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by Michael Crozier

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Every advertising book promises to share with you the sure fire secrets to advertising success. If that were true, we'd all be billionaires!

Self-proclaimed gurus (aka burnt out copywriters or account executives who just got the ax) write books promising to reveal magic words, insider techniques or secret formulas that put you on the fast track to success. By crafting attention-getting titles like "Secrets to Creating Advertising That Makes Money" or "Everything Advertising Agencies Don't Tell You", they succeed at selling books and making money.

Unfortunately after reading the first chapter or two, you realize you've been ripped off. It's only the same old stuff you already knew, just recycled and repackaged. The big insider secrets you paid for aren't secrets at all.

The advertising textbooks used in undergraduate and graduate programs aren't much better. Unfortunately, content is usually of date by the time they're published and they're edited by people who know very little about advertising or making money. Most contain a great deal of theory compiled by professors who have never actively engaged in advertising. Universities also force professors to "publish" or "perish" which further reduces the relevancy and reality of advertising textbooks.

The Secret Finally Revealed

Contrary to what you might read, there aren't any secrets or well-guarded formulas that work across the board to make any product or business a success. If only it were that easy.

Advertising has always tried to create communications that makes the product or business unique and stand out in customers' minds over their competition. That's why advertising professionals approach every new assignment with a blank canvass and try to look for new and better ways of accomplishing this task.

It's true that there are creative strategies, techniques and even words or images that have proven to be successful with specific products in specific situations. This information is common knowledge developed over years of experience. They're hardly "secrets", "rules", or "insider tips" that guarantee advertising success. Advertising has no guarantees or warranties and anything that's a secret doesn't stay that way for long. It's just the nature of the business.

Countless entrepreneurs and home business owners are led to believe they've bought a magic bullet that's going to end all their problems. It's hard to believe so many of them rely on the information of some burnt out copywriter or unemployed account exec. Hopefully, they'll be lucky and all they'll lose is the $29.95 plus tax they spent on the book.
Only One Thing's Certain

There's one thing I've learned from being a Madison Avenue creative director for over 30 years. It's simply that the only thing certain in advertising is change. That's why there are no rules. The game, the playing field and the players are constantly changing. What's in today is out tomorrow. What works with Search Engine Advertising doesn't work or radio or TV.

Even many of the rules established in the 1960s and 1970s by advertising legend David Ogilvy didn't hold true then and are completely obsolete now. For example, his rules saying, "long copy sells" and "reverse type doesn't work" had some validity for the simpler lifestyles of the 1950's. People read more and the printing technology of the day made reverse type harder to read. Today on the other hand, our advertising media, technology and lifestyle are more receptive to short, quick, bold messages. Tomorrow? Who knows? Don't try to write a book on it because by the time it's finally published, most of what you said will be out of date.

An Art Or A Science?

Advertising is both an art, a science and considerably more. It's always been a complicated blend of art and science subject to the whims of human perception and behavior. That's why it could be best described as an "experimental work in progress"

The "art" part is what most people associate with advertising - brainstorming the big idea, creating commercials slogans and jingles and of course the TV shoots and photo sessions with gorgeous models. After all it's what they've read in Danielle Steel novels or saw in the movies or on TV. In reality, you can't separate the creative from scientific side of advertising.

All successful ad campaigns are based on solid, clearly defined marketing strategies. These strategies are based on research, statistics, cold hard facts, market trends plus an in depth understanding of customers' needs, perceptions and behavior. The media where an ad appears are also determined primarily by analyzing standardized audience research and endless hours of number crunching. Of course then there is the ongoing ad testing and results analysis, which is one of the most critical parts of advertising and one that too many advertisers overlook. This barely scratches the scientific aspect that few advertising books ever cover.

Given the complexity of advertising and human behavior, it's impossible for anyone to write the definitive book that tells you everything there is to know about advertising. I've been in advertising for over 30 years and I can honestly say that I learn something new everyday. And it certainly isn't from advertising books.

Working In Advertising Isn't Fun Or Easy

Any art director, copywriter or creative director will tell you, advertising is nothing like read about in books or see on TV. It's serious business and hard work, full of high expectations and high anxieties, low budgets and low salaries and impossible deadlines. It's not a world of 3 martini or 3 joint lunches and running ideas up flagpoles to see if they will fly. "Tonight's another day" and "Anxiety breeds excellence" are sayings frequently heard in ad agency offices.

Creating effective advertising isn't as simple as most "how to" books make it appear

Will The Real Expert Please Do Something

Books also rarely depict the ongoing battle over who knows best the head of a company, the sales forces, the ad agency or the ad manager.

Most often in small companies and home based businesses, the head of the company is too close to their business and often makes wrong decisions based on emotion or gut feeling rather than on facts. After all, they founded the company, invested the money and took the risk. It's their baby, so they know what's best for it even if the business is in real trouble.

The sales people, of course, are always the experts. They have their fingers on the pulse of the market because they talk to customers and prospects every day and they know what's right. What sales people often don't realize is the personal selling they do is very different from the mass selling advertising seeks to accomplish.

The advertising agency is supposed to be the team of experts who know how to develop and execute a strategy to produce the desired results. A good advertising agency listens to their clients and provides their unbiased, professional advice that may not necessarily be what the client wants to hear

Finally, there are the poor advertising managers who are caught in the middle. They're constantly stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They're afraid to go against the owner or president. They want to go along with the ad agency because they think the agency's cool and would love a job there one day. And of course, they don't want any more threatening emails from the regional sales managers who are falling short on their annual plan. Being in the hot seat isn't rewarding and never fun.

Marketing textbooks and business books rarely touch on this subject other than to say it should be a team effort. That's a lofty ideal because getting everyone to play on the same team is easier said than done.

Finally The Most Important Question

There's one vitally important question no advertising book has yet to answer. Is advertising the world's oldest or second oldest profession? Did some ad man in ancient times see an unfilled consumer need and create the prostitution industry through clever advertising? Or did the mother of all industries arise naturally and then gave birth to advertising to make it easy to make more money?

Learn more about this author, Michael Crozier.

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