The advertising, media and marketing industries are living in a golden era of media measurement. Almost everything can be measured — and is measured. From TV to OOH to all things digital, it’s tracked from every possible angle and repeatedly sliced and diced into vast volumes of pie charts and PowerPoint tables.
And now AI is coming, promising the hope that every single piece of media and marketing collateral can be measured, with its impact assessed down to the finest detail.
Crazy.
Most businesses today can, with a high degree of certainty, tell you their CPV, CPA, CTR, CPE — and whatever other three-letter acronym you feel like throwing into the mix. And with that comes planning.
What will our CPV, CPA, CTR or CPE be for our next campaign? And how do we improve it?
Dreams come true
A media maths nerd’s wildest dream come true.
But have we gone a little too far? How has all this data impacted our decision-making as advertising professionals?
Thirty-five years ago, Mercedes-Benz flighted their famous Christopher White ad, a true story of a man who drove over the edge of Chapman’s Peak and fell down the rocky cliffs below. He survived the massive fall because he was driving a Mercedes-Benz and wearing his seatbelt. Good, clean, brilliant advertising.
Soon thereafter, BMW released their Beat the Bends ad. It showed a man driving a BMW along the same stretch of road on Chapman’s Peak. Filmed to mirror the Mercedes-Benz commercial, the viewer sees the BMW driver approach the same bend in the road — but unlike the Mercedes-Benz, which plunged off the cliff, the BMW negotiates the bend safely and continues on its way.
The ad flighted over a single weekend and was soon thereafter banned, as it was deemed competitive advertising.
Greatest ad campaigns of all time
To this day, ask any ad executive who’s been around for a while about Beat the Bends and they’ll tell you: one of the greatest ad campaigns of all time.
Here’s the thing, though.
It failed on many media metrics:
- It definitely didn’t reach AR thresholds for breakthrough.
- Frequency was well below optimal.
- Ideal budget weighting was absolutely not achieved.
And yet, here we are in 2026, still talking about it as one of the greatest campaigns ever.
Why?
Ignored the metrics
Because it did something crazy and brave. It ignored the metrics. It broke the rules. It was cheeky. It was naughty. And, heck, it was massively memorable and impactful.
Then came Nando’s. Every ad was a jibe, a provocation, or sharp social commentary — and it all went viral (before “going viral” was even a thing). Ads that were crazy and brave. Despite having less than 10% of the budgets of their biggest competitors, they made their advertising work harder, punching exponentially above their weight.
So, does the industry still have room for crazy and brave? Or have we become too obsessed with metrics that matter?
The brands standing out today, I’d argue, fall into two camps: Those with enough money to win through sheer force of spend and those who are crazy and brave. The ones who ignore the rules and cause a scene.
Brave… and sometimes stupid
May our industry never be overrun by people who forget that it is the brave — and sometimes stupid — ones who make history. May we cast off the cloak of fear we so often wear. The certainty and false comfort that measurement brings can quietly drive us straight into mediocrity.
That sucks.
Let’s run towards the crazy.
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” ~ Steve Jobs
Contributed by Chris Botha on behalf of the AMF Board.
The Advertising Media Forum (AMF) is a collective of media agencies and individuals including media strategists, planners, buyers and consultants through whom 95% of all media expenditure in South Africa is bought. The AMF advises and represents relevant organisations and aims to create open channels of communication and encourage and support transparent policies, strategies and transactions within the industry.
For more information on the AMF, visit www.amf.org.za
