Advertising is the business of telling stories.

TV commercials tell us a story - the latest Nike Mercurial Vapor IV ad tells us how the new Nike boots help make professional footballers faster.

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Danica Patrick’s appearance in Sport Illustrated’s Feb 08 Swimsuit Edition is an education in how to leverage brands - albeit at the risk of compromising their integrity.

This is not meant as criticism - in fact, I applaud Danica for her work (on the racing track as well as in front of the camera) and the way she adjusts to both sides of the coin without much fuss. She’s comfortable with courting media attention and focused on succeeding on the track regardless of it - a trait that few sports personalities share.

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Commercials during your favourite TV shows are often called “a necessary evil”. To some extent that’s understandable - people need to make money and show paid ads during prime-time television is a great way to do so.

But do commercials really HAVE to suck? Isn’t there some way that we could actually make them better - better for the audience AND better for the companies pushing those ads? I say this because I figure that:

less people hating your ad = more people watching it = more people buying your product

As long as the ad agency remembers to put in a call to action and understands the basics of conversion, the above formula should hold true, correct?

So let’s look at how we can fix the bane that is TV commercials - and it’s quite simple really: find out WHY they suck and remove that irritant without compromising on the basic goal (i.e. sell stuff / promote your brand / etc).

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How do you rank one ad as being better than other ads? Is rating advertising an objective act based on measurable criteria or is it subjective, based on whether you liked the model in that commercial or not?

There are 3 simple ways to rate the quality of an advertisement:

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