Our research findings were shocking.

We asked 1,500 people how often they see a social ad that isn't relevant to them. Only 8% said rarely.

And fewer than 1% said they always see relevant social ads.

We know that relevant ads earn 3x more attention.

So why is the industry still making content that doesn't feel relevant? 

Social - with its powers of data collection that border on the unethical - was supposed to solve the problem of relevancy.

Something doesn't add up.

Nobody reading this is really satisfied making advertising that feels irrelevant.

But if we can't blame our tools, then what can we blame?

My suggestion is that certain parts of the industry need to look at the way work is being made, because they are a step behind what's possible.

With that in mind, here's my handy guide for making completely irrelevant work that gets ignored.

1. Audience understanding

Gove was right. We're all sick of experts. And data. Who needs it when you've got a perfectly good gut right under your very nose. To avoid understanding your audience  follow these easy steps:

• Avoid at all costs any research around how your audience behaves. The last thing you want is to know what turns them on or off. Do not use Google data or listening data to understand the behaviour and attitudes of your target audience. Do not look at how the broader content of culture and technology could be shaping the preferences and attitudes of this audience.

• Speak to nobody.

• Don't learn about behavioural science. Forget I even mentioned behavioural science.

Top tip: Work in total isolation. Trust your gut and your own experience and don't look for knowledge that will only get in the way of your gut instinct, which is 100% right all the time.

2.Targeting

Honestly don't worry about it. You may have heard of some marketers tweaking their creative for different audiences to try to be more relevant or 'increase saliency'. It's all just hot air.

• Resist the urge to target by things like interest, weather, time of year and search terms. It will just make your campaign more complicated.

• What works for one person is bound to work for everyone, so stick to one asset, serve it to everyone and treat yourself to an ice-cream sundae.

Top tip: Your audience is everyone, all the time. Set your parameters to global, even if you only sell in the UK. The CPM in some parts of southern Asia are cracking.

3.Campaign structure

Ignore the idea that successful campaigns are a combination of mass reach and targeted communication. 

Everyone knows that people can see your brand too much and will get bored. So, do not link your social media output with the other functions of marketing. That annoying bloke in the brand is running a TV campaign. Let him get on with it and don't worry about sharing assets or going to the effort of creating a joined up journey.

• Don't consider different campaign 'shapes' such as a miniseries or tease, amplify, echo. Remember that Guinness TV ad? Exactly. So do that kinda stuff.

• Do not share data with marketing. 

• Do not ask for data from marketing. 

Top tip: Randomly start a new channel on that cool sounding social platform because you spend a lot of time there yourself.

4. Creative

When it's time to get creative, question yourself. Is it?

For too long advertising has been trying to grab people's attention.

It's time to think differently.

Kevin Coster said it best; "If you build it, they will come"

Try your best to make the work blend into the newsfeed. Some marketers will advise against creating wallpaper that is ignored by customers, but that they forget is that almost everyone owns at least one roll of wallpaper. Think about it.

Top Tip: When creating a video, begin with something really poignant like five seconds of silence on a dark screen. It will really build the tension. Then make the audience work hard to figure out what they're watching. 

So there you have it. A foolproof way to produce irrelevant work. Follow these tips and you can almost guarantee you'll make irrelevant work, all of the time. (This is a guess, as I naturally have no data to support it).

I recommend you print off a copy of this tick list, along with this artist's impression of Gove Costner (the love child of Kevin Costner and Michael Gove).

If you're ever in doubt, remember his immortal words which can be summarised as follows

"If you ignore the experts, sales will come"