LAUGHING@ADVERTISING

Today is launch day for my new book, Laughing@Advertising. Let's make it big!

As you know, the ad industry has become a toxic pile of shit. If you work in it, or deal with it, you probably could use a good laugh. As always, I'm here to help...

It's a collection of my most irresponsible and inappropriate blog posts, essays, and cave drawings. You might say it's 200 pages of insults, wise-cracks, cheap shots, and dirty words. In other words, fun for the whole family!

I'm out to disrupt the disruptors -- those somber, imperious souls who have made working in marketing and advertising such an earnest and humorless endeavor.

I am hoping this is the silliest, most injudicious book about our industry you've read. And also, in some unwholesome and subversive way, the truest and funniest.

The book is on sale now at Amazon. It is only available in paperback. There ain't gonna be no ebook. Why? Pixels aren't funny.

At $6.99 the paperback is cheaper than most of the stupid-ass marketing ebooks you buy anyway. So quit whining and click here.

And don't say I didn't warn you.

Clios? There Are Still Clios?

This was the week of the Clio Awards. Yes, they still exist. There was a time when a Clio award was a very big deal. Careers were made or broken. I once almost doubled my salary.

Today, the whole awards thing has been so devalued by scandals and phonies that it's hard to take them seriously.

Unlike many of my colleagues, I have always been a supporter of ad awards. I think that advertising creatives do a lot of suffering and are entitled to a little satisfaction and recognition. No doubt it would be nice if there was a little more integrity in the process.

The low point in the checkered history of ad awards came almost 30 years ago when the Clios turned into a hockey fight. People at the awards banquet attacked the stage, grabbed the statues and ran off with them.

It makes you proud to be in such a classy industry.

Who's Lying?

This week Bloomberg Businessweek had a shocking article about how the Chinese military had planted tiny spy microchips into the workings of very sensitive networks of over 30 American companies including Apple and Amazon.

The report is very specific and very upsetting.

The report says that these spy chips were capable of accessing information these companies were handling for businesses and government. Including systems for the CIA and other governmental agencies.

Both Apple and Amazon emphatically denied this story. But Bloomberg Businessweek says it has credible sources inside the companies and inside the government who confirm the story. Someone's lying.

50 Million Hacked. No One Gives A Shit.

As usual, the feckless marketing industry read the headlines about Facebook's irresponsible loss of 50 million subscriber files to hackers and yawned.

According to a headline in Adweek, "For Advertisers On Facebook, Friday's Security Breach 'Barely Registers'"

As you know, advertisers these days purport to be very concerned with integrity, transparency, and "brand purpose." Except, of course, when it might be inconvenient. "Advertisers are gearing up for Q4 and will be reticent to move spend..." said one ad executive. Another said, “The overall feeling is that no one is really paying attention..."

As long as the ad industry continues its pathetic whining about Facebook without doing anything they will get what they deserve.

Facebook, Google, Twitter More Dangerous Than Russians?

In a well-written piece entitled Russian Meddling Is a Symptom, Not the Disease, NY Times columnist Zeynep Tufekci argues that our home-grown social media are a bigger danger to democratic institutions than the Russians. Highly recommended.

Apple CEO Agrees With Dumbass Blogger

Last week in this space I wrote about how the tech giants would be testifying soon in Congress, "These creeps will probably present the argument that data abuse is critical to the economics of the web. It's bullshit."

This week Tim Cook, CEO of Apple and obviously an avid reader of this newsletter, had this to say, "The narrative that some companies will try to get you to believe is: 'I've got to take all of your data to make my service better.' Well, don't believe them...Whoever's telling you that, it's a bunch of bunk..."

"Bunk" is how CEOs pronounce "bullshit."

Still Some Humor Left In The World

A company called ExchangeWire claims to be "deep into the business of martech, ad tech and programmatic advertising" -- the dangerous, corrupt, fraud-ridden crap I'm always howling about.

ExchangeWire is holding "The Wires Awards" ceremony for their industry in London in November. In a wonderful demonstration of perverse bloody-mindedness, canny Twitter voters have elected me to the short list for the "Ad Tech Personality of the Year" award. Oh, what a lovely acceptance speech I would give!

And Did I Mention...
...that I have a new book?

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