#33- /May 3, 2025
Last summer I published a free book called "Inside The Black Box." It told the story of how marketers are getting screwed by the programmatic online advertising industry.
Then, toward the end of last year, I unpublished it as a stand-alone book when I included most of it in my latest un-free book, "The Three Word Brief."
Today, I am republishing a revised edition of Inside The Black Box with some updated info and some newer pieces. It's free and worth every penny.
The elevator pitch goes like this...In 2025, marketers will spend over $700 billion on online advertising. A substantial proportion of this - perhaps in the hundreds of billions - will be completely wasted. Not for the usual reason - their advertising stinks - but for another, darker reason. They have been cheated, lied to, and robbed.
I think it's a worthwhile read for anyone engaged in advertising in any capacity. And if it isn't, you can have your money back.
You can download it here.
ZBag Comes After Agency Business
If there's anyone in the world who knows how pathetically weak, timid, and feckless the advertising industry has become it's Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg has bullied, conned, outsmarted, and intimidated the ad industry for over a decade. God only knows how much business he's taken from these marketing geniuses -- who don't even have a hint of a strategy to defend their business. Today the ad industry is little more than the sales arm for Facebook and the rest of the adtech crime syndicate.
It has reached such a point of abject servility that holding companies are now beseeching their clients to let them do "principal buying" -- a fancy euphemism for acting as brokers for Facebook et al..
With that as background, Zuckerberg went on the offensive this week, announcing his intention to rub the industry's nose in its own mess. Here was his statement...
And what will the ad industry do? They'll say he's just blowing smoke. They'll say Meta could never have the depth of brand knowledge they do, and laugh nervously while he eats their lunch.
Next step is for Zuckerberg to disingenuously claim he didn't really mean he's going to replace the ad industry. And the industry "leadership" clowns will say, "yeah, we told ya he wasn't serious" as he picks their pockets.
Who's Surprised By Zuckerberg's Statement?
Not this blogweasel.
In January I wrote in this space, "...since advertising on these platforms seems to require nothing that any rational person would describe as "creative" advertising, this source of income is draining away ..."
Then a few weeks ago in this space in a piece headlined "They Already Dominate Us. What If They Owned Us?" I wrote, "The question I’ve been thinking about is why the platforms don’t just buy the agencies?" I had the wrong train, but I was on the right track.
Bot Farms and Social Media
For a nice scary piece on how bot farms are manipulating brain-dead social media addicts, you might want to read this piece in Fast Company.
According to the article, "Unlike conventional bots that rely on software and API access, bot farm amplification uses real mobile phones. Racks and racks of smartphones connected to USB hubs are set up with SIM cards, mobile proxies, IP geolocation spoofing, and device fingerprinting. That makes them far more difficult to detect than the bots of yore."
Never thought I'd find myself missing the 'bots of yore.'
The article goes on to say, "Lies are yesterday’s problem. Today’s problem is the use of bot farms to trick social media algorithms into making people believe those lies are true."
By the way, long time readers may recall this piece from 2022 when we posted about how Elon Musk's Tesla organization used armies of bots to gin up their share price.
Always Leave 'Em Laughing
In 2018 a new messaging app called IRL was launched. In 2021 they announced that in the previous 15-month period they had grown 400%.
They also announced that they had received $200 million in funding, and had achieved ‘unicorn’ status with a $1.17 billion valuation.
But in 2022 the SEC started looking into IRL. Last week, IRL announced that they were shutting down.
In an all-time great PR announcement, a spokesperson for IRL said, “Based on these findings, a majority of shareholders concluded that the company's going forward prospects are unsustainable.”
What were 'these findings?" An investigation by IRL’s board of directors discovered that 95% of the app’s 20 million users were fake.
No, my friends, you cannot make this shit up.