The Advertising Challenge & Johnny Cash's One Piece at a Time

I'm rereading Jon Steel's Truth, Lies & Advertising. In the opening chapter he addresses the ever-persistent rift between effectiveness and efficiency. Efficiency, Steel explains is "doing something the right way" and effectiveness is "doing the right thing." A narrow minded, intense focus on "the right way" leads to the wrong results. In other words, if we're too focused on checking the boxes, we're likely to miss the intangible that make things work beautifully.

It's a forest through the trees thing and his point reminds me of the challenges agencies and brands are facing today. Looking down briefs, processes and project requirements, too often we're hitting check boxes blindly in an effort to meet productivity goals and get a project out the door. The effect, as Steel writes, is a tightly manicured, but misguided product

In my own view, the advertising industry too often preaches effectiveness while actually pursuing efficiency, transforming...a real world of difficult decisions and uncertain evidence into a comfortingly simplified one where indicies of performance are hard facts...

A friend sent me this video this morning, and I couldn't help but draw the parallel. And as I wrote this...Johnny Cash came to mind. In both cases all the pieces are there, the boxes are checked...so we've got efficiency covered...how about effectiveness?