Ninety-Nine Percent Of Advertising Spend Is Wasted, Says Agency Director

Ninety nine per cent of all advertising expenditure is wasted, according to Trevor Beattie, creative director of TBWA GGT Simons Palmer, and architect of the ‘Hello Boys’ campaign for Playtex Wonderbra and more recently the Playstation ads.

Beattie was speaking at a Guardian Media event on Monday night which brought together a distinguished panel, drawn from each stage of the advertising process, to discuss the relationship between ad creativity and sales. Beattie argued that brilliantly-creative advertising can both sell products and redefine the way we think; Allan Leighton, chief executive of Asda, defended the simple, compelling consistency of his brand; Paul Edwards, chairman and chief executive of the Henley Centre, argued that memorability was vital in the world of proliferating media in which we live; Rupert Howell, chairman of HHCL & Partners argued for innovation, drama and emotion. They were all agreed, however, that the vast proportion of all advertising expenditure, spent on creative ads or otherwise, is wasted.

Howell, who is also president of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), puts the amount wasted at 90%; Beattie dramatically set the figure at 99.9%; Leighton said only ten per cent of advertising is effective.

As the growth in the amount of media we consume continues to spiral, the challenge for the future is to use new platforms to target consumers more directly. This is becoming an increasingly easy process as the internet and digital television platforms allow consumers to personalise their consumption and advertisers to focus their campaigns. Digital technology will eventually allow a viewer to choose what they watch and when; the Net already has the technology to follow and target a surfer (see Net Surfers Paid For Direct Advertising).

Creativity, then, will continue to play a vital role in advertising; a brilliant idea which both sustains and promotes a brand is the key to a successful campaign. The challenge seems to be in marrying creativity with an effectiveness which will turn around the wastefulness of current ad expenditure.