A Return on Investment for Marketing (Marketing ROI) is a touchy subject for many business managers and owners. Can a Marketing ROI be negative?

We have probably all heard the old adage - "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half." This is attributed to retail magnate John Wanamaker in the late 1800’s, over a century ago. Things haven’t changed much.

Even successful Fortune 500 firms are subject to spending money foolishly…lots of it. The average cost of a Super Bowl Ad this year: $2.5 million for a 30 second spot. That’s more than I make in a whole year! ;-)

Winners?? Hard to say. The Biggest Loser? One of the top contenders for that dubious spot has to be Masterfoods who owns Mars candies and the Snickers brand.

This from Online Media Daily

"According to a Masterfoods spokeswoman, humor was all the (Snickers) ads were trying to achieve.

"We know that humor is highly subjective and understand that some people may have found the ad offensive. Clearly that was not our intent," the spokeswoman said in a statement.

"Consequently, we do not plan to continue to air the ad on television or on our Snickers website."

"Omnicom Group's TBWAChiatDay in New York, which designed the ad, could not be reached by press time."

You spend $2.5 Million dollars to achieve humor????? And, it’s so bad that it demeans your company and its valuable brand image? That’s not funny. This is, in my opinion, irresponsible. Shame, shame on you Masterfoods and also ChiatDay – the Ad Agency that put this together.

This type of advertising makes marketers look like a bunch of drunken fools…oh, wait a minute…that was the Go Daddy! Ad, wasn’t it?

Don’t you think Marketing investments should have a clearly defined and measurable return?

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