Nothing—nothing!—bugs me more than advertising writers who call TV ads “winners” because they’re the “best-remembered” and/or “most-liked.”

Did the ad sell anything? What was the ROI?

Belinda Goldsmith of Reuters reported that roughly 1 billion people—15% of the world’s population—watched some or all of the Olympic opening ceremonies, a TV spectacular that ran four and a half hours.

I watched the next morning via the DVR recording device that is part of our DIRECTV service. By judicious fast-forwarding—and avoiding ads and the procession of the athletes—I saw what was worth seeing in 90 minutes.

I don’t watch TV commercials.

Cutesy-poo creativity and the “hard sell” repeated over and over ad nauseam do nothing for me. When you’re 73, quality time gets precious.

I’m not alone.

The Chancy World of TV Advertising
According to IMS Research, 23.4% of all TV households—26 million—have DVRs. An Oliver Wyman consulting firm determined that 85% of DVR owners worldwide routinely skip three-quarters of the ads.

But the numbers are actually worse.

In addition to the folks who time-shift (i.e., record programs for later viewing at their convenience with no commercials), legions more head for the bathroom or kitchen during commercial breaks.

Where an entire generation of high-tech communicators has become expert at thumb-writing on BlackBerrys and cell phones, I’m a whiz with the TV remote control. During commercial breaks, I channel surf.

Between time-shifting, bathroom/kitchen breaks and channel surfing, it is fair to say that half the viewers aren’t watching your commercial.

Translate this into direct mail, and it’s the equivalent of renting a list that’s 50% dirty or undeliverable. If you budgeted to spend $600/1,000 on a #10 mailing—or $0.60 each—and the list is 50% undeliverable, your actual cost is $600 per 500 pieces, or $1.20 for each piece mailed.

Like direct mailing to a dirty, old list, if you run an ad on TV, the true CPM is at least twice what the media sales rep tells you it costs. To hit budget, your results must be double your projections.

Results? What Results?
“According to IAG, a Nielsen firm that uses an online panel to track the performance of advertising,” wrote Suzanne Vranica in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, “Coca-Cola’s whimsical ad dubbed ‘Bird’s Nest’ was one of the best-remembered and most-liked commercials during the first week of NBC’s prime-time Olympic coverage.”

“Your job is to sell, not entertain,” said the late copywriter Jack Maxson, whose genius put the Brookstone catalog on the map.

This is an era where marketers can be inundated with data, metrics and analytics, demographics, psychographics, and purchase behavior. Yet television advertisers have no concrete way to directly correlate return on investment—who bought what and how much as a result of the TV spot—let alone the key marketing metric: lifetime value of a customer.

All that can be said is that an ad was “best-remembered” and “most-liked.”

The question: Does any way exist to prove that the $750,000 you spend on a 30-second spot prime-time Olympics coverage translates into $3 million in sales, which is breakeven on the ad? (That assumes a 100% markup on cost of goods sold and a 50% discount on merchandise sold to the retailers. Thus, retail stores need to sell $3 million of your goods, of which $1.5 million is paid to you. Of that $1.5 million, half—or $750,000—is the cost of goods sold, and the other $750,000 goes to NBC for the 30-second spot. Ergo, $3 million in sales is breakeven on a $750,000 TV ad.)