THE GURU'S LECTURE: Your first lecture here at Guru U is designed to open your minds to some harsh facts of life.

The specific point today is to prove that you do NOT know how to judge the merit of a commercial. If I show you a spot, and ask you to tell me if it is a good ad or a bad ad, you will have an opinion.

Your snapshot opinion will be based on things such as the quality of the spot, the people in it, the copy, or the snazzy use of production techniques. With your years of experience as a TV viewer, you are able to pronounce judgment instantly!

So too does the client believe they know what should be in a good spot, how it should look, and what it should say.

But grasshoppers and clients be wary! This kind of thinking could lead you straight into the spinning prop of a cropduster . Read the 30 second discussion below and let us begin to change the way we judge commercials.

"So how do we decide if a commercial qualifies as a good ad or a bad ad?"

"Guru, this is the first lesson and already you are making me nervous! I've been doing this for twenty years and I know a good spot when I see one."

"He is right on. I'm in production and we are experts. We decide what is good or bad, and that is what matters."

"Sometimes opening the mind of a student is like farting upwind. May I ask a simple question? If you produce a great ad, the client loves it, it wins awards, it causes butterflies to sing, yet fails to sell anything, is it still a great ad?"

"That is a bit of a problem. I'd have to admit that all the awards would not matter if it did not work"

"Actually, if nobody buys the product it really stinks. It would become a bad ad."

"So often we cannot judge an ad ourselves. There can only be one judge and that is the almighty cash register. In my years of travel, I have seen many ads I thought were great ads and yet they failed to sell stuff. Some ads appeared to be awful but rang the bell with sales. Thus the point of Rule Number One: In order to find out if we have a good ad or a bad ad, we must know IF IT WORKED. Nothing else matters!" Click here to watch a real spot that demonstrates the challenging principle behind Rule 1.

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