Advertising isn’t black magic.
The phrase “half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half” has been told and retold by advertisers so many times that its origin has become unclear. Some sources say it’s Lord Leverhulme who originally said it, while others give credit to John Wanamaker or Rance Crain for the phrase. Regardless of its origin, this phrase has been a quote that sticks to anyone who does any sort of advertising, whether you’re a business owner or a marketeer – mostly because advertising and money is at the forefront of the phrase.
Truth is, advertising is very difficult to measure but it’s easy to measure how much money you spend or gain. You can have as many statistics, survey methods, and analysis tools as you want, but who’s to say that they’re even completely accurate? You can pay specialists to analyse or even set up your ads for you but that means spending more money on advertising. Sometimes, companies aren’t willing to do this because they are not entirely sure what they’re paying for – especially when they’re asked to trust someone else to advertise for them. That’s when people start to think that there’s some black magic, voodoo-type thing involved in advertising and one of three things tend to happen:
Advertisers willingly spend money on advertising because they want to see if it will work.
Advertisers question why they have to spend so much on advertising when they don’t even know if it will work.
Advertisers take the DIY route and do it themselves to “know” exactly where their money goes.
The trouble here is not knowing exactly what you’re paying for. However, it’s not always the case. We willingly pay for a dentist to pull out a tooth for hundreds of dollars when in fact, anyone can do it. It just so happens that dentists are the only ones who can ask for money for it because it’s advertised that they are qualified to do so by all the certificates and degrees framed on their walls. They’ve studied for years, and invested in equipment and tools to make your visit more pleasant than if you’d just pull out your own tooth.
That analogy is rarely applied to those who make a career or a business out of advertising. Sometimes, people tend to overlook the years, experience, and practice it takes to make advertising effective simply because of the unwillingness to risk wasting money. Anyone can make/”DIY” a logo but it takes a good, well-seasoned designer and brand specialist to do it within an hour – but have you ever thought of how they’re able to do it in a short amount of time? To put it simply, you’re paying for the time and years they’ve spent honing their skills in design and branding. What you think you’re paying for (in this case, a logo), isn’t what you’re actually paying for. You’re paying for that expert’s time (both past and present) and skills. I think deep down, people know this up until they receive the invoice.
It’s not black magic. Advertising experts and specialists don’t just rob you blind. There’s a lot of trust and faith involved especially when you willingly take a risk to see how your money will be good for advertising. There are unicorn-type products and businesses such as Apple and McDonald’s that no longer need to advertise but still do. So if it’s good enough for these brand giants, why can’t it be good enough for you?
