There are certain industries with inherent flaws that make them, at best, marginally effective.

Traditional book publishing, with too much product (almost 200,000 new books published each year) and returns from bookstores to publishers in the 30% to 50% range, is one of them.

I believe that the ad agency business as practiced today also has a built-in flaw that dooms the majority of it to mediocrity at best, and an outright drain on corporate productivity at worst.

Reason: despite protests to the contrary, Madison Avenue, as evidenced by national ad campaigns, has as its primary objective creativity, not sales.

Example: the Six Flags TV ad campaign with the crazy dancing old guy (rumored to be a young woman in makeup) was the talk of the ad agency world – widely acclaimed for its humor, energy, and cleverness.

But, according to Parade magazine (8/21/05), after spending a stomach-churning $72 million on the campaign, Six Flags reported the results: no increase in attendance – and not a drop of added revenue.

That’s a return on investment (ROI) of less than zero, putting Six Flags $72 million in the hole on this marketing boondogle.

Or do you have a different view? Maybe you think the dancing guy was worth it because it “gained attention” or contributed to “branding.”

Or maybe you think Six Flags is the exception, not the rule … and Madison Avenue really, truly does care about making the cash register ring, not just winning Clio awards.

What say you?

Does sex sell?

Or does sex in advertising have the opposite effect, distracting the consumer from the product?

As reported in NewScientist (8/20/05, p. 6), a new study from Vanderbilt University suggests the latter.

The study found that erotic images stop us from registering and remembering things we see immediately afterward … for up to 800 milliseconds.

That means when a viewer sees a bikini model in a TV commercial splashing in the surf, he is too distracted to remember the brand of the beer she pulls out of the cooler and holds up to the camera a second later.

What’s your experience? Does sex in advertising really SELL? Or does it just get attention, without making the cash register ring and generating a positive ROI?

Today I received an e-mail from American Business Media inviting me to submit (for a $135 fee) an ad I had written for an awards competition.

The prize? A “Creative Excellence in Business Advertising” (CEBA) award.

A panel of eight judges … seven ad agency types and one “creative consultant” (note: not an advertiser among them) … would pick a winner based on – you guessed it – which ad they thought was most “creative.”

I have news for you CEBA committee members….

We direct marketers submit our ads – and mailings, and online marketing campaigns – in a contest every day.

It’s called “commerce.” The judges are the consumers who buy (or don’t buy) our products based on our ads. And the prize they award is their hard-earned cash.

So, CEBA, you can keep your plaque, or trophy, or whatever. Or give it to the branding guys who enter your hokey competition.

We direct marketers will settle for making the cash register ring … a much better sound than the applause of ad agency “creatives” … don’t you agree?