over-informed society and that we are all drowning in a clutter of commercial messages.
And so Dave, I really believe that yes, Thinkbox and others of a similar nature, are an irrelevance, what is needed right now is rock solid research that proves, once and for all, that “Advertising works”!

 

Does Thinkbox's research really do this ? No, what it does show is that communication is complex  and adds to countless other research projects  that show that the link between  communication and purchase is not just at 'the click of a button'. Lots of search clicks are behavioural , what happens after a process of confirming or changing attitudes or perceptions. And in various projects I 've been examining over the past few months there are strong indications that what type of marketing communication is the initial engagement and what is the end action that follows, varies by attitude,ownership and usage of technology, and that this varies again by technological platform. I might argue that commercial TV does not help itself in terms of BARB Industry research, but no, Thinkbox keep trying to show us how TV communicates and lets hope some people are clever enough to understand the implication of what that means.

This is worrying in that there isnt sufficient evidence to support what is working and how. The fact that the spend on TV is going north means that there must be sufficient belief that it works reinforced through repeat patterns of comms planning behaviour. I have no problem with this and I always enjoyed the correlation between the ads that people 'like' and future purchasing intent - its there if you look hard enough - Du Plessis worked this out years ago and wrote about it in The Advertised Mind - good read incidently. 

Thinkbox is an important voice but perhaps inwardly focussed - agree with you there. The really useful stuff is media complimentarity  - something that shifts the focus onto effectiveness rather than merely efficiency/reach. When Thinkbox start to do this properly it will earn the respect of marketing directors and give them the ability to justify and quantify the value of marcomms activity on share price and sales. Now that would be something worth shouting about IMHO.

TV adverts will be dead in about 5 years when we all have things like Apple TV or Tivo in our living rooms, Thinkbox looks to me like the TV stations (or at least some of them) in panic mode. Hell It's been worrying me and I'm a motion/graphic designer in TV advertising which is why I've  been doing extensive research into online(which is also going to change quite a lot in the next few years) and the future of advertising. Its not to say advertising will be dead just that the delivery method will change a hang of a lot in that consumers will only want adverts that they are interested in or that will "entertain" them. User generated content is going to have a massive impact and more traditionally produced media will have to compete more with this. Users will have a hard time filtering through all of this information to get to the stuff they want to see I doubt that watching irrelevant advertising is going to make them very happy.

 If any one is interested in my findings so far well at least some of them I'm sitting on the ones that will possibly be more lucrative(or turn out to be an absolute load of rubbish) for now visit NOUNDO

I think that all this input is great and, in my opinion, confirms that a lot of you are concerned about the problems facing the advertising industry.  It is worth remembering what other people have said about the same problem.
The respected Media Specialist, John Billett had this to say regarding accountability:
“The tragedy for the media business is that many current brand managers and most advertising and media agencies are, in our experience, unable or unprepared to calculate the contribution of advertising”.
Recently the Sunday Times, in the UK, had this to say about advertising: “Things have changed a lot since you used to get 20 million people gathered around television sets to watch Coronation Street and one advertisement could reach them all”.  
 
However this is the market that Thinkbox dreams of resurrecting!

The Times went on to say “Marketing budgets are being spent differently, and this means less money is being allotted for advertising. A couple of million pounds can buy you a few hours on television but marketers are realising that it can buy an awful lot more if it is spent elsewhere”.

The Head of DOI recently said, “as long as agencies continue to do nothing but create adverts, while ignoring the cornucopia of alternative marketing communications available, they did not deserve another penny.  The shrinkage in advertising agency services and the consequent reduction in their size and power, has partly been their own fault together with clients who have constantly whittled away at their remuneration.

These are just some of the reasons that make me say that Thinkbox, and others, are an irrelevance, they do nothing to solve the serious problems facing advertising, all they want to do is to maintain the now discredited status quo.

It's a talking shop and not a very good one at that. You lot would do well there.

I used to be a bit of a sceptic but I honestly think that Thinkbox is absolutely relevant and necessary now to help people make sense of the multitude of ways that people now consume television. You're stating the complete obvious that one spot no longer reaches as many people - a pointless argument to say that TV is dead. If anything telly is more exciting and dynamic than ever before and I think Thinkbox should be applauded for championing it to advertisers.

If you take a Darwinian look at brands and services - those that have a long track record of TV advertising and achieving a dominant share of voice, survive and prosper. Check out the stats analysis that Bain & Co do in the US or PWC in the UK.

Thinkbox are right to highlight the fact that - for Advertisers TV is a growing medium in the UK. Each time a home converts to multichannel, the BBC share goes down and more Ads are consumed - despite PVR's etc. Commercial TV impacts have effectively been rising since multichannel launched.

Technology is most certainly constraining the growth of TV impacts and ultimately will reduce it. However people in this era see more TV Ads on a daily basis than in any previous decade of Commercial TV. The multiple channel choice and audience segmentation facilitates more accurate targeting and relevant environments.

Sensible advertisers will appreciate that TV can be a very effective medium in the 21st Century. If advertisers commission decent Ads - the world is their lobster.

What will turn off advertisers from Commercial TV more than the TV is dead soothsayers is the mental way airtime is traded; the numbers lunatics have taken over the asylum. Thinkbox should perhaps pay attention to making TV a more accessable medium.

The complexity of this kind of debate is partly a product of past, present and future techniques co-existing and all still working. It should be remebered that Video never did kill the radio star.

Ultimately advertisers get the results they deserve; the scope for success or failure is huge.

Jeremy, how can you say Thinkbox should be applauded for championing TV? Is there something else they should be doing like promoting the internet. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's what they are paid by the commercial broadcasters to do. I think the point is that people are questioning if they do a good job. And most seem to think they do a crap job. It's hard to measure the success of a trade body like Thinkbox. So in the absence of an acid test a revealing measure is to ask does the industry have confidence in Thinkbox. When you consider one of their members pulled out two years ago and the industry is consistently asking 'what's the point of Thinkbox?' , it's not unreasonable to conclude they are an ineffective trade body.

This is all very well, however there has not been presented in this forum one piece of "hard" evidence that advertising on TV produces a ROI.  Meanwhile there is evidence emerging from USA and the UK as to the many problems faced by advertising and commercial TV, like, for example:

Marketers recognise how much has changed since the 1960s.   For one thing, consumers do not pay attention to advertising the way they used to.   The average British adult is already bombarded with 3,000 marketing messages a day.   So it is well neigh impossible to get any one message noticed or remembered amid the entire clamour.   One of our real concerns is that we have an inability to stand out.

With good reason; market research shows that viewer retention of television commercials has slipped dramatically in the past nine years.  In 1986, 64% of those surveyed could name a TV commercial they had seen in the previous four weeks.   In 1995, just 48% could.    And in today’s difficult and hostile market place the situation is much worse.

Even when consumers do notice an ad, they are less interested in the brand message it conveys.   Consumers once clung to brands.   They were Pepsodent households and Colgate households, families that washed with Persil and ones that bathed with Lux.   And the characters  Charlotte Street dreamed up to sell brands became pop-up icons.

Now, many British brought up on a steady diet of commercials, view advertising with cynicism or indifference.   With less money to shop, they are far more likely to buy on price.   And they are a lot less smitten by Kellogg’s or Heinz.

Here is an example of what they are not telling. It is from America but we see no reason why it should be any different in any marketplace. The research questioned whether the expensively produced advertisements shown on TV were actually getting anywhere.

The figures began with the average numbers of hours Americans watch TV each week – forty-seven.

   This consisted then, of forty-three and a half-hours of network, local independent or cable TV, two and three-quarters hours of playback of recorded video, and fifty minutes of pre-recorded rented or bought video.

  Those figures applied to the average home in the average week.  

Out of that time, TV provided seven and a half hours of commercials however because of zapping – or people talking or going to the bathroom, and all the other things that people choose to do when the commercials come on, the seven and a half hours falls to one hour twenty-seven minutes of commercials actually seen.

   Translated that means that each individual sees about 120 television advertisements a week.  The Networks average about 4,000 commercials a week.

 So let’s emphasise because these are true figures that demonstrate why the advertising industry waste is bigger than Enron, only 120 advertisements are seen each week by the average viewer!

Is this an isolated piece of research? If only.

The Royal Mail in the UK commissioned research that produced a similar picture.    It showed that more that a quarter of the people who had watched an edition of News at Ten had seen none of the commercials. Great news? Not so. Of the remaining 75%, 26% simply hadn’t paid attention, 21% had made a drink, 20% left the room, 11% were preoccupied with other things, 8% switched channel, 6% went to the bathroom and 5% talked to someone!

It is clear from the likes of the above that TV advertising is not seen by many of the audience out there.

However the advertising industry, together with Thinkbox tries to get around this by quoting reach and frequency.

OK not everyone views at the same time but run enough ads and this will counter this. Does this really hold true?

As we have already talked about the majority of the ads that are ‘seen’ very often, never ‘break through’.
 The human mind cannot give weight to everything that comes its way; the brain decides not to bother with most ads at all, or, if it does, it rapidly forgets them.

Remember, the client who told us that every adult in this country is subject to 3,000 advertising messages every day and that was then now talk is of in excess of 8,000!

 According to Consumer Behaviour,  an industry textbook, “Only about one third of those commercials a person is exposed to, make any active impression in the memory.

 Of those which make any impact, only about half are correctly comprehended and fewer than 5% are actively recalled for as long as twenty-four hours.”




 

Hello everyone,

Sorry. A bit late to the party.  I'd be delighted to answer all Paul's and Mark's criticisms of TV (and Thinkbox) but the post would go on for a very long time.  If you two email me directly at tess.alps@thinkbox.tv I can come and see you and show you the reams of 'hard evidence' that broadcast TV remains the most effective marketing investment pound for pound.  And it's not just me saying that.  The IPA book 'Marketing in the Era of Accountability' by Les Binet and Peter Field, showed not only that campaigns using TV were more effectove than those than didn't, but that TV is getting more effective all the time.  PwC undertook a massive econometric analysis of 780 brands in 7 markets last year, commissioned by us, and again TV emerged as delivering the best long-term return.  All the leading brands in each sector used disproportionate levels of TV advertising.  You can find edited highlights of that research on our website.

I will just make two points here.  Thinkbox believes in multi-media advertising; we NEVER denigrate other media and believe them all to play a valuable role in integrated communications.  We just believe - and can prove - that they all work better with TV in the mix, particularly all forms of interactive media.  We have Google on our side on this one.  They can show you the instant uplift the start of a TV campaign gives to search.  And TV also increases word of mouth and conversions from all response media.  Our problem in TV is that we don't have clicks to measure so you have to go beneath the tip of the iceberg.  Good agencies do that.  Mediacom have two startling charts which show the difference in superficial response analysis and properly econometrically adjusted analysis which proves TV short-term ROI is as good as search and cheaper than all other media.  There is an article on our website about online brands using TV with a quote from Mike Colling, a highly respected direct response practioner, pretty much saying the same thing.

One of our problems is the constant barrage of ill-informed comment about TV, often from people who we call 'internet fundamentalists'; people who think there is only one way, who distort facts and who wish destruction on others.  They do not wish to give any credit to the contribution any other form of advertising or marketing might have made to the online response.  But we work very happily with enlightened internet companies and agencies who are prepared to look wider.  In fact, we are in the middle of a joint study with the Internet Advertising Bureau to understand how the two media work together.  Look out for the results in late spring.

Far from wanting everything to stay the same, we are excited about the changes that are going on in TV.  We think that internet technology will help TV reach people in new ways and at new times that will result in more TV being viewed.  I'm sorry if you find that depressing.

I'm not going to answer all the comments about whether people really watch TV or not.  BARB is the most rigorous media measurement system in the world.  In the end the only measurement that matters is the success brands have when they use it.  Ask Cadbury's, Magners or Waitrose to name just a couple of recent cases.

The issue of awareness and recognition is extremely complex.  We are all learning more about how a research approach which relies on explicit memory is very flawed.  We are running a half-day event on this topic on February 27th called 'TV and the Brain:Why Creativity Wins' with speakers including Paul Feldwick, Ed Morris and Graham Page and Sue Elms from Millward Brown.  You can sign up to come along on the website and it's free!

I'm sorry you don't think much of Thinkbox, but we frankly we are much more concerned about what you think about TV.  But please do register on the website and then you will get our updates and what is really happening in telly.

 

ps David, we are prevented from getting involved in any aspect of trading or pricing by the OFT.  But I take your point.

I have to say I am more than a little worried when the IPA is quoted at me as a reliable source for Accountability in Advertising, after all the President of the IPA  gave  that completely nonsensical  example of advertising’s contribution to   the  UK economy:

Moray MacLennan, incoming President of the (British) Institute of Practitioners of Advertising (IPA) had this to say in his inaugural address:

"…An average £1 spent on advertising produces £5 in sales and £2 in profit.  Based upon an annual investment in advertising of around £31.4 bn it can be calculated to add value to the UK Economy over and above the investment in media itself, of some £160 bn a year".

Robert Shaw, Professor of Marketing Metrics recently said "Advertising is a zero-sum competitive game, strong advertisers grow at the expense of weak ones, stealing customers from the weak...as many campaigns showing negative performance as there are positive".

He went on to refute the IPA claim of adding some £160 bn in value to the UK economy.

Perhaps the IPA President should liase with his US counterpart a little more frequently, for Bob Liodice, ANA President and CEO recently had this to say on the subject of accountability:   "…there is much work to be done to accomplish total accountability…"

We also live in a world where advertising and marketing constantly come up against an inconvenient truth, that is that there is still to day no firm evidence that advertising works at all, especially television advertising.  

Oh sure given the vast sums spent on TV Advertising some of it has to stick and I am sure that the defenders of Television Advertising can present case studies of sales increases.   However the key to all this is the research…does it exclude all other marketing activities those brands were doing at the same time which would then give an accurate reading as to the exclusive effect of TV alone.


Sergio Zyman, former Chief Marketing Officer, the Coca-Cola Company had this to say about “The end of marketing as we know it”
“Simply put, the problem with marketing today is that for the twenty or thirty years, marketers have become increasingly caught up with the trappings of marketing.    

They have been wowed by the glitz, the awards presentations, and the jetting off to do a ‘shoot’ on some tropical isle, and they have forgotten that their job is to sell stuff.   As a result they haven’t done a very good job of selling stuff, and they have tried to hide their failure to deliver results in a black box labelled ‘Marketing is Magic.’

“Today, at most companies, marketing is ineffective and therefore considered to be strictly a nonessential activity.  Many marketers and their bosses might not admit it, but just look at their actions.  Whenever budgets are tight, marketing is one of the first things that gets cut.”

There is an old adage in technology: intelligence always moves to the edge of the network.    The same is true of most other things, especially advertising and marketing; there are far more intelligent ideas outside of advertising agencies and marketing departments.

Existing advertising agencies are happy with the status quo together with monopolistic profits and their general situation, so they badmouth any new idea which threatens their incumbency or profits, or both.   Advertising Agencies are also in denial until their profits are really threatened.

However there are other research studies going on which tend to give another perspective as to the value of television advertising like, for example:

New research conducted for the DMA has revealed that door-drops make more of an impact on consumers than TV ads.
 
Most respondents, 72%, said they had taken some action as a result of receiving unaddressed door-drop items through their letterbox.

This compares with 52% agreeing with the statement that they did not take much notice of what is being advertised on TV.

The study also found that door-drops are more effective if they include a give-away. When the door-drop included a money-off coupon 84% said they had taken action as a result.

Accubiz Research & Consulting directed the survey, which involved 400 interviews conducted in homes that were demographically selected to ensure an accurate representation.

In closing tracking marketing effectiveness topped the 2008 wish list of 35% of marketers and made the top three for 70%.

Which for me says that current efforts towards accountability are not very satisfactory for the majority of Clients!

As Einstein said, you cannot expect the consciousness that created the problem to then solve the problem!     However it would appear that the need for change is percolating down through the ranks of advertising agencies.  

Television broadcasters face "severe pressure" as advertisers abandon traditional media in favour of the Internet.   So says Sir Martin Sorrell, accountant turned ad man and head of WPP.  

Meanwhile another Chief, Derek Morris, Chairman and chief executive of ZenithOptimedia attended "Media 360 Conference" in Wales recently.  In a long letter in MediaWeek, he said, among other things, "But what are the lessons to bring home from South Wales?   What should we actually do?  And there, in the final session, reality caught up when the Client told us to "Change before you are dead".

There is nothing more dangerous in Advertising than their ability to think delusional.  My working experience with advertising figures suggested that they had repeated the optimistic lines about their performance so often that they themselves actually believed them!   And nothing in advertising is more dangerous than delusion.

And so to day it is almost an article of faith among advertising people that advertising will not change because "it works"!

However facing the truth is the first essential step in devising a sensible strategy for the perpetuation of advertising.

But even if the most optimistic spin on the benefits of advertising were true, which they're not I hasten to add, they would still be facing a major problem!
And that is the way they obtain their financial rewards militate against them ever changing the current system!

As one large Client recently explained: "In to day's marketing landscape, building a brand is about a whole lot more than advertising.   An advertising agency alone cannot deliver everything we need – even though agencies may claim to deliver this, it's a myth".