would you choose a single great ad or ten crap ones?

One key principle of an advertising campaign is to get across the benefits of your product in as many mediums as possible all within your budget - purists call it integrated.

But which would you go for if you could choose a single well-designed, well-targeted ad or ten poorly designed, poorly targeted ads (total media and design cost of the two options is identical)? 

You're a public transport marketing manager tasked with raising awareness of your brand and selling particular tickets to a particular market at a particular time. You have to report back to your commercial director and justify what you've spent, where you've spent it, and why you've spent it.

It's all down to you, and even if you've got a team, you're in charge of its direction.

So, what are you thinking? 

The majority of people will go for the numbers. Whilst design quality is subjective, it's difficult to argue with a x10 exposure for the same money.

And that's where digital advertising is heading in comparison to Out of Home. Ads that are cheap to produce (often to a template) and cost-effective to reach thousands of eyeballs (hopefully human ones). 

Are they any good? Are people looking at them? Are they achieving results? Who cares when you've got figures to say a bazillion people have seen it for half a second.

And when it's difficult to prove the effectiveness of anything in advertising, you might as well stick to talking about large numbers to prove your point and justify your decisions.