NEWSLETTER #88/ October 22, 2017
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WILDFIRE OF FRAUD
The marketing industry fiddles while the web burns.
If we are to believe an estimate by JPMorgan Chase, online ad fraud is out of control. They claim that this year it has more than doubled to $16.4 billion. Last year it was estimated to be $7.2 billion.
Meanwhile, the cluefree inner circle of marketing are filling each other full of hot air about the wonderful job they're doing fighting ad fraud. According to them and their happy talk cyber-security consultants, who have proven to be completely ineffectual, ad fraud will drop 10% this year. There's not a sensible, knowledgeable person anywhere to be found who believes this horseshit. But it is perfectly indicative of the fantasyland our industry "leaders" are living in.
The major problem is this: There's no one seriously fighting fraud. We have a wildfire burning and there's no fire department. The ad tech industry is spending $1.5 million to fight ad fraud. What fraction of the cost of the problem are they spending on a solution? Do the math, it's .00009. Is it any wonder fraud grew over 100% this year?
The barrier to entry to ad fraud is virtually non-existent, and there are no penalties for being caught. It is the perfect crime - anyone can do it, no one competent is fighting it, and no one goes to jail. The World Federation of Advertisers says within 8 years it may be the second largest source of criminal income in the world, after drug trafficking.
BIG MOUTHS, BIG SUCKERS
The ANA, who fully support the current contemptible system of online tracking that underpins the corrupt programmatic ad buying ecosystem, fell victim to its own venality this week when an ad of theirs embarrassingly appeared on big, bad Breitbart.
The ANA said the ad was "an unintentional result of a programmatic buy..." So, ANA, I have a question for you: If the fucking Association of National Advertisers can't figure out where their fucking advertising is running, how the fuck is anyone else supposed to? (Sorry for the triple f-bombs but under the circumstances they felt awfully good.)
AND SPEAKING OF SUCKERS...
Last week it was reported that P&G, Unilever, Hershey’s, Johnson & Johnson, Ford, MGM and about 100 other brands were screwed out of millions of dollars by an ad fraud conspiracy consisting of several major online advertising insiders. You can read about it here.
By the way, you can bet that every one of these suckers has a laughable cyber-security consulting firm telling them that their buys are 100% fraud free. What a joke this industry has become.
AND SPEAKING OF JOKES...
In this week's Department Of You Can't Make This Shit Up, Google was found to be serving fake news to fact-checking sites. That's right, the people who are supposed to be exposing fake news are actually running fake news.
Politifact is a fact-checking site. This week it ran a fake news ad headline claiming Melania Trump is leaving the White House...
And where did this false click bait headline on Politifact lead to? A fraudulent version of the Vogue website which featured the same fake news story, but real advertising from real suckers.
The whole mess was enabled by Google's AdWords system. It's a good thing Google doesn't give a shit or they might be embarrassed.
AND SPEAKING OF SPEAKING
I've got some travel coming up in the next few weeks.
I'll be in Nice on November 8th speaking at the ASI International Radio & Audio and Television & Video Conferences. I'll be talking about the current state of online advertising. Then I'll be on a panel with the great David Wheldon, CEO of the World Federation of Advertisers and Andy Brown, CEO of Kantar Media (WPP.)
Then I'm going to the Czech Republic to speak at the Prague Marketing Festival on November 10. I'll be speaking to a couple thousand online advertisers/marketers who are going to hate everything I have to say. Can't wait.
Think it's easy being me?
