ADTECH: "ILLEGAL" AND "OUT OF CONTROL"

- The behavioral advertising industry is illegally profiling internet users ("behavioral advertising" is fancy-ass marketing bullshit for tracking-based advertising.)

- Consent from users to be tracked is not being obtained legally. Real Time Bidding (RTB), the auction process by which most online ads are sold, is illegally broadcasting private personal information about individuals all over the web.

- According TechCrunch "The ICO also specifically calls out industry mechanisms created by the Internet Advertising Bureau and Google ... as falling short of the legal standard."

- "Spy files (are)... being routinely handed off to (at least) hundreds of companies who are involved in the adtech chain every time there’s a programmatic ad transaction." There are billions of programmatic transactions daily.

 - The ICO says...“The processing operations involved in RTB are...likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals.”

- TechCrunch says, this could be  "a knock-out blow for highly invasive data-driven ads."

Yeah, in our dreams.

"My tests of Chrome versus Firefox unearthed a personal data caper of absurd proportions. In a week of web surfing on my desktop, I discovered 11,189 requests for tracker “cookies” that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer, but were automatically blocked by Firefox. These little files are the hooks that data firms, including Google itself, use to follow what websites you visit so they can build profiles of your interests, income and personality."

"Chrome is even sneakier on your phone. If you use Android, Chrome sends Google your location every time you conduct a search."

Here's the dumbass blogger version of how this works...

Crooks buy ads with phony locations on Google maps. They show up as those little pointy locator thingies. According to the Journal, "The ruse lures the unsuspecting to what appear to be Google-suggested local businesses, a costly and dangerous deception."

"Online advertising specialists...estimated that Google Maps carries roughly 11 million falsely listed businesses on any given day. They say a majority of the listings for contractors, electricians, towing and car repair services, movers and lawyers, among other business categories, aren’t located at their pushpins on Google Maps. Shams among these service categories...can snag people at their most vulnerable."

Read the article here.

From The New Yorker magazine this week...

This week at the Cannes Festival of Global Self-Importance, Pepsi's VP of Marketing gave The Drum a little insight into how Pepsi believes their customers are different. And, no, I didn't make this up...

“They have this mindset of somebody who likes to live out loud – they're more likely to clap at the end of a movie, cheer out loud at a sporting event,” he explains. “We've gotten very deep with understanding our consumer, which has been one of the big unlocks of really being consumer-first and consumer grounded in everything we do....We want to really celebrate them and help them live their lives more unapologetically and feel these moments of unapologetic enjoyment with them.”

Is it possible that a grown man actually believes this horseshit? Someone needs to kick this meatball in the ass and explain to him that Pepsi shares 70% of its customers with Coke. How's that for a "big unlock?"

As mentioned above, advertising's annual Carnival of Nauseating Extravagance took place at Cannes this week. I wrote a blog piece ridiculing it and it went nuclear, so I'm reproducing it here today...

      - A very casually dressed ceo from a very big holding company said that the consumer is changing and we have to change to keep up with the changing consumer. He said we have to evolve or die.

   - A very rich and famous creative person gave a very stirring speech about how creativity is the heart and soul of our industry and we have to get back to celebrating creativity. Agencies that don't prioritize creativity won't be around long.

   - Another famous creative person with very expensive eye-wear said we need to be brave. Those that aren't brave won't last.

   - A very earnest female executive gave a talk about how we have to value all people regardless of sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, absence of religion, age, ability, body type or gluten sensitivity. Marketers that don't value diversity will soon be dead.

   - A very European planner gave a talk about how we have to stop thinking short-term and realize that brands are built by long-term strategy. Those who focus on the short-term will disappear in the long-term. (Then she hurried out to see how many tweets her talk got.)

   - A panel discussion was held to discuss the future of marketing. It was agreed that more personalization was necessary to make marketing more relevant to consumers. Brands that don't have better insights into individual consumer behavior don't have long to live.

   - A panel discussion was held to discuss the future of the agency business. It was agreed that the agency business must align its priorities to the evolving needs of our clients or we will fade away.  

   - A very famous celebrity from outside the advertising industry gave a talk on why he/she now pays as much attention to social media as he/she does to acting/singing/basketball. "You have to stay in touch to stay alive."

   - A very famous billionaire sent a very mid-level executive to explain how their company is committed to protecting consumer privacy by developing an AI process to screen out everything and everyone that is bad. "If we don't do that, we have no future."

   - A research expert said that in order to understand Gen Z we must forget everything we know about Millennials, who were digital natives, and start to understand Gen Z, who are "digital aboriginals." Ignoring the needs of Gen Z is a death sentence.

   - A panel of branding experts agreed that consumers now expect brands to be socially responsible and make the world a better place for all people regardless of sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, absence of religion, age, ability, body type or gluten sensitivity. Brands that don't do that will soon be extinct.

There is so much potential for death in the advertising business these days that there is only one responsible way to avoid marketing's grim reaper -- hang out on yachts and gulp putrid rosé.

Thank goodness there are thousands of men and women from around the world who are willing to do this on our behalf.

Otherwise, we'd be dead.

For Bob's website go here. For info on having Bob speak, go here.
For all previous newsletters go here.  For Bob's blog go here.