When I worked for Ad Agency FCB San Francisco, it didn’t take me very long to realize what the ad business was all about, and how, generally speaking, the client was simply subsidizing four different businesses while kind of hoping the agency’s work would somehow impact its bottom line.
As I understood it…
1) The ad agency gets hired to produce creative (ads). 2) The agency or an outside media planner does the media planning and buying to distribute the ads for public consumption. 3) Broadcasters and media companies get paid to place or broadcast the ads. And finally, 4) a rating agency like Neilsen gets paid to find out how many people are possibly exposed to the media carrying the ad, a proxy for how many people might have consumed the ad and its message.
The ad agency’s...
Good work, Mike. I agree with you and Ponturo. Sponsorships were just a cooler, more tangible, vivid, animated kind of advertising/marketing for so long, and marketers weren't held accountable for ROI or ROO. Now, whether it's because of a sheer economic crunch or a sudden religion-getting in ethics, every dime going out of an organization is being scrutinized and tracked, so marketers must give an account and tracking of their expenditures and the subsequent results. Nothing new or shocking there. Funny you should mention NASCAR, though, because it is a perfect illustration of the problem as you described it, based on my personal experiences with it, particularly the DEWALT press teleconference announcing the severing of their relationship with the #17 team. I was privileged enough to get the memo that it was about to happen just in time to call in and be granted access to it. I listened to the DEWALT execs praise Matt Kenseth, Rousch/Fenway Racing, and NASCAR up one side and down the other while at the same time declaring that they were certain that they'd found a better approach to marketing to construction sites. No way anyone could convince me that, be they owner, foreman, or laborer, those involved in construction job sites would give their attention to many things more quickly and raptly than to a NASCAR-related platform. What I indirectly but clearly heard instead was, "We've found a better deal elsewhere." More specifically, "We can do this ourselves more effectively and efficiently." Like Mike pointed out, NASCAR and other sport properties need look no further than the mirror (and maybe an episode of "CMT Cribs" featuring the houses of NASCAR drivers) to see why they've been ditched.