natalie tiong wei fang, research paper final, group l

Advertising: An Inefficient Marketing Tool 1

Tiong Wei Fang Natalie

ESL 408 Group L

19th April 2011


1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Advertising is a marketing tool used by many companies today to give their products

a competitive edge over their rival companies. With the rampant advent of many new media

avenues and the trend of many companies making use of such avenues, it is no wonder why

many companies are willing to spend much of their budget in the advertising of their goods

just to stay competitive in the market. During the past few decades, expenditures in

manufacturing and general management have been declining while marketing costs have

risen (Sheth and Sisodia, 1995). However, there are many problems that cause advertising to

be ineffective.

It is undeniable that many advertisements are interesting and eye-catching and can

serve as a source of entertainment. For example, the Cadbury Chocolate eyebrow

advertisement where two children synchronized the movement of their eyebrows to a song

really did raise many eyebrows in the end. However, not many people enjoy them. Reports

that over half of consumers do not like TV advertising and would prefer it did not exist

(Forrester Research, 2007). This paper will serve to discover the possible inefficiencies in

advertising and also find out the impact of the inefficiencies present.

In short, advertising is being increasingly ineffective as a result of it being used

too extensively— over-advertising; it is becoming less effective and the cost spent on the

marketing of the good is not justified.


1.2 Significance

The effects of advertising are widespread, however, advertisements often do not reach

their targeted audiences or the intended message is not being received by the audience. Also,

too much money is being spent on the advertising of products; however, the cost is not being

justified. This should be a cause of concern among people as we are directly involved in this

industry. This paper will cover the audiences of advertisements in general, as I believe the

effects that will be discussed is widespread. Also, it covers both advertising in both the

traditional and new media arena.

2. Literature Review

After doing a literature review on the efficiency and effectiveness of advertising, I

realized that there are many factors that constitutes to what a good advertisement is. From the

readings I have found, the efficiency and effectiveness of advertising can be due to the

simplicity or complexity of the message, cluttering of advertisements, and the absurdity of

advertisements. However, as the point of my research is to dwell further into the why

advertising is increasingly being inefficient due to over-advertising, these factors alone will

not suffice in explaining this phenomenon. For example, Arias-Boltzmann et al. (2000) found

out that absurdity has a positive influence on advertising. While a slight degree of absurdity

might improve the advertisement, too much of absurdity in advertising would be an overkill

and audiences might not believe advertisements at face value any longer. Also, Pieters et al.

(2010) discovered that the comprehensibility of an advertisement is independent from the

simplicity or complexity of the message. Understanding the advertisement is not affected by

how simplistic or complicated the advertisement might be. The failure of the advertisements

might or might not be attributed to the factors mentioned.


Hence, I conclude that the abovementioned factors accompanied together with over-

advertising has led to the drop in the efficiency and effectiveness of advertisements.

3. The Failure of the Purpose of Advertisements

Advertisements often do not reach their targeted audiences or the intended message is

not being received by the audience. This could be due to external noise in the environment

that distracts the audiences.

However, the failures within the advertisements will be discussed rather than the

external factors as if inefficiencies are already present within the advertisement itself, the role

of external noise in distracting the audiences will be insignificant. David Ogilvy said, “The

consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife.” (Mishra, 2009) It is important to target the

problems within advertising to protect the welfare of the audiences.

3.1 Failure in Message Delivery of Advertising

Advertising is inefficient as it constantly fails to bring across its intended message to

audiences. Hence, to compete for the audiences’ attention in such a competitive advertising

environment, many eye-catching and stimulating methods are used. However, once the

audience are stimulated with such an advertisement, it takes a lot more from the newer

advertisements to compete for the attention, rendering those unable to capture the audience’s

attention as useless. Companies have to constantly churn out newer and more stimulating

advertisements to stay competitive, while the audiences’ senses are increasingly being dulled

by the over-exposure to such advertisements. This can be seen from the many luxury brands

advertising campaigns such as brands like Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu, and Chanel. Despite

spending a huge amount of money on advertisements and engaging prominent celebrities to

front their products, many view their efforts as just another advertising campaign. There is


nothing novel about the luxury brand campaigns that are able to captivate the audiences. For

example, in the advertising campaigns or Louis Vuitton (figure 1.1), Miu Miu (figure 1.2),

and Chanel (figure 1.3), their concepts are very much similar with a single girl posing with

their goods. There is not much that the audiences can differentiate each advertisement from

each other. Hence, the advertisement fails to create brand recognition among audiences,

causing the audience to perceive the product as just another good.

Moreover, some commercials are too cluttered together that the audiences often do

not get the main point of the companies’ messages. White and Dawson (2007) found out that

advertising clutter across media is at an all-time high and now has reached daunting

proportions in many countries. This can be seen from the large number of 104 advertisements

being broadcasted in 48 minutes during the Super Bowl game. Despite the cost of $3 million

on a 30 second spot, many companies choose the Super Bowl as it attracts a large number of

audience. It is highly questionable how much advertisements audiences can absorb during

that 48 minute period. It is a challenge for the companies’ advertisements to stand out in that

that amount of clutter.

In another case, some advertisements might even send the wrong messages out to its

audiences. Examples of such advertisements are aesthetic companies promoting their

lunchtime “facelift” procedures where people can get fixed up during their lunch breaks

through Botox injections and fillers. Although such advertisements may seem harmless at

face value, it actually perpetuates the message that those procedures are a fast and easy way

to look good and downplays its complications such as botched jobs and the addiction that

follows.


3.2 Deception and Creativity in Advertising

Sometimes, the failures of advertisements might even be an intentional effort on the

part of the companies to further be successful in garnering the attention of the audience.

Sending out the wrong message or having similar advertising campaigns might be

unintentional on the part of the advertisers. However, in such a competitive environment,

advertisers have deliberately tweaked the information in the advertisements so that it will be

more captivating, without giving a concern to its accuracy.

Advertisements fail due to the inaccurate portrayal of goods and under-utilization of

the best tools to promote the goods. Inaccurate portrayal of goods can be deemed as a type of

deception in advertising. Deceptive advertising can come in many forms such as false

evaluations of its own product and rival’s product, omitting vital product information, and

implication of their brand’s superiority which may not necessarily be true and may just be an

inflated reality. Some advertisements are so absurd nowadays that the content displayed may

not even be relevant to the product itself. In a survey undertaken by a regulatory agency,

Advertising Standards found out that accuracy and clarity in advertisements was the second

highest clause for receiving complaints for from consumers.

For instance, some advertisements may be too ambiguous, which leads its audiences

to interpret them on their own, which may be a cause of misunderstanding. This can be

illustrated from the use humour and parody in advertisements. Though it may increase the

creativity factor and may be a novel stimulus for the audience, it may undermine message

recall. The benefits of using humour in advertising as stated by Zinkhan (n.d.), is that humour

has its positive effects such as enhancing the audiences’ attention span, fostering optimism,

and hence, the audiences’ whole outlook toward the advertisement. However, all these

benefits are redundant if the audiences are unable to have a recollection of the product itself


at the end. Recollection of the production is especially affected if the humour used in the

advertisement is not even related to the product being marketed. In the end, it just serves as a

form of entertainment for the audience and they are not being educated of the new product.

Also, the use of humour and parody may be creative and interesting to the audiences;

however, it can bring up other issues that are detrimental to the advertising industry. For

instance, it can be controversial and cause public uproar. Unethical ones may cause activist

groups to rise up against the corresponding companies.

Hence, social costs of advertising are unjustified. The audiences’ senses are

continuously being dulled, yet, they are unable to receive the advertiser’s intended message,

they might be duped by the advertisers and advertisements may cause public unhappiness.

4. The Unjustified Expenditure on Advertising

The cost of advertising has risen rapidly with the advent of many companies trying to

vie for advertising slots to reach their audiences. However, the expenditure on advertising is

not necessarily mirrored by an increase in the sales of product causing a loss on the side of

the companies.

4.1 Broadcast Time is Not Proportional to the Cost

Money spent on advertising does not directly correlate to the increase of knowledge

of the good or product being marketed. A 15-second advertisement has only half as much

time as a 30-second advertisement to achieve any advertising objective. However, despite

being half the length, the media cost of a 15-second advertisement is reported to be 60 to 80

per cent the cost of a standard 30-second spot (Alsop, 1987; Patzer, 1991).

The airtime of the advertisements is not proportional to its cost. How much of the

money spent on advertising is actually being recouped from the sales figures? Moreover, to


draw attention from the audiences, companies use prominent people to help market their

goods by engaging them to be the poster child of their extensive advertising campaign.

Prominent people can range from people like movie stars and high-rolling athletes. Having

the faces of such prominent people being plastered all over comes at a heavy fee. This adds to

the already disproportionate cost many companies pay for the advertisement of their goods.

There exist diminishing returns on investment as a firm continues to add to the

advertising budget, and such spending above the point at which additional gains are exceeded

by the incremental expenditures in advertising is not worthwhile (Simon and Arndt 1980;

Albion and Farris 1981; Aaker and Carman 1982; Stewart 1989; Aaker, Batra and Myers

1992; Briggs and Stuart 2006).

4.2 Difficulty in Gauging the “Right” Amount that should be Spent

Next, it is difficult to gauge a budget that is just appropriate for the company to work

with to market their goods. It is difficult to estimate how much spent on advertising is too

much, and what is too little. The advertising industry is very fluid. Information comes out as

fast as it goes in. Hence, even if estimation is made, its relevance to current times will be

highly questionable.

As a result, we are unable to have a clear idea as to how much spending is sufficient

for the advertisement to be cost-effective. As noted by Ogilvy and Mather in an in-house

presentation, too little spending on advertising may lead to a failure of even the most brilliant

campaign, and too much spending on advertising often results in a waste of money, no matter

how effective the campaign is (Sissors and Bumba 1996).


5. Why advertising used rampantly despite its inefficiencies and why it is unwise to

do so

Despite all that is being discussed in the above sections, many companies still rely on

the use of advertising to market their goods. Companies still see advertising as cost-effective

and efficient.

5.1 Advertising Rakes in Larger Sales

One reason could be due to the phenomenon that a larger advertising budget can bring

about a larger sales report. For instance, the people over at Yahoo conducted a research.

Researchers found a random sample of over 1 million users, and assigned them to either the

treatment or control group for one of their retailer’s online advertising campaign. People in

the treatment group were made to see three advertisement campaigns while the control group

did not see those same campaigns.

In the course of the project, the sales figures of the retailer were tracked. By

comparing purchases made by the treatment group and the control group, researchers were

enabled to measure the impact of advertising on sales while holding all other factors constant.

It was found out that advertising increased total revenue of the retailer by

approximately 5% for those in the treatment group compared to those in the control group.

5.2 Advertising: A Vicious Cycle

Also, the high spending on advertising may be a double-edged sword. The high

spending on advertising is due to the pressure placed upon by other companies. For instance,

the companyies Pepsi and Coca-Cola have been involved in an advertising war since the

1980s (figure 5.1). The rival companies has repeatedly tried to outdo each other that the term,

“cola wars” has been formed to refer to the feud between the two cola companies.


Lastly, the cost of advertising falls into the burdens of regular consumers ultimately.

High advertising cost is being translated into a high product price. This is unfair to consumers

as instead of their main motive of purchasing the product alone, their money is being funded

into the production of extravagant advertising campaigns without their apparent knowledge.

In the end, consumers are just at the losing end.

6. Conclusion

In this ‘advertising war’ where so many companies are trying to fight for their

audiences’ attention, they might not realize how much they are splurging on advertising are

going to waste.

“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.” Peter

Drucker (Peters, 2010).

Companies are efficient in using advertising to market their goods. It reaches a wide

range of consumers easily and many other companies are using it. Hence, a sensible thing for

other companies is to use advertising too, so that they do not lose out on its benefits.

However, being efficient is not enough. Blindly following industrial trends to advertise will

only cause companies to lose its profits to it. Companies should also find ways to be effective

in advertising.

Perhaps more research can be done to discover the best advertising tool and optimum

conditions that will help capture audiences’ attention so advertisers can maximize their

budget it to its fullest.


7. Limitations and Implications

In my study, I have searched for the negative aspects of advertising that has rendered

it to be inefficient or ineffective. However, I have not discussed the benefits of advertising

that could perhaps make the consequences of the negative aspects worthwhile.

From this study, I believe advertisers can further improve on the advertising industry

so that its inefficiencies can be minimized to its bare minimum. After all, advertising is

beneficial, but we should seek to develop it so that its potential can be fully realized.

8. References

Arias-Bolzmann, L., Chakraborty, G., & Mowen, J.C. (2000). Effects of absurdity in advertising:

the moderating role of product category attitude and the mediating role of cognitive

responses. Journal of Advertising, Volume XXIX, Number 1 Spring 2000, 35-49.

This reading first explains what absurdity in advertising is and elaborates on the four

different forms of absurdity. After which, the effectiveness of the use of absurdity in

advertisements is being examined on how it influences persuasion. The reading postulates

two reasons why absurdity makes advertisements more effective; it being comparatively

more noticeable and new, sudden stimuli is being process more thoroughly by the brain.

However, a problem arising from the ambiguous nature of absurd advertisements is that

audience are able to interpret it in any way they can. In conclusion, results from an

experiment they conducted showed that absurd advertisements had a positive influence on the

effectiveness of advertising. It affected especially those who had a negative perception of the

brand initially as they gradually change their evaluation of the product over time. This article


may be old; however, it explains clearly the boundaries of absurd advertising and has even

conducted a study to prove itself.

Anonymous. (2011). Advertising works. Retrieved from http://research.yahoo.com/project/2616

Anonymous. (2009). Advertising standards Canada 2008-2009 annual report. Retrieved from

http://www.adstandards.com/en/AboutASC/2009AnnualReport.pdf

Anonymous. (2010, February 1). Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi, Revised Edition. Retrieved from

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/7126053/Pepsi-vs-

Coke-advertising-battle-turns-to-social-media.html

Baumer, K. (2011, February 3). Here's a look at the cost of super bowl ads through the years.

Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/cost-super-bowl-ads-through-the-years-

2011-2#ixzz1JFkcSaoK

Bither, S.W., & PETER L. Wright, P.L. (1973, May). The self-confidence advertising response

relationship: a function of situational distraction. Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. X,

146-152.

Drake, R.P., & Ritchie, R.J.B. (2007, February). The defensive consumer: advertising deception,

defensive processing, and distrust. Journal of Marketing Research, 114-126.

Fichera, J. (2011, February 4). Super bowl ads: not just for sports fans. Retrieved from

http://www.bu.edu/today/node/12246

Hammer, P., Riebe, E., & Kennedy, R. (2009). How clutter affects advertising effectiveness.

Journal of Advertising Research, June 2009, 159-163.

In this article, the authors focused on answering whether clutter in advertisements

affected the audience in any way. Their findings showed that clutter does not really affect the

http://www.businessinsider.com/cost-super-bowl-ads-through-the-years-2011-2#ixzz1JFkcSaoK

http://www.businessinsider.com/cost-super-bowl-ads-through-the-years-2011-2#ixzz1JFkcSaoK

http://research.yahoo.com/project/2616


audience’s tendency or choice to view them or not. As such, with the cluttering of

advertisements, the audience are exposed to more advertisements. The audience are able to

recall an advertisement better when the medium is less cluttered. Also, the audience is able to

identify the brands with more accuracy in cluttered environments. In conclusion, the authors

found that the effect of cluttering advertisements is not significant as compared to the creative

execution of the advertisement itself. This article is very relevant in our time as we are

constantly being bombarded by many messages from the advertisers as once.

Beezy Marsh, B. (2006, September 17). Fear over the 'lunchtime facelift' as experts say Botox is

addictive. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1529036/Fear-over-the-

lunchtime-facelift-as-experts-say-Botox-is-addictive.html

Mishra, S.V. (2009, November). Today's mega corporations, tomorrow's big brands. Retrieved

from http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/et500/Todays-mega-corporations-

tomorrows-big-brands/articleshow/5261603.cms

Pergelova, A., Prior, D., & Rialp, J. (2010). Assessing advertising efficiency: does the internet play

a role? The Journal of Advertising, Fall 2010, 39-51.

This article is focused on looking into the claims of advertising being inefficient and

not cost effective. The article also assesses if internet advertising is really as efficient as it is

touted to be. The authors conducted a study to see if internet advertising increases advertising

efficiency, and also another study to see if conventional forms of advertising complemented

with internet advertising will lead to greater advertising efficiency. In conclusion, the

researchers found out that internet advertising is a good way to increase advertising

efficiency and also, having a mix of both offline and online advertisements did report a

significant increase in advertising efficiency. Although this article focuses much on internet

advertising specifically, it gives a clear idea of what constitutes efficient advertising.


Peters, A. (2010, April 6). Effective Leadership. Retrieved from

http://www.faithreaders.com/article-details.php?article=14415

Pieters, R., Wedel, M., & Batra, R. (2010). The stopping power of advertising: measures and

effects of visual complexity. Journal of Marketing, September 2010, 48-60.

The article first raises the importance of advertisements having the ability to be eye-

catching to attract the audience’s attention. The article also states that the simplicity or

complexity of the image in an advertisement is independent from the comprehensibility of the

message of the advertisement. Through the study, the authors found two distinct types of

visual complexity; feature complexity and design complexity. The former affects attention

and attitudes audiences have for the brand while the latter aids in the attitude,

comprehensibility and attention towards the advertisement. This article helps to judge

whether the advertisements we are bombarded with today are actually beneficial to the brand

memory of the audiences. It helps to pin-point where an advertisement has gone wrong in its

design and how it is being impacted on the audience.

10. Appendix


Figure 1.1: Louis Vuitton Advertisement


Figure 1.2: Miu Miu Advertisement

Figure 1.3: Chanel Advertisement


Figure 5.1: Pepsi and Coca-Cola advertising and branding

natalie tiong wei fang, research paper final, group l

Documents