Justin Pearse’s Leader in which he talked about TV advertising as if it weren’t part of new media age’s gang and championed the effectiveness of internet advertising over TV (nma 11 June 2009) raised my eyebrows without the need for a funky beat or squeaky balloon. TV is part of the digital media age as much as the internet, and I mean linear digital broadcasting.

To claim online “win[s] the effectiveness argument” is fantasy. Every recent major study into advertising effectiveness (including those by the IPA and PWC) concludes that TV is by far the most effective and is getting more so. That’s why advertisers invest in it, and you insult them to suggest it’s because it feels “safe, familiar or comforting”.

You confuse effectiveness with accountability, but accountability appears to have been an illusion. Online is certainly countable, but the industry itself is having to rethink how it attributes cause and effect.

Full story at nma.co.uk