I am not a believer in the effectiveness of most mainstream advertising. Even though I pay attention, I can rarely recall any adverts after a day.

The UK advertising industry turns over £16.8bn annually. That seems a huge number but it’s only £264 per person.

Advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable. - Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad

I first read that quote a few years ago and liked it from the angle of unremarkable businesses having to pay to get attention. But more recently I’ve appreciated it from a different angle. Advertising is a tax. It pays for services that we, the public, want. Big Brother, Downton Abbey, Facebook , commercial radio, free newspapers on the tube - all paid for by the tax of advertising.

I’d be interested to see independent research on the effectiveness of ads though. It seems to me this is an industry with enormous vested interests in the status quo. Publishers, advertisers, agencies, audiences, the state - all have an enormous incentive to perpetuate the idea that advertising is effective. There really isn’t anyone who benefits from saying it doesn’t work. The only conflict is between different forms of advertising for share of budgets - and I think this will become more commonplace and we’ll see the likes of Google and Facebook going head-to-head with TV.