Last Sunday I counted the number of ads I saw in a day. The number came to 1,033. I wanted to wait a little while before I tried to recall them, just to see what stuck out and what didn’t. This is what stuck out:

1. The Ford logo on the Cricket score popup TV thing (but only because I blogged about it)
2. The 3 logos on the Australian players chests (paging Dr Freud)
3. Emirates was mentioned somewhere
4. BMW,
5. Mini,
6. and Lexus signage on the various car dealerships near work, although, I may only remember them because I see them every day
7. Visa signs on shop windows in the mall. I can’t visualise Mastercard signage, although I know it was there
8. Some posters for an event, but only because I took a photo of them, even then, I can’t remember the event’s name
9. There was a radio ad for those people who promise longer lasting censored, but I don’t know who they are without looking them up, and even then, I was only interested because of the billboard fracas (no, really)
10. There was probably a KFC ad on the cricket, but I can only vaguely recall it.

That’s all. I’m racking my brains, but seriously, that’s all.

Total brand recall: 1%

Total relevance of those ads I do recall to me

1. I won’t ever buy a Ford, unless it’s a vintage Mustang. Relevance Score: 0
2. I’m a happy (enough) Optus customer for now on a 24 month contract. I’m not switching to 3. Relevance Score: 0
3. I’m not going anywhere overseas for a while, but I would definitely consider Emirates. Relevance Score: 1
4. BMW, meh. I’ll buy one when I have children who won’t fit in a sports car. That will be a while. Relevance Score: 0.03
5. Mini, meh. I’ll buy one when I’m a real estate agent. Relevance Score: 0.
6. Lexus, meh. Relevance Score: 0
7. Visa; I have one, don’t need another one and don’t see any difference between them and Mastercard. Relevance Score: 0
8. Event posters I can’t name. Enough said. Relevance Score: 0
9. Longer lasting censored; doing quite well thanks. Relevance Score: 0
10. KFC. Would rather lick the floor outside a Brunswick Street kebab shop at 3am on a Saturday morning. Relevance Score: 0

Total relevance: 1.03/10

Add that up, and out of the 1,033 ads I saw that day, 1.03 of them were relevant. Which is, conveniently, 0.1%.

Very, Very Slightly Scientific Conclusion

The average consumer is exposed to around 1,000 ads a day. Out of those, only a handful, perhaps 1% will be remembered, and out of those, perhaps only 10% (0.1% of the total) will be relevant to that consumer. In other words, 99.9% of ads are irrelevant.

I can’t stress enough how unscientific this process has been, but surprisingly, the results have mirrored other slightly more scientific studies I have come across. Look out for more detailed results in Marketing Mag soon. In the meantime, start thinking of better ways to promote your product than advertising.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 9:42 am and is filed under Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.