Advertising’s Grand Illusion

Dale Earnhardt, Jr will make 21.4 million dollars this year.

He is the world’s one hundredth most highly paid athlete.1

But don’t assume pro athletes make a lot of money. The sad truth is that the top 10 percent – the star athletes – receive more than 90 percent of all the money paid to athletes. If the 80/20 rule held true in sports, the salaries of the bottom 90 percent would more than double while the top 10 percent would get a barely noticeable haircut.

The world’s most highly-paid athlete, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, will skip happily home with 93 million dollars in 2017. (Well, he’ll skip as happily as one can skip while lugging 2,048 pounds of hundred dollar bills.) 2

93 million dollars is $372,000 a day, more than $46,000 an hour. 3

The average professional soccer player makes only $80/hr ($160,000/yr) and will play for just 3.2 years.

Advertisers are like pro athletes. Everyone gets to play on game day, but only the best get paid on payday.

Sure, Cristiano Ronaldo is better than the average soccer player. But is he 581 times better? Because that’s how much more money he makes. And keep in mind that the salaries of the other highly-paid soccer stars contribute toward raising that “average” salary up to $160,000.

But my objective isn’t to rail against the injustice of professional sports.

My objective is to draw a few comparisons that I believe you’ll find to be helpful and encouraging:

1: Advertising’s Grand Illusion is that – because you paid for it – people are going to notice your ad.

2: This illusion that people are going to notice your ad is perpetuated by three groups of people:

(A.) By advertising salespeople.

“The secret is to target the right people, and we have them for you!”

(B.) By advertising agencies.

“The secret is to target the right people, and we’ve found them for you!”

(C.) By hope-filled advertisers.

“The secret is to reach the right people, and that’s what I’m going to do!”

3: REALITY: I’ve never seen a business fail because they were reaching the wrong people. But I’ve seen hundreds fail because they were saying the wrong things in their ads.

4: TRUTH: Decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. This is why your ads must also reach the influencers; the friends and neighbors, co-workers and associates, hair stylists and golf caddies of your “target” customer.

5: MORE GOOD NEWS! Untargeted “mass media” reaches the influencers along with your target, and it’s astoundingly cheap when compared to targeted media.

6: BAD NEWS: Each of us is assaulted by more than 5,000 selling messages per day. 4 and 5 And we – like your customer – have become extremely good at ignoring them.

7: The secret ­of success in advertising is knowing how to craft opening lines that pierce the clutter and win attention.

8: After you’ve won their attention, you’ve got to hang on to it.

9: TIP: Leave out the parts that make your ad feel like an ad.

10: Because those are the moments we turn our attention elsewhere.

11: GOOD NEWS! Your ads don’t have to be 581 times as good as the average ad.

12: Your ads, your products, your services and your people just have to be a little bit better than your competitors’ for you to become the Cristiano Ronaldo of your category.

Goal!

Roy H. Williams

Looking for answers that apply specifically to you and your situation?

1 Forbes.com

2 one pound of hundred-dollar bills is $45,400

3 Assuming a 40 hr. workweek, 50 weeks a year.

4 Yankelovich Market Research

5 This number includes “brand exposures” along with ads.

The average number of ads we encounter daily, including online, is 362.