TYPE A GROUP - NEWSLETTER #57
MARCH 5 , 2017
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HOW AD INDUSTRY PROMOTES FAKE NEWS
Since our recent presidential campaign "fake news" has been a big story.
Fake news is nothing new, as this wonderful front page from the Weekly World News of 2002 shows. But this time around it's a lot more serious.
The narrative around it goes something like this: fake news is the result of a desire by partisan operatives to gain political advantage.
There is certainly no shortage of bullshit emanating from Washington, but I believe fake news is at least as attributable to easy money in the the ad industry as it is to politics.
The arcane and impossibly convoluted nature of the online ad business, enabled by adtech, has made the publication and monetization of fake news on sleazy websites a very easy way to pick up some decent pocket change.
Teenagers and others with no political motives have learned how easy it is put up a website, load it with stolen or invented nonsense, promote it on social media, and wait for the money to roll in.
When "programmatic" algorithms see that people are going to these sites, they send ads. Whose ads? Yours. Whose money supports these fake news sites? Yours.
Adtech is not just a plague to consumers, a drain on advertisers, a nightmare to reputable publishers, and a threat to our privacy, it is also damaging our belief in our institutions.
The advertising and marketing industry has a responsibility to clean up this dangerous mess.
Send In The Clowns
According to The Wall Street Journal, after conducting the largest research project in its history, McDonald's has determined that it's in the fast food hamburger business.
Apparently, they were the only people in the observable universe who didn't know this.
They are going to quit going after salad munchers and quinoa maniacs and focus their attention on people who frequent fast food places and like hamburgers. I happen to be holding in my hand a presentation that a certain cranky blogger made 15 years ago telling them exactly this.
Speaking On Thursday
This Thursday I will be speaking in Amsterdam at Screenforce Day. Screenforce is the TV trade association in the Netherlands and many other European countries.
I do one talk a month and 2017 is filling up pretty nicely. If you need a sometimes coherent speaker for an event, operators are standing by.
