NEWSLETTER #191 / JANUARY 19, 2020 No images? Click here GWYNETH PALTROW'S AMAZING VAGINA It's a gold mine! Last week, Gwyneth introduced a new candle called "This Smells Like My Vagina." The candle cost $75 and immediately sold out on her Goop website. It's all true. For the record, I have nothing against vaginas. As a matter of fact, I'm quite fond of the little guys. While I am by no means a professional expert on the subject, I do like to think of myself as a talented amateur. But let's get practical. If you need a candle, and you like the wonderful scent of vagina, why not go to the hardware store, buy yourself a candle for 99¢ then head over to a yoga class in Berkeley? You'll save 74 bucks and get all the vagina smell you'll ever need. Gwyneth seems to be uncommonly absorbed with making her privates public. Sadly, her track record as a vagitarian is, shall we say, mildly stinky. According to widely circulated statements, she's very fond of giving it a frequent steam cleaning -- a practice frowned upon by the medical community. A previous product of hers was called the Yoni Egg and sold for $66. It was an egg-shaped piece of stone that when left in the friendly confines for a while was purported to “increase chi, orgasms, vaginal muscle tone, hormonal balance, and feminine energy in general.” The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, clearly a hotbed of chi deniers, didn't think so and filed a lawsuit over false advertising. The Goopster settled by paying a $145,000 fine and giving everyone back their 66 bucks. I don't know what happened to all the eggs, but it might be prudent to avoid the quiche in Santa Clara for a while. If we ever get together for a drink, remind me to tell you about the time I met Gwyneth. Spoiler alert: I really liked her. One last thing. What the hell does anyone need a $75 candle for? Does your iPhone flashlight not work? Are you living in a log cabin with Abe Lincoln? Where's Marcel When You Need Him? The great thing about writing about advertising is that the absurdity never ends. Two years ago, amid great fanfare, Publicis announced the development of a $20 million Artificial Intelligence gizmo called Marcel that was going to "break every silo, bringing people from all around the world together to build a new Publicis... It enables the connectivity of people...enables teams to work and it enables ideas to...be shared globally ...through the use of better insight in culture and the journey of human beings." Well, I'm afraid the journey of human beings at Publicis is headed straight for the door as fast as their petite feet can carry them. Marcel has apparently been stinkier than a...well, never mind. According to an article in AdAge this week... - "UNCERTAINTY OVER FUTURE DIRECTION OF PUBLICIS TRIGGERS EMPLOYEE UNREST—AND TALENT EXODUS ...executives cite lack of communication..."- "A former executive who worked directly under (the CEO) describes internal communications as 'messy,'" - “ 'Employees see constant turmoil but no one puts it into perspective,' says a former Publicis Media executive." Apparently keeping their 80,000 people in the corral is a little harder than the Marcel Maniacs imagined. At the time, I wrote that "Marcel is destined to become not much more than a massively expensive ..conference call" and that it would "accomplish exactly nothing." Sometimes even bloggers are right. For a good hearty chuckle I strongly recommend you have a look at this video from two years ago announcing the Miraculous Marcel. If you have any doubt that the ad industry has become a delightfully absurd clown show this ought to convince you. No Shame In Adland This week Google announced that by 2022 it was going to get rid of all third-party cookies from its Chrome Browser. This follows moves by other browsers like Safari, Firefox, and Brave over the past few years to limit or eliminate the use of third-party cookies. For the uninitiated, a first-party cookie is a piece of software that gets sent to your computer by the website you're visiting so they know it's you. This way you don't have to sign into Amazon every time you go there. Third party cookies are nasty little pieces of spyware from companies that are not Amazon -- companies you don't know -- that get sent to your computer when you go to Amazon. They follow you around the web and report back to the third party about your behavior. They pay Amazon to let them track you. There can be hundreds of third party cookies sent secretly to your computer when you visit a website. A study in 2018 showed that on average 81 third-party cookies were sent to computers every time someone in Europe visited a news website. This is big news because Chrome controls about 60% of the browser market. Of course, the cretins in ad "leadership" land are all up in arms about this. The folks at the 4As and the ANA issued a statement saying that "Google’s decision to block third-party cookies in Chrome...would threaten to substantially disrupt much of the infrastructure of today's internet." Let's hope so. Personally, I can't think of another infrastructure that can benefit more from a substantial disruption than today's internet. On Our Way to China If you keep up with news from China, you are undoubtedly aware of the horrifying surveillance/police state that has evolved from their internet infrastructure. It turns out we are much closer to the Chinese model of ubiquitous surveillance than we ever imagined. The New York Times had an article this week about a company called Clearview AI entitled, "The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It." It is chilling. I would like our ad industry leaders, Greg Stern and Marla Kaplowitz of the 4As, Bob Liodice of the ANA, and Randall Rothenberg of the IAB to read the article and tell us if they still think tracking is a good idea. Grindr, Tinder and OkCupid Peddle Personal Data The LA Times reported this week on a study by a Norwegian consumer group that claimed that "Grindr is sharing detailed personal data with thousands of advertising partners...Tinder and OkCupid, share similar user information." As usual, people who think the information they give to dating services is confidential are wrong. A privacy activist said, “This is an insane violation of users’ privacy rights.” Old Enough to Know Better Those of us old enough to know better remember the early days of e-commerce horseshit when the web was going to "disintermediate" retailers. Consumers were going to buy all their stuff online directly from manufacturers. And then came Amazon. The current version of e-commerce horseshit resides in the delusions about DTC (direct to consumer) marketing. Mark Ritson does a wonderful job of taking this nonsense apart in this compelling article. As an aside, I'd love to see Amazon's internal financials and find out how much money they are losing on their retail businesses. |