It’s the programming, stupid.

That was the collective message delivered to TBWA Chiat/Day Inc. by the nation’s media over the past couple of weeks, following the debut of the agency’s attention-stealing campaign for the ABC television network.

The New York Times called the campaign “glib,” “flip” and “risky.” TV Guide said ABC’s own marketing research had shown that viewers were “confused and alienated” by the ads, and Adweek said they “just aren’t funny.”

Advertising Age ad reviewer Bob Garfield thought the ads were very funny, but conceded that they wouldn’t have much effect in driving viewers to ABC because people watch programs, not brands.

Closer to home, local advertising executives are just as unkind. One art director suggested that the folks in the Binoculars Building must have gotten a bulk discount deal on yellow ink hence the striking yellow backgrounds on billboards for both the Nissan Altima (another Chiat/Day client) and ABC.

“The rap on Chiat/Day has long been that their ads are good for the agency, but not necessarily the client,” said the head of another local agency.

Giant-killing is America’s favorite contact sport, so it’s little wonder that pundits (and competitors) take such glee in tearing down one of the nation’s most successful ad agencies. But the criticism, and the apparent backlash against image-oriented, “branding”-style ads, does bring up some legitimate points about today’s advertising styles and may lead to a reluctance by both clients and agencies to pursue similar strategies in the future.

It’s not the first time TBWA Chiat/Day has gotten flak for making funny ads that don’t sell widgets. Its Nissan campaign won just about every ad industry award there is, but it didn’t sell cars. In fact, Nissan sales plummeted for the first four months of the campaign, and didn’t rebound until Nissan started offering sales incentives in January.

Chiat/Day creative guru Lee Clow later told The Wall Street Journal that his agency would start running more retail-oriented commercials for Nissan, in addition to the brand-building ads. “We learned our lesson,” Clow told the Journal.

But did he? The ABC spots are classic “image” ads, something no TV network has ever attempted. There isn’t an ABC star, or an ABC show, anywhere in sight; instead, the billboards and commercials seem to be trying to position ABC as the good-sport network that’s not afraid to poke fun at itself, and television viewing in general.

“This kind of advertising is like expecting people to walk into a store and say, ‘I’d like a Proctor & Gamble.’ People don’t do that, they buy Tide,” said Murray Kalis, creative director with Kalis & Savage Advertising in Pacific Palisades.

The campaign brings up two interesting questions. First, are there certain clients for which you just shouldn’t even try to build a brand identity? Or, in cases in which image ads don’t sell product, is the problem simply that the agency didn’t do a good job creatively?

Certainly, brand-building doesn’t work for everybody. You don’t see Capitol Records spending millions to market its brand name, since nobody buys albums because they like the label.

But Chiat/Day’s raison d’etre is brand building, and one of the classic tenets of advertising is that the best way to build a company’s value over time is to develop a strong brand identity.

To Bruce Miller, president of West L.A.-based Suissa Miller Advertising Inc., the ideal campaign should both build brand identity and generate sales. If it doesn’t do both, it’s flawed.

“Our clients judge our advertising by whether or not it helps them sell stuff,” Miller said. “Esoteric stuff like getting the campaign talked about in bars by people who work in advertising is not a priority.”

But Saatchi & Saatchi Pacific Chief Executive Joe Cronin urges patience. Just because sales don’t increase in the first few months, or even years, of a campaign doesn’t mean the execution was poor. Sales promotions might generate money in the short term, but creating name recognition will generate higher overall sales in the long run.

“(Chiat/Day’s Nissan and ABC strategies) are a ballsy decision, because you’re not going to get sales results overnight,” Cronin said. “But I think it’s the intelligent decision.”

The critics of Chiat/Day’s ABC campaign could well be accused of writing its epitaph while the patient is still perky. ABC’s first fall season show has yet to hit the airwaves, and for all anyone knows, all those “Husband not funny?” or “Eight hours a day, that’s all we ask” quips might send audiences flocking to the network’s fall shows “Nothing Sacred” and “Dharma and Greg.”

Of course, they probably won’t. But then the campaign has only just started.

“Everyone is jumping on something that isn’t really done,” said TBWA Chiat/Day Chief Executive Bob Kuperman. “Now that we’ve gotten everyone’s attention, we’ll start talking about the new shows on ABC.”

Chiat/Day’s strategy from the beginning has been to first launch the image campaign, then roll out spots touting the network’s new shows. The second phase will start this week although Kuperman, perhaps justifiably paranoid, says the media will undoubtedly accuse his agency of putting out the show-oriented spots simply as a reaction to all the criticism.

Kuperman believes the ideal strategy is to do retail and brand advertising simultaneously. In ABC’s case, the idea was to generate a likeability factor for the network, attract lots of attention, and then introduce the new shows.

“We believe you have to be liked before you’re heard,” Kuperman said.

News Editor Dan Turner writes a weekly marketing column for the Los Angeles Business Journal.