#237/ Jan. 31, 2021

NEXT GENERATION OF HORSESHIT

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's go over to the time machine...

On August 1, 2007, I published my very first blog post. It was called "Aiming Low." It was about advertisers' stupid obsession with young people. It opened, "Of all the dumb things that advertisers do, one of the dumbest is aiming their message too young."

In the intervening 14 years, I've become a terrible bore on this subject -- mostly to no avail. Recently, however, some in the advertising and marketing industry are starting to come out of their coma. This week, The Wall Street Journal ran a piece entitled "Older Shoppers Are the Hot New Thing for Consumer Brands." This chart from the article is similar to a chart I use when I do my conference talks.

But facts never seem to be an impediment to idiocy, and we are still being treated to the same generational baloney we had to suffer through during The Great Millennial Scare of the last decade. This week Business Insider published the transcript of a suicide-inducing podcast by VCs Andreessen Horowitz that gives us thrilling new Gen Z nonsense direct from the mouth of a 23-year old Gen Z ceo.

First we learn that Gen Z has $143 billion in spending power. This is supposed to overwhelm us with amazement. Apparently Ms Gen Z ceo isn't aware that  people over 50 have $7.6 trillion in spending power. And that Gen Z's spending power isn't even 2% of that of old fucks.

Then we get this stunning dose of arrogance: "If you don't have the youth using your product or talking about your product or sharing your product, I hate to break it to you: you're irrelevant." Hey, self-important Gen Z ceo, I've got breaking news for you. If there's anyone who's irrelevant to a business person with half a lobe it's you.

And talk about smug: "Gen Z considers anyone who is not really speaking their language or not understanding their trend, a boomer. It doesn't matter if you're a millennial, it doesn't matter if you're a Gen X, it doesn't matter if you're a boomer, Gen Zs are going to call you boomers anyway." Oh my god, please... please your blessed one, please don't call me a boomer!

Then, of course, there's the inescapable, insufferable bullshit about how this new generation respects authenticity ..."the more raw and genuine you are, the more you'll connect with people."

I can't go on. Let's just say the rest of the piece is one continuous repetition of the word "TikTok" until you want to stick a knife in your head.

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To make a point about how stupid the whole "this generation is different" crap is, I will now insert a quote from Time magazine...

“This generation has no fantasies…today’s youth appears more deeply committed to… decency, tolerance, brotherhood — than almost any generation…What (this generation) possesses in every stratum is a keen ability to sense meaning on many levels at the same time…Today’s young are committed as was no previous generation to redeeming… social imperfections.”

This quote is from Time’s Person of the Year, 1967 — baby boomers.

And, in conclusion, we have this from Advertising For Skeptics:

"Researchers, media, and marketing experts have been selling us the exact same generational twaddle for over fifty years now, and we dimwits keep buying it.

Here’s how it works. If you want to be a successful consultant or marketing guru you must first convince the hysterical and the gullible (that’s us!) that things are changing dramatically and they are in dire danger of becoming irrelevant if they don’t understand the new type of human that is now changing the world.

So every fifteen or twenty years they invent a new generation that’s completely different from the last. They have distinctive, mysterious characteristics that only the deeply connected and erudite (that’s us!) can explain. It’s all bullshit. It’s astrology. How can you possibly take an enormous component of the population — tens of millions of people — and say they all have this or that characteristic? The absurdity is thrilling."

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Dear Marketer, before you get all hysterical over the horseshit the hustlers and dimwits are peddling about Gen Z, please remember this: There's as much variation within generations as there is between generations.

In my mind, the difference between a business and a hobby is that a business makes money. By that definition, podcasting is overwhelmingly a hobby. According to an article this week in Axios "The podcast business is booming, but few are making money." I always think of podcasting like the music business - fifty people making a million dollars and a million people making 50 dollars.

Some facts on podcasting:
   - 1% of podcasts get 99% of the downloads
   - The total of all podcast advertising revenue is less than $1 billion annually
   - The median number of downloads per month for a podcast is 124  
   - Even the top 20% of podcasts only average about 1,000 downloads/month

Here's a chart from the Axios article that shows how skimpy podcast download activity is:

Podcasting is very popular with certain groups of people, but it won't be replacing TV any time soon. For the most part, it is a good way to communicate with relatively small groups of people interested in a niche subject. I will be very surprised if the Qanon nutjobs don't become some of the heaviest podcasters once they figure out how a microphone works.

The criminal charges against Epsilon alleged that they had sold information on 30 million consumers to scammers. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Epsilon acknowledged one of its units sold consumer lists to clients it knew were involved in false sweepstakes...over a roughly nine-year period..."

Additionally, Epsilon continued to sell consumer data to creeps engaged in fraud even after some of them had been arrested. Another proud day for the adtech industry.

You probably remember a few weeks ago we wrote about the pathetic ad campaign Facebook was running in major newspapers claiming that they were the defenders of small business and Apple was the enemy. Apple's crime? Giving consumers a choice on whether they wanted to be spied on by creeps like Facebook.

This week, Tim Cook, Apple ceo said, “It seems no piece of information is too private or personal to be surveilled, monetized and aggregated into a 360-degree view of your life...Technology does not need vast troves of personal data, stitched together across dozens of websites and apps, in order to succeed... Advertising existed and thrived for decades without it...”

Meanwhile, back in Menlo Park, sweaty haircut boy was busy plotting revenge. According to the NY Times, "Facebook has considered filing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, two people familiar with the deliberations said, a move that could escalate tensions between two of the world’s most powerful technology companies."

This could definitely be fun.

LinkedIn B2B global lead, Peter Weinberg said, “Product people (who tend to be highly influential in the development of B2B ads - BH) particular lean more towards...rational type of communication where we just have to articulate the product’s benefits and features and, if it’s a great product, of course our customers will buy it.”

Not really. In 75% of the cases, the ads got the lowest possible rating - a rating Weinberg and friends say "is contributing zero in terms of long-term market share growth." Read about it in Marketing Week.

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