Fairfax County (my home) has launched a  $1,000,000.00 TV campaign to attract businesses to Virginia.  Gerald Gordon, president and chief executive of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority was quoted in the Washington Post as saying “we’ve got the momentum built.  A lot of our competition is unable to do this now.”

What? Not able to engage in massive waste?

So, lets see–some guy is sitting around waiting to watch his favorite team play and he’s interrupted by a TV ad that says “move to Virginia and he picks up the phone, calls his CEO, and starts the move?” That’s really going to happen?

Here’s what’s actually going to happen: 99.99999999% of the eyes that view the ad aren’t even a qualified prospect for the message of the ad. Of the minuscule percentage that might actually be qualified (i.e. be in a position to influence a company to pick up and move to Virginia) how many of those will actually be ready, willing and able to move?

Here’s the great thing about ads like this. They are absolutely untrackable. So the agency that created it and the nitwits that approved it won’t ever be able to tell, one way or the other, whether it creates even $1.00 in return on investment (ROI) for Virginia. I’ll bet there’s no call to action, no unique URL and no unique, trackable phone number in the ad. Its great because neither the creators nor the approvers of this this massive waste of taxpayer money can  ever be held responsible for its total failure.

But….they’ll gather around the boardroom and pat themselves on the back and say, “look at that great ad…aren’t we smart?”

Far better to have taken that million and targeted companies that were likely to have some interest in moving to Fairfax and doing something to market directly to them.