IQ Magazine Issue 19

iQ advertising
The old adage
Elyssa Fagan explores
the question: In this day
and age, does advertising
really work?
As someone with a heavily PR-led
background, I work with third party
media sources to cover stories on
my clients in the media. A PR lady
myself, I value my ability to secure
this type of media coverage for my
clients; it never gets old, securing
earned media and showing this to
clients.
PR is important; coverage in media
publications for your product or
business is, in effect, third party
endorsement, which is seen as more
valuable and more credible than
if you were to pay for advertising.
However, does this mean that
advertising isn’t valuable?
Absolutely not.
Advertising is an important part of
your marketing toolkit that shouldn’t
be ignored. Gaining visibility and
promoting your business through
paying for space within a third party
publication is an age-old practice.
From traditional media through
to digital practices and broadcast,
advertising options are now endless,
and often businesses are left thinking,
does advertising actually work?
This question is often posed by people
really thinking the following: ‘Is
traditional advertising really worth
the investment?’ This really depends
on a number of elements including
the size and status of your business,
what you’re looking to achieve from
your advertising, who you’re looking
to target, what other marketing
tactics you’re utilising to complement
this advertising and, of course, your
budget.
Large businesses can afford the high
cost of conventional advertising
in printed nationals, with the tools
and budget to place a number of
adverts across a number of titles and
mediums. TV advertising is still the
strongest advertising medium. Pulling
in 37% of global ad spend in 2015, it
has the highest efficiency at achieving
KPIs to drive sales, profit and market
share, and when bolstered by digital,
the return on investment soars. The
combination of TV and digital is the
most powerful form of advertising,
giving a 60% greater return than
other mediums.
Research from the Advertising
Research Foundation, which looked
at 5,000 global campaigns and 12
years of data to compile its
most recent results, showed
that advertising does indeed
work, and outlined that
advertising across multiple
platforms equals higher
ROI for businesses. The
study also showed that
too much frequency in
advertising and messaging across
one single platform can lead
to diminished results, and that
businesses should look to smart
spending across specific combinations
of, traditional alongside new media.
This is great news for companies
with large spending power, but small
businesses need to be more strategic
when looking at attributing budgets
to platforms.
A key part of marketing which
businesses need to ensure, whether
this be through look or style, creative
key messages or an aligned red
thread, is that the advertising, digital,
SEO, web content, social media
content, PR and branding all align
cohesively across the board. Whilst
differing platform advertising or
release or copy can alter in content
or format to best tailor the platform
and audience, they should all fit
together in one way or another.
This would act as a giant marketing
puzzle; customers should be able to
see that all pieces, whether viewed
independently or together, belong to
your brand.
issue 19 | page 52