Advertising: Who Cares? Onwards.

04 November 2024

In April, Nick Manning and I started a grassroots movement called ‘Advertising: Who Cares?’ (AWC) because of a number of serious, even existential, threats to not only the craft but ultimately the business of advertising.

We feel that the obsession with short-term metrics, the lack of transparency in media trading, the lack of trust between advertiser and agency and the tremendous power wielded by the online platforms all contribute to a state of affairs that delivers ads that few like, and that often don’t work.

We bombard our audiences and don’t respect their privacy, time and attention. We serve up irrelevant, intrusive ads in profuse numbers.

Huge value is lost every day to ads that no one sees or hears and to pure fraud. A lot of money, time and effort is wasted on advertising that is simply invisible, or criminal.

Measurement is a muddle. Audience measurement, once non-controversial and based on gold-standard methodologies now uses the same words to mean different things. Effectiveness measures regularly conflate long-term brand-building with the short-term and immediate.

One consequence of all of this is that advertising has become a less attractive industry to work in, and to join.

Another consequence is that in obsessing over audience numbers we’ve set aside the connection between advertising investment and original, creative and effective paid-for media communications.

This connection serves a dual function. It helps fund a healthy, quality media eco-system that serves the public well. It also provides larger, more diverse audiences across a multiplicity of vehicles.

Currently, those media providing the highest quality content are losing ad revenue to platforms who create no content at all and where the ad environment is inferior.

Addressing this would direct money to well-resourced news reporting, where objectivity and truth are vital. It stops adspend funding mis- and dis-information.

We believe that advertising and the industry as a whole has a responsibility to add to people’s general well-being. It is not just there to provide advertisers with a competitive advantage.

In September we put on an event for those who care. It sold out, was well-received and has led to a lot of commentary, as well as podcast and conference appearances where the natural question was: ‘Now what?’

‘Now what?’ indeed. We’ve listened to all the comments, the positive and the (few) negative; we’ve consulted with our supporter base; we’ve spoken with the key contributors to the September event and we’re now ready to reveal the next stage in the Who Cares? journey.

One key lesson from the September event is that everything is connected. The cogs in the machine all work together.

From a set of outdated business models flows poor remuneration for agencies. From poor agency remuneration, agencies seek non-transparent revenue streams from suppliers including broadcasters/publishers. Revenues from suppliers lead to a lack of objectivity. A lack of objectivity leads to a lack of trust. A lack of trust inhibits anything daring or new and encourages the dull and the safe. Dull advertising is not attractive to consumers (if they even notice it). Media strategies based on an unthinking maximising of impressions means we bombard consumers with these unattractive messages. This is unpopular and leads to a diminution in the trust consumers feel for ads. Meantime, adspend flows to those media vehicles who rely on user-generated content, with a poor ad environment and, at the extreme, content which inflames societal turmoil.

Add it all up and you have campaigns that don’t work and are not worth paying for. Which leads us back to the business model issue.

This starts within advertisers themselves, and senior management who are often incentivised for share price growth rather than true business gains. If cuts are necessary to move the share price, advertisers inevitably seek unrealistic economies from their service providers.

Of course there are exceptions to this bleak picture, as awards ceremonies and effectiveness studies show, but the great examples we all applaud within the industry are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the public is subjected to, day-in, day-out.

We need to recognise, and then break this circle of ineffectiveness and inefficiency.

This has to start with the business models that have led us here. This includes the buy-side models of advertiser and agency behaviour and the sell-side models that dictate media vendor and adtech ways of working.

We have to be radically honest about how our industry really works if we are to start reconstructing it to be better. We have to redefine advertising’s role in today’s (and tomorrow’s) world.

We believe that advertising can play a significant role in shaping the future when it is responsible, intelligently designed, executed and is welcomed by its audiences.

We need to champion the principles of good, effective advertising that people value. We need to promote the great thinking and execution that leads to better advertising and a better industry for people today and tomorrow.

These principles have to be supported by evidence, case studies, data and research; in short, the facts that support the case for better advertising. We need to demonstrate that such principles lead to success with responsibility and then make the case frequently and consistently to advertisers at all levels but particularly CMO, CFO and CEO.

Much can flow from there, like accreditation systems and ISO-style standards.

Luckily, we don’t have to start from scratch. The trade bodies, the media marketing organisations, conferences, pressure groups, academics, professors, even trade titles all do good work, but what they do is inevitably driven either by single-issues or by vested interests. Sometimes these interests compromise the need for radical honesty about the business models that distort our industry.

There’s a lack of joined-up thinking, and much that is neither honest nor objective. This limits what can be achieved.

We have to identify the vested interest behind the ostensibly impartial.

Our ambitious aim is to pull together a central repository of evidence that sets out the principles of great advertising and its benefits – across every aspect of the industry, everywhere.  A ‘best practice’ guide that aims to offer practical advice, not just theory.

A set of evidence-based principles that exists without fear or favour and which acknowledges the business models that determine current behaviours.

We care about advertising and the advertising and media industries; we care about the symbiotic relationship between effective advertising and a healthy, pluralistic media eco-system

We think advertising should be properly and quantifiably valued. We want to rebalance the debate around the long-term benefits of craft and experience, across all disciplines.

We will be producing updates and articles / blog posts as we go; and will aim at a second event in Q4 2025.

Our aim is to provide reliable, lasting building blocks, to ensure that the buildings designed by practitioners are as good as they can be.

We will be publishing more details of the subject areas we intend to include, and who will be leading them shortly. Fortunately for us all the workstream leaders from our efforts so far have agreed to continue to help.

We are under no illusions about the scale of this task, and we know it will take a lot of effort from a lot of people who care. As Artificial Intelligence develops, there is a risk that the advertising industry succumbs to automation rather than uses it as a tool for the creation of effective and engaging advertising. We should aim to preserve an industry where human values come first.

‘Advertising: Who Cares?’ is a movement to help the advertising industry retain its economic and societal values into the future.

We are thrilled at how many people do care. We want to encourage as many people as possible, from every corner of the industry to join us. If you care, do please sign up, and suggest doing so to others too. It’s free and you can do it from our site: www.advertisingwhocares.org.

Onwards.