NEWSLETTER #100 / Feb 4, 2018
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SUPER BOWL NEEDS INSPIRED SILLINESS
I'm probably the only person on the planet who hasn't viewed any Super Bowl spots yet. I make it a practice to avoid watching them before the game. I think I can judge them better when I see them for the first time in context. Part of the essence of a Super Bowl spot is the Super Bowl.
I'm hoping for relief from the safe, dreary platitudes about tolerance, empowerment, diversity and whatever else is trending on corporate hypocrites' sanctimony hit parade.
What I'd like to see is a lot of inspired silliness. I'm a big fan of silliness in advertising. I think Monty Python would have been the greatest ad agency in history. Silliness can be powerful communication in a non-linear, subversive sort of way. It's highly underrated.
Some of the most well-remembered and effective spots in ad history have been very silly. But there's a huge difference between silly and stupid. That's why I said inspired silliness.
Best Super Bowl Promo Idea...
Goes to TiVo for pulling off a clever reverse. They will have a feature that lets you skip the game and watch the ads. (H/T, the great Jay Tannenbaum)
NY Times Goes All Ad Contrarian
In the past week, The New York Times has published a number of scathing reports about online advertising, social media and fraud.
As we reported last week, they did a major piece on Twitter fraud, and followed it up with a report about government agencies investigating it.
Then this week they ran a story headlined "Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries Into Fake Accounts."
The story claimed that "More than a million followers have disappeared from the accounts of dozens of prominent Twitter users in recent days as the company faces growing criticism over the proliferation of fake accounts and scrutiny from federal and state inquiries into the shadowy firms that sell fake followers."
Finally they ran a piece titled "Tackling the Internet’s Central Villain: The Advertising Business." In this article they say..."if you want to fix much of what ails the internet right now, the ad business would be the perfect perp to handcuff and restrain — and perhaps even reform."
Bingo. In BadMen I wrote, "I hate online advertising and I’m not ashamed to say it. I think it is unnecessarily crappy, corrupt and dangerous and is in desperate need of reform."
It's encouraging to see major media finally reporting on the fraud and corruption of online advertising (which we have been howling about for years.) However, they are still missing the really big story - the danger that online tracking and surveillance marketing pose to democratic societies.
If marketing knuckleheads want to throw away their money on worthless web garbage, frankly I don't give a damn. But when the foundations of a free society are being undermined by voracious online termites, that's a big deal.
I'm still waiting for the Times to cover that story.
Fadebook?
The Pivotal Research Group did some interesting analysis of Facebook's 4th quarter numbers. Here's a summary of a couple of their conclusions:
- Average time spent on the platform declined by double digits in the quarter (btw, if the same thing had happened to TV or radio we'd be reading about how they were dying - my comment, not theirs.)
- User growth was largest among people 65 and over. Big trouble - advertisers hate old people.
Meanwhile, according to the Columbia Journalism Review "More than half of Facebook Instant Articles partners may have abandoned it." Instant Articles is Facebook's "native" platform that was supposed to help publishers "reap rewards—in terms of scale, engagement, and revenue..." Yeah, right. With friends like Facebook...
Speaking Of Twitter
We were, weren't we?... the BBC World Service interviewed your intrepid reporter this week about the influence of Twitter on President Trump's election. You can listen to my comments here or listen to the whole show here.
I followed up with a blog post about the Trump-Twitter thing here.
We're Number 100
This is the 100th weekly edition of whatever the hell this thing is. Thanks for reading it. If you'd like to subscribe please go here.
