Much has been said lately about the decline of newsrooms due to the decline of advertising spending. My last post commented on that subject, and I continue to ponder it.

My eight-year-old daughter has become something of an advertising critic, the apple not falling far and all that. When we watch American Idol or something she’ll often analyze the commercials, deciding whether an ad is “good” or not. Her definition of a good ad is one that causes her to want to buy something, or at least consider it.

A few times she has disliked a commercial so much that she said she would never buy anything from the company, let alone the product, deciding that the spot was so poorly thought-out that it repulsed her.

Her and my mutually favorite commercial right now is the one for “ShamWow” – the seemingly magical wash-thingmee that promises to soak up 20-times its weight in liquid.

Why do we like it? Well, it’s certainly nothing pretty, and the guy is not a little creepy, but the spot actually demonstrates what the product does in a compelling way. The east-coast pitchman, replete with headset and lively commentary (“It’s made in Germany, and you know the Germans always make good stuff”) simply shows you what the product does and, despite his snake-oil-salesman charm, it’s the truth. My daughter thought we should buy it, so we did, and it works. We were sold. The commercial did the job.

I mention all this because I think there is some onus on advertising agencies to deliver advertising that works. There is so much nice-looking dreck on TV, the Internet, the radio and on paper that achieves absolutely nothing positive for the companies that the ads are supposed to help.

Although organizations might be cutting ad-spend, I’m pretty sure that many will find the funds for commercials that actually work. We can blame the economy for the decline of advertising, but I think the poor quality of the ads themselves is also responsible.