Athorn,Clark & Parners Inc

OK, so advertising goes back to ancient Greece, and the past 100+ years especially have proven its value. Recent case in point, Newt Gingrich’s commercials in South Carolina are being viewed as pivotal to his winning the GOP primary there. So why does advertising need any defense at all?

Well, if you haven’t noticed, the economic recovery is still pretty shaky, and for many companies this has meant pulling in their financial horns. As usual, top of the list is the ad budget for a number of firms.

For smaller firms, and small-to-mid-sized b2b firms, this is understandable. You work with what you have, and if you can’t afford it, you can’t do it. (Has anyone told the folks in Washington about that concept? But I digress…)

However, there’s a dark side to that reality. A number of companies have come to the conclusion that advertising is a non-essential luxury, period. No need for it, even if the money is available. You can get by on press releases, SEO and social media–all of which is basically free.

For a lot of companies, especially smaller firms in the b2b firmament who are decidedly awareness-challenged, this is a potentially dangerous turn of thought. Can ‘new media’ play a role in success? Sure, although at ACP we do tend to think that the more esoteric a b2b tech product is, the lower the value of new media to marketing efforts. We have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that certain segments of the business audience spend time researching solutions on Twitter or Facebook. (Consumer product marketing, of course, can be a totally different story.)

Advertising, even if focused on online advertising on relevant sites, is still far and away the best way to get noticed. If you need to inform or educate, trade magazines (those ‘irrelevant’, ‘dinosaur’ printed things) still remain a best buy in most cases.

Of course, as the stock market pros say, this just sounds like us ‘talking our book’. We’re a marcom agency, we make money on media placements, etc. But we’re also the firm that ran an ad during the downturn of the early 2000s titled, ‘An ad agency explains why you shouldn’t waste your money on advertising.’ Like I said, depending on the economic conditions, you work with what you can.

But never forget that there’s a reason companies pay ridiculous amounts of money to advertise on the Super Bowl every year. Nothing can take the place of advertising when it comes to creating awareness and a positive predisposition toward your company and products. When the money isn’t there, you have to find next-best alternatives. But thinking new media freebies are going to have the same effect….well, that’s more wishful thinking than reality. Online, print, TV, radio, billboards, whatever. Advertising’s track record, even in our super-duper technology age,  speaks for itself.