NEWSLETTER #87/ October 15, 2017
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CLOWNS BEING CLOWNS
The digital Circus Of The Absurd came to town last week and a looney-tunes version of internecine warfare broke out.
The clown show known as the "Coalition For Better Ads" gave us some comedy gold as Google, the IAB, the ANA, and the 4As got into a pie fight over how to accomplish the unaccomplishable.
The background goes like this. Alarmed by the rapid growth of online ad blocking, about a year ago Google, Facebook, the IAB, ANA, 4As and a bunch of other online advertising grandees got together and formed the "Coalition For Better Ads." The stated purpose of this coalition was to “rid the internet of annoying ads.” Right, any minute.
As I said at the time..."This new Coalition For Better Ads...is doomed to spin in circles and accomplish nothing except waste money"
To that end, earlier this year Google - the big dog in this coalition - announced that it would build a partial ad blocker into its Chrome browser to block the worst of online ads. This "partial ad blocker" is the pretend solution-of-choice for a company that doesn't really want to solve the problem. We'll get to that in a minute.
Meanwhile, according to Ad Age this week..."Three of the biggest marketing trade bodies (the aforementioned IAB, ANA, and 4As) ...sent an open letter to the Coalition for Better Ads essentially arguing that companies like Google shouldn't be judge, jury and executioner when it comes to blocking annoying ads."
In other words, they dissed their "partner" Google for the sin of actually trying to do something about the problem they all claim they're trying to solve. Looks like trouble in the monkey house.
If these jokers were serious about "ridding the internet of annoying ads" the first move they would make would be to end tracking. As I argue in BadMen, if online advertising were not based on tracking...
- Consumers would not be constantly stalked and harassed by tracking spyware leading to insufferable “precision targeted” ads which are despised by the public, and are a primary cause of ad blocking.
- Online advertising would revert to brand-based advertising rather than the current direct response model which always produces the crappiest kind of advertising.
But this bogus coalition will deal with everything but the problem. The reason they will never effectuate "better ads" is that they are wedded to tracking. Tracking is their oxygen. And tracking is the unseen hand behind the awfulness of online advertising.
In the meantime, we can all get a nice laugh watching these bozos run around squirting each other with seltzer bottles.
60 Minutes Whiffs On Facebook
Last week 60 Minutes ran a segment about the guy who was Trump's Facebook advertising guru. It showed how he used Facebook's dangerous spyware and creepy targeting capability to influence likely Trump voters with messages individually designed for them. Without an ounce of evidence he claimed that his efforts were what won the election for Trump -- typical digital marketing horseshit.
While the segment did offer insights into the dangers of online campaign techniques, it failed to identify the real culprit -- you guessed it -- tracking. Without tracking, none of this Facebook scumbaggery would be possible.
SNL Homers On "Levi's Wokes"
Saturday Night Live had a wonderfully hilarious spoof of contemporary advertising and "180 degrees of gender non-conformity." Watch it here.
Trick Or Treat
From a recent talk by the great Don Marti...
"Adfraud isn’t taking candy from a baby, it’s taking candy from a dude whose job is giving away candy. More fraud means more money for adtech intermediaries."
Be sure to read the whole talk here. Your second assignment is to read this from Doc Searls.
One Last Time
I was going to give you a break this week from my relentless self-promotion, but how can I not mention this wonderful write-up from the great folks at Time, Inc UK? It would require far more self-control than a weak vessel like me could muster.
