Your marketing budget’s worst enemy is NOT bad advertising.

Great (strategic, creative, memorable, meaningful, emotional, engaging, etc., etc., etc.) messaging is of course your brand’s best friend.

But bad advertising can be memorable, too. Crude, clumsy, obvious, loud (repeat after me: JO-SEPH-A-BANK!) ads can create awareness. It requires repetition.  Lots of it. It’s also annoying, but every shouting car dealer in your market depends on old-school hard sell. Good luck trying to talk them out of it.

So. If great ads and terrible ads get noticed, where do marketing budgets go to die?

The real killer is mediocrity. Sometimes the message is derivative and forgettable (“Quality is our Recipe!”) so you can’t own it. Or self-serving (“We … anything anything”). Sometimes, there’s no surprise or delight in the storytelling. Or the production values are just ordinary – neither spectacular or deficient – and don’t get noticed.

Look for, insist on, and treasure disruptions.

If you want some ideas how your brand can be more disruptive, call us and let’s discuss it.