• 0

Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne. Marketing cartoons, content marketing with a sense of humor, keynote speaking.

  • Campaigns
  • Speaking
  • About
  • Cartoons
  • Contact
  • Book
  • 0

sales impact of advertising

September 13, 2020

Sales impact of advertising cartoon
  • Paid licensing options include high resolution download.
  • Presentation $35.00 Add to Cart
  • Newsletter or Website $100.00 Add to Cart
  • Corporate Blog/Sponsored Post $50.00 Add to Cart
  • Looking for other licensing options? click here
  • View Cart
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

I’ve been re-reading the 1983 classic, “Ogilvy on Advertising” to see how much has changed — and how much has remained the same — in advertising over the years.  One constant is the challenge of how to measure sales impact in advertising, and the tension of long-term brand building versus short-term direct response.

As David Ogilvy wrote (more than a decade before the first digital display ad): 

“For all their research, most advertisers never know for sure whether their advertisements sell. Too many other factors cloud the equation.  But direct-response advertisers, who solicit orders by mail or telephone, know to a dollar how much each advertisement sells … I am convinced that if all advertisers were to follow the example of their direct response brethren, they would get more sales per dollar.  Every copywriter should start his career by spending two years in direct response.”

Four decades later, there remains an entrenched divide in marketing between long-term brand branding and short-term direct response.  Exec Strategy Director at A&E DDB, Tom Roach, recently wrote an excellent essay called “The Wrong and the Short of it,” where he excoriates the false choice between long-term and short-term thinking in marketing, which he calls “wrong-termism.”

Short-term performance marketing frequently gets a bad rap, but Tom points at that blindly following “long-termism” is also flawed.  As he put it:

“There’s always been a lot of magical thinking about the long term in advertising. That you can just do something big and expensive as a one-off, then close your eyes and cross your fingers and hope no one commercially-oriented asks any awkward questions for six to twelve months, until future sales start magically happening…

“And whilst short-termism may give people a bad name within certain corners of the marketing world, it may actually be long-termism that gives some marketers a bad name within their organisations and amongst the rest of the business community, perhaps because some marketers appear to act like selling’s a dirty word to them.”

Your Ad Ignored Here
"If marketing kept a diary, this would be it."
- Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs
Order Now

A related factor I see in marketing is the revolving door of many marketing jobs.  CPG brand managers frequently change brands every 12-18 months and CMO tenure continues to slip.  Spencer Stuart’s latest Annual CMO Tenure study pegged the average CMO tenure at 41 months, down two months from the previous year.

Tom Roach shared this chart on the combinatory effect of long-term and short-term tactics, based on his research with Dr. Grace Kite.  

Tom went on to argue:

“Brands should be aiming to create long-term communications engineered for immediate success. Advertising that, in the words of the great Jeremy Bullmore, sells ‘both immediately and forever’”

And as David Ogilvy put it, “If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.”

Here are a few related cartoons I’ve drawn over the years:

“CMO of the Month” October 2013 (license this cartoon)

“Marketing Seat at the Table” May 2015 (license this cartoon)

“Super Bowl Advertising” February 2018 (license this cartoon)

Filed Under: advertising

Get a new marketoon each week:

Previous Post Next Post

the productivity trap

The Productivity Trap cartoon

flipping the script

"Covid Brand Excuses" cartoon

Browse similar cartoons in: advertising

Browse By Category See All Marketoons
  • Paid licensing options include high resolution download.
  • Presentation $35.00 Add to Cart
  • Newsletter or Website $100.00 Add to Cart
  • Corporate Blog/Sponsored Post $50.00 Add to Cart
  • Looking for other licensing options? click here
  • View Cart
Your Ad Ignored Here Book Image

15 years of Marketoonist compiled for your marketing pleasure.

Order Now

About Marketoonist

tom_image

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne a career marketer and cartoonist. Learn More...

Subscribe

Get a new marketoon delivered to your inbox each week.

 

Browse Blog Posts

Most Popular Cartoons Browse Categories

Marketoon Campaigns

contentmarketing

Content marketing with a sense of humor.

Learn More

Keynote Speaking

speakingworkshops

Insightful, funny, and visual keynote talks and workshops.

Book Tom to Speak

Search Blog Posts

Interested? Let’s Talk!

Marketoons

Browse Categories

Get New Cartoons Weekly

About Marketoonist

Tom Fishburne is the Founder and CEO of Marketoonist, a content marketing studio that helps businesses reach their audiences with cartoons.

© 2023 Marketoonist