Study Claims $50 Billion Ad Dollars Wasted

Well we knew it was difficult to work on a media plan with a hangover following a late night, crunk-filled drinking binge but we didn't know it was costing advertisers $50 billion.

Yup, that's the figure deemed by the Advertising Research Foundation' s recent review of dozens of cross media studies to have been mis-spent on advertising. There's a headline in there somewhere. "Get Wasted.

Waste Your Client's Ad Budget."

That $50 billion figure represent 18.8 percent of the total $266 billion U.S. ad spend as estimated by Universal McCann. The ARF says the two biggest causes of wasted media spend are ads carrying the "wrong" message and buys being made with "wrong" timing. ARF suggest after recovering from "morning after" syndrome, you walk right up to your creative director and account director and say, "Dammit, we need to test this creative before it runs!" Yes. Test. What a novel concept.

In fact, ARF says testing creative will knock $10 billion off that wasted ad dollars figure. Try it. It could work.