NEWSLETTER #96 / Jan 7, 2018
No Images? Click here
2018: EVERYONE WILL BE WRONG AGAIN
The biggest advertising and marketing stories of 2017 were these:
- The Facebook/Russia election scandal
- P&G's Marc Pritchard dumps all over digital
- Brand safety hysteria
- Pepsi's Kendall Jenner disaster
- Google's $2.7 billion fine by the EU
Now go back one year and read the prognostications of marketing gurus and try to find someone who predicted anything close to any one of these stories. You'll find nothing.
Nonetheless, the past few weeks have been filled with more ponderous horseshit about what we should expect in the advertising and marketing industry in 2018. In fact, no one has the slightest idea what will happen in the next year, or in the next 10 minutes for that matter. But that doesn't stop them from writing dumb articles. There's only one thing you can count on for sure in 2018: All the geniuses will be wrong again.
And Speaking Of Geniuses Being Wrong...
On October 17th, I bookmarked an article I had read. It was about "research" done by the marketing prodigies at Accenture that predicted a lousy Christmas for retailers. It was headlined, "Accenture Predicts Sharp Decrease In Holiday Spending"
The article in question said that research indicated "a sharply lower forecast..." It said "new research from Accenture is predicting a decidedly Meh-ry Christmas, with average gift budgets falling to $632 from $851 last year."
I bookmarked this article because it smelled like total bullshit to me.
The so-called research was based on "online responses from 1,500 U.S. consumers" which makes it sound scientific. If there is anything less scientific than asking people what they intend to do, it is asking them this online.
As I suspected, the forecast was completely wrong. In fact, according the The Wall Street Journal, "...U.S. retail sales in the holiday period rose at their best pace since 2011..."
According to Reuters, "...shoppers spent over $800 billion during the season, more than ever before..."
Sleepwalking Into Hell
As you've probably read, a huge security flaw was announced by Intel in chips that power virtually all connected devices this week. The major effect is that all systems are vulnerable. Strangely, one of the potential side-effects may be an explosion in the use of ad blockers.
According to this computer security expert, hackers can exploit online advertising to take advantage of these newly discovered security flaws and get into virtually any machine or system. His advice to everyone is to install ad blockers on every device to counter this threat. His conclusion is that because online advertising is so vulnerable to this threat, it raises..."the spectre of an advertising meltdown."
The piece mentioned above is heavy going at times for non-computer nerds but it's definitely worth a read, even for bozos like us. (BTW, ad blockers are a bad thing. Read why in BadMen.)
I doubt this latest threat will result in an ad meltdown. More likely is that it will evaporate from the news in 10 days.
We now know that everything the tech industry has ever told us about security and privacy has turned out to be utter bullshit. As I have been saying for years, nothing is safe online. Let me repeat -- nothing. The average person is so used to security and privacy breeches that she pays little to no attention to these enormous dangers. We are sleepwalking into hell.
Shameless Self-Promotion, Part 1
We received some very nice press during the last weeks of the year. We were chosen one of ten marketing "Heroes of 2017"... BadMen was named "Best of Marketing Industry 2017"... We had the "most read" media story of 2017... and I was officially named "a Grinch."
And then there was this -------->
Shameless Self-Promotion, Part 2
Plans for 2018...
- I'm working on a new book of "humor" pieces about advertising tentatively called "Laughing At Advertising." Humor, by the way, is what you call stuff that's supposed to be funny but is only amusing.
- I'm developing a new talk called "Advertising's Digital Dystopia." I know,...it needs a better title. How about that "Sleepwalking Into Hell" thing I used above?
- Bulletin: There's a new podcast based on my blog posts called the Ad Contrarian Show that is now live here on iTunes. Please give it a listen and subscribe.
- I'm reducing my number of talks this year to about 10 -- travel's getting tiresome. So if you need a semi-coherent keynote speaker, book early.
- The first post of the year on The Ad Contrarian blog went nuclear. You can read it here or listen to the audio version on the aforementioned Ad Contrarian Show podcast.
