When Ads Work

The "accepted wisdom" in advertising is that ad campaigns are good for building long-term good will and exposure, but not for immediate sales impact. In When Ads Work, John Philip Jones argues the opposite--that well-planned and well-executed advertising campaigns can and should have an immediate impact on sales. With a devise he calls STAS (short-term advertising strength), a measure of the immediate effect of advertising on sales, Jones demonstrates that the strongest campaigns can triple sales, while the weakest campaigns can actually cause sales to fall by more than 50 percent.