How do you Know?

The amount of money spent on determining ad effectiveness is second only to the amount of money producing the work (Or is it? Sometimes I wonder…). The first questions clients ask about a piece of communication is whether it’s getting good ROI, or something that indicates that it’s working.

One of my all-time favorite ad-related quotes is the gem from John Wanamaker, followed closely of course by this one from Amy Adams.

I was reminded of both quotes when I read about the decision facing e*trade about what to do with their advertising campaign: To pull or not to pull. For years, the work has been great. Very memorable, killed on the Super Bowl year after year, even though the talking baby thing has been done over and over since Bruce Willis channeled little Mikey in Look Whose Talking.

My favorite e*trade ad is probably the one with the clown. ("I really underestimated the creepiness..."). I’m sure you have yours.

These are some great talking babies. But once again, the question, “What makes successful advertising?” is being asked, because they continue to lag behind their competitors.

Many agencies say “we’ll make your brand famous,” which makes a ton of sense, especially when a brand has low awareness. But once the awareness numbers are up, clients want sales to go up too. And what makes an ad famous doesn’t always help make people run out of the house to buy.

So what to do? Unfortunately for e*trade, they’ve been hit by factors other than advertising that have affected their bottom line. But the most public way to talk to the street is to talk about changing the public face of the brand, and that means advertising.

So they’re taking an interesting angle, trying to keep it and work with it at the same time. Sounds like a good idea to me. They have such a valuable equity, something that reminds people of their brand, that they can use different ways in different media.

And you can’t say enough about word of mouth. It’s just not something you can buy; having an ownable property is invaluable, and you can’t put a price on having to reinvent the (wheel) every time it’s time to crank up the marketing machine.

My definition of ad success is not really measurable (take that, you quant people). I’ve always believed great marketing communications serve mostly as reminders, and partially as educational tools, and I’d say a piece of communication is effective if the product or service leaps to the front of the cranial cortex when a person is at the point of consideration.You can’t make anybody buy anything (unless of course you’re Steve Jobs).

So I like where you’re going, e*trade. Good luck.

Good news for romantics (and retailers)

You can’t buy love, but according to a study from the National Retail Foundation, people have trying harder to disprove that notion this year. Valentine’s Day spending in 2011 is the highest it’s been since before the economy crapped out.

The average person will shell out $116 on red roses, heart shaped cookies, and I Love You thongs. A hundred and sixteen bucks! I guess someone must be buying a few of these to bring that average up.

What’s the explanation? I have no research on this, but I have a firm belief:

Valentine’s Day is a purely emotional holiday. Nothing rational about it; it’s all about human connection. You could argue there’s a rational reason to give a gift on V-Day, that if you play your cards right, your reward might greatly justify the gift. Probably explains all of the I Love You thongs.

This wonderful research proves that when it comes to selling, heartstrings trump purse strings.

And as an aside, I love the fact that folks are spending more on love. It’s a sure sign that we’re on our way back to financial confidence. POTUS should use this in one of his upcoming speeches. What’s a better economic indicator?