CEOs Need an Advertising Check Up or Seco...( WESTFIELD N.J. Sept. 10 /- Compan...),Health

WESTFIELD, N.J., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Companies spend huge sums on consultants and other professionals to help them be more efficient and profitable. But too often, advertising and marketing is left by the wayside.

"I can't think of one company that requested an unbiased second opinion for their advertising and marketing programs," says John Howlett, CEO of Aviza an advertising and marketing consultancy.

Why is advertising neglected? Anthony Parinello, advisor to Fortune 100 company CEOs and author of "Think and sell like a CEO," states that few CEOs come from the advertising or marketing world. Consequently, they must rely on their director of marketing or an advertising agency.

A more effective way is to have an "advertising-literate" CEO who can ask the tough questions, have a way to compare rates, even consider drastic new technology ideas that would help deliver better results, Howlett says.

"Recently I was invited to a financial company's social gathering and the chief financial officer, who authorized large sums of money for advertising expenditures, said to me: 'John, I spent five million dollars and I still don't know what we got for our money.' This reminded me of the famous dictum by John Wanamaker, the inventor of the department store, when he said: 'I know half of my money was wasted on advertising; I just don't know which half!'"

Indeed, Howlett notes the business of advertising has become much more complex. Decisions can be very costly and should not be made solely by a company's advertising and marketing staff.

An informed CEO holds the power to make the hard choices. And he or she needs outside help to get an honest assessment, Howlett says. "After all, the success of the company is at stake. Isn't the CEO the champion of better performance to improve the return on investment?"

In an effort to get better results and improve the ROI on your advertising and marketing program, a second opinion is a s
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