Questions Without Answers

It's Very Welcoming

So there's a lovely moment that hit my social feed today from Survey Monkey UK, as a small reminder to us that the British are Very Different Indeed. Or, at least, their adtech people are. Let's get into the details on this.

It turns out that only 12% of survey responders admit to having ads sway their purchase decision. Which leads Mansoor Malik, managing director UK of SurveyMonkey, to say: “Christmas is a great time of year, and we wouldn’t be a grinch that says brands shouldn’t contribute to the festive mood. However, we must be honest and recognise that if campaigns aren’t driving sales, they’re not meeting their core objective. Clearly, most brands today undergo expensive audience testing before running ads, but our findings suggest there are a few simple questions that still need to be answered by any brand before they commit to a campaign.”

While we're asking questions, I have a few to add.

1) Can we get the 12% that said yes to ads puppies? I feel that they would appreciate puppies, and take care of them.

2) Are survey respondents in the UK hooked up to lie detectors and electroshock inducers?

3) Is it illegal in the UK to lead the witness, so questions that obviously do it somehow, well, don't?

Surveys that ask questions like this are less than worthless, because, well, no one admits that they are so weak minded that all it took was an ad to get them to change their mind. Of course they said quality or price; those are tangible reasons that speak to intellect, and very few of us will admit otherwise, even to an anonymous survey.

What would have been a better question to ask? What parts of an advertising mix were remembered. Whether or not certain ad formats were better, or worse, at making a person think a product or service was worth spending more to acquire. If there was such a thing as hearing from an advertiser too often, so much that it kept you from making a purchase.

You know, questions that actually give us something close to an actionable move, other than just another pointless data point of how No One Likes Ads.

Because ads aren't meant to be liked. They are meant to sell stuff. And when you stop advertising? Generally, you stop selling as much. Kind of how this stuff works, really...

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