No images? Click here ![]() CIVIL WAR BY ALGORITHM You're probably going to think I'm being hysterical, and I hope you're right... I would love to stop writing about politics and get back to writing about advertising. Unfortunately, there is now an unambiguous, toxic connection between the two that cannot be ignored. Let's start at the beginning. In the entirety of what we laughingly call "civilization" there has never been a form of government that has survived. Not one. Not ever. Sooner or later they all get overthrown and replaced (in the vast majority of cases they last fewer than 100 years.) ![]() What reason do we have to believe the US is exempt from history? Correct -- absolutely none. There seems to be a naive belief among many -- particularly among the self-congratulatory big-city street-dancers -- that our recent presidential election saved "democracy as we know it." Count me as officially skeptical. We are not at the end of something, we are at the beginning. I believe we may be in the first stages of what could turn out to be a death spiral for our form of government. To a significant degree, this horrifying possibility is being driven by the advertising and marketing industry. Yes, I'm serious. You don't have to be a sociology major to recognize that a substantial amount of the radical polarization in this country has been propelled by ultra-factionalization on social media. The algorithms employed by social media and other online sources of "news" and "information" divide us into warring camps by feeding us ever more radical notions of our own predispositions and connecting us ever more closely with others who share them. In other words, the growing wedge that has appeared in our culture and our society has been driven significantly by the hidden hand of digital algorithms. The oxygen that makes these algorithms effective and noxious is the information about us that is collected through online tracking by advertisers, marketers, and our surrogates in the media. Let's be very clear about this. The relentless collection of online data that feeds the toxic algorithms that are tearing our society apart is being effectuated on behalf of the advertising and marketing industry. There is nothing even slightly ambiguous about this. In my 2017 book, BadMen: How Advertising Went From A Minor Annoyance To A Major Menace, I asserted that we are aware of the consequences that accrue when governments know everything about us, follow us everywhere, and listen in on everything we say. But we don't know the dangers when marketers do the same. Now we are beginning to know. We are starting to understand those consequences, and we would be foolish to assume they are not poisonous. The so-called leadership of our industry - the trade organizations, the CEOs of agencies and holding companies, the C-somethings of brands and media -- have not been tacit bystanders to all this. They have been active cheerleaders for the continued collection of information that powers the algorithms and inflames the divisions. They have opposed every regulatory initiative to limit personal data collection and exploitation. As an industry, we have to be smarter than our clueless "leaders" and do something about this. We need to demand that our industry kingpins acknowledge what they are enabling and start to act responsibly. Ten years ago we were expecting a golden age for advertising. We had dazzling new tools, new media, and new technology. Instead, we got a decade of scandals, corruption, and disillusionment. The question is, have we learned anything? Do we have the wisdom to do a mid-course correction? If not, we are now headed for ten years that will be infinitely worse. ![]() Whacking It In Public Let's all stop for a minute, take a deep breath, and thank heaven for the endless supply of nitwits in the marketing business who -- despite our many problems and anxieties -- keep us blissfully entertained. If you've ever wondered why the rest of the world laughs at us and thinks we're ridiculous let me explain... ![]() This week, Mondelēz (the people who make Oreos, Tang, and other candies disguised as food) introduced a "unique approach" to marketing. They call it "Humaning." No, I'm not kidding. Listen to this horseshit: “Humaning is a unique, consumer-centric approach to marketing that creates real, human connections with purpose, moving Mondelēz International beyond cautious, data-driven tactics, and uncovering what unites us all. We are no longer marketing to consumers, but creating connections with humans.” I guess previously they were creating connections with squirrels or ducks or something. There is not another industry in the world that would tolerate this horseshit. In any sober industry the perpetrators of this nonsense would be taken out back by grown-ups and beaten to a pulp. Then they'd beat up on the pulp. You may be wondering about the source of this remarkable stupidity. It comes from that bottomless pit of masturbatory self-delusion called "brand purpose." You see, these days there is a certain species of corporate dipshit who is unwilling to admit to themselves that they are in the crass business of making money. It's just not very dignitying. Consequently, they create imaginary virtues about their enterprise for the purpose of convincing themselves that they're engaged in noble pursuits. ![]() As far as I'm concerned that's just fine. If you want to pleasure yourself, go right ahead. But please, confine it to your board room where no one's watching. Now that Mondelēz has decided their brand purpose is "humaning," I think they ought to align their brand name with their purpose. I'd like to suggest they change it to Morondelēz. ![]() Grey Goes Black This week, WPP killed 103-year-old Grey advertising. WPP may not be very good at building things, but they have certainly become excellent at killing them. (BTW, Morondelēz is a WPP client.) ![]() ![]() The $100,000,000 Glitch You may remember that last week in this space we had a piece about the farce that is online media and audience measurement. We wrote, "measuring online media has turned out to be a nightmare... After 25 years...we're not any closer to being able to verify the horseshit we're being fed by online media." ![]() Right on cue this week, social media giant LinkedIn announced that they had been overcharging their advertisers for video advertising for two years based on inflated video metrics. They called it a "glitch." According to AdAge, this glitch affected over 400,000 advertisers and may have netted LinkedIn over $100 million dollars. One bitch of a glitch. ![]() TrumpTV Friends of President Trump have been saying that Mr. Trump is planning a news channel to challenge Fox when he leaves office. What Mr. Trump is likely to find is that running a media company these days is a lot more difficult than it sounds. ![]() The TV business is no place for amateurs. Every tech and media company in the world (Amazon, Apple, Google, YouTube, Netflix, Disney... ) is fighting desperately for a piece of the TV pie, notwithstanding its well-reported death. I think it will not take long to find that TrumpTV will be exactly as successful as Trump Airlines. ![]() Annals of Precision Targeting And Speaking of Bad Business Ideas... This newsletter makes no money and has cost me thousands. Yes, it costs money to babble and drool into cyberspace. Right now, we're at 9,774 subscribers. When we get to 10,000 subscribers this thing will be elevated into an even higher cost category. I'm getting cranky about having to send off a check every month. Consequently, I'm getting rid of the "subscribe" button. Then, no more subscribers. Bottom line: If you like to read this thing but aren't a subscriber you should hit the subscribe button now because next week it will disappear. ![]() ![]() |