NIKE'S STUNNING COWARDICE

I was apparently the only person on the planet who hated the campaign. At the time I wrote...

"It is stale, cliché-ridden nonsense...It is baloney posing as self-actualization boosterism. It is star spangled bullshit. It could have been written by the most mendacious of the self-help con men who litter the corporate conference circuit...Nike is doing a terrible disservice to people - particularly young, poor, minority people - by selling them sneakers via the con job fantasy that they should "sacrifice everything" and be the next LeBron James or Serena Williams. They can’t. The LeBron Jameses and the Serena Williamses of the world are one in a billion... Having taught young people for a few years, I have seen the confusion that this kind of slick, glib baloney can engender... Parents, teachers, and community leaders tell young people to stay in school, work hard, and get an education. Nike tells them it’s a good idea to 'sacrifice everything' to become a famous athlete..."

This week, Nike was exposed -- not for its bravery, but for its hypocrisy and cowardice.

Reuters reported that as a result of a tweet by Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey that supported Hong Kong protestors and angered the neo-fascist Chinese regime, "Managers at five Nike stores in Beijing and Shanghai...had been told in recent days via a memo from management that all Rockets merchandise had to be removed."

I am not a moral absolutist. The world is a very messy and complicated place and living in it while maintaining ethical purity is a near-impossible task.

But if you're going to pound your chest and preach to the world to "Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything" and you are willing to sacrifice nothing for the sake of your billions in profits, you just lost any respect I had left.

Another nail in the coffin of the cynical con game known as "brand purpose."

The former Director of the GCHQ told an audience this week that, “The big revelation over the last couple of years has been not about government intelligence agencies, it’s been about the private sector. It is about the internet companies knowing more about me, you, everyone in the hall than any intelligence agency ever could or should know about us."

“This is truly dangerous. I think it’s a major threat to democracy and it’s uncontrollable.”

Dude must have read BadMen. I think he has a bright future as a dumbass blogger.

As always, nothing Facebook says can be believed. I spoke to a few ambulance chasers and they tell me that there's no way it would have cost Facebook $40 million in legal costs to fight this lawsuit. Especially since they have about a billion attorneys on staff.

I have a theory. I think Facebook settled because they were afraid of "discovery," in which their records would have been open to inspection. I can only imagine what kind of other slime would have been exposed. I don't have a single fact to back this theory up, but it wouldn't surprise me.

In other conspiracy news... it looks to me like the plaintiffs in this lawsuit were all small advertisers. I wonder how much Facebook secretly paid to settle with big advertisers?

And once again, let's ask the pivotal question: How can it be that the agency buyers who are supposed to be experts at evaluating, analyzing and understanding online metrics did not know they were being screwed blind by Facebook with such outrageously false claims?

And the answer is... online advertising is still a gigantic con and no one wants to kill the golden goose.

Since then, there has been a tornado of hot air about "transparency." But according to recent reports, distrust among brands has only grown. Doug Wood is a lawyer who has been right in the middle of the controversy. As general counsel to the ANA for 20 years, Wood's comments give you a pretty good read on how the ANA is viewing things these days.

Tom Denford interviews Doug here on MediaSnack Meets. I've known Doug for a long time and while he's cautious in his comments, he's also a straight shooter. It's interesting stuff.

I wish Tom had pressed Doug on why the ANA has been so irresponsible in its position on online surveillance.

"Neville Doyle, chief strategy officer at Town Square, suggested it was 'enormously improbable' that Twitter 'inadvertently' improved its ad product with the sensitive data, and blasted the tech giant for being either 'either immoral or incompetent'. Either way, he said, it was playing 'fast and loose with users' privacy'."

According to a senior producer at CNET, "Security is supposed to be 'church and state' — in a totally different bucket...Connecting those two is a serious violation of security and privacy... the information you provided to protect your account was used to target you with advertisements." 

Twitter has not revealed how long this was going on or how many of its users were affected by it. And, as usual, the ad industry doesn't give a hot shit and isn't asking.

Twitter claims it was just an innocent "inadvertant" mistake. This makes them either the world's second biggest liars (no one can top Facebook) or the world's second most incompetent enterprise (ditto.)

I believe what they did is illegal. There is a concept in the GDPR known as the “purpose limitation” principle that forbids companies who collect data for one specific purpose to use it for another. There is a similar regulation in the US (originally intended to protect the health data of individuals) that essentially provides the same “purpose limitation” protection to individuals.

BTW, if you need a good fake lawyer, I'm available.

My upcoming talks in the next few weeks include a webinar for the Advertising and Marketing International Network (AMIN); a live online interview for The Conference Board; and a presentation at NextM Poland, in Warsaw.

The smaller the mind, the bigger the mouth.

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.