When Foster’s launched into the Canadian beer market we used to sit in the interminable focus groups that are the price you pay for raucous nights in strip joints and luxurious production budgets, listening to punters recite their spots verbatim. They couldn’t get enough of the chipper croc wrestler, Paul Hogan.

But Foster’s barely made a dent in the market. Ever. No one said they didn’t like the beer, Hogan was certainly not lacking in beery credentials and they loved his spots. They just didn’t buy the beer.

I’ve been reading Saatchi’s Kevin Roberts’ blog. I’m on record as having said I think he’s full of shit so it’s incumbent on me to read what he has to say. KR thinks ROI should stand for return on ‘involvement’ rather than return on ‘investment’.

He suggests Saatchi’s T-Mobile flash mob things and Euro’s Evian Babies as proof positive of his theory. But the only ‘return’ he cites is the 26 million and 55 million hits respectively that these campaigns garnered on the internet. They may well have boosted sales to unprecedented heights, but the problem is, KR glosses over such minutiae in exhorting their success.

So here’s the thing KR. If your BMW dealer (or Jaguar or Maserati or whoever manufactures your wheels of choice) told you that your vehicle was giving you the highest return on id (as measured by the number of times per dollar paid that people said: “Nice motor Kev”) in answer to your assertion that the only thing you could hear at 60 miles an hour was the sound of the gearbox disintegrating, you’d probably tell them to… whatever it is you tell people to do when you’re really, really cross.

There are countless instances of well-received ad campaigns, promotions, events, sponsorships and so on, having no positive effect on sales.

When it comes to commerce, absolutely no one gives a shit about return on anything other than their investment. And it will ever be thus.

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