A new book has just been released that argues that 37% of most advertising budgets are wasted. By analysing campaigns from the likes of Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Kraft Foods and McDonalds they concluded that a huge percentage of advertising budgets are wasted. The book points to the fact that $85 billion worth of advertising is wasted every year.

On the plus side, the authors of What Sticks, Rex Briggs and Greg Stuart, concluded that it was possible to find out where money is being wasted and get more out of the 63% of budget that was performing well.

Stuart and Briggs argue that the reason for much of advertisings failure stems from a reluctance to define what success actually is at the outset of the campaign. However, another of the proposed answers requires a more rigorous assesments of what went wrong and the aportioning of blame which could well end in people losing their jobs.

Therefore the biggest barrier to change maybe those clients whose money is being wasted. Those responsible for poor advertising effectiveness have a vested interest in not following the guidence set out in order to keep their jobs intact.