#337/April 6, 2025

Obviously, not everything about making ads is fun. A lot of it is sweat, torment and agony. But compared to selling insurance or driving a bus, on the whole making ads is a fun job to have.

I can remember days when we were up against it and we had 20 crappy ideas and not a single good one. We would be 'working' after hours in a bar. We’d be pissing and moaning about how shitty the assignment was and how stupid the client was. And then suddenly someone would come up with something amazing - and everything turned around. 

Six weeks later that sudden late night inspiration would appear all over the wavelengths, in millions of homes. Honestly, that was serious fun.

Which brings me to AI. I’ve read way too much about it lately. According to the head of marketing at Coca-Cola in Europe, AI will soon be the norm for ad creation. He says using AI saved them 90% of what it would have cost them to create their Christmas ad this year. I can understand the appeal.

The one thing I haven’t read about is how AI has the potential to take the fun out of advertising. I can certainly understand the head of Coke saying, "Fun? Am I supposed to give a shit about creatives having fun?" And he's right, he shouldn't. But good creatives do give a shit about having fun.

Ask any talented writer, artist, designer, musician, actor, dancer, or other creative person why they do it. And they’ll tell you it may be hard work, but a very important aspect of their motivation is that it’s also fun. 

The industrialization of the ad industry is already dissuading talented creative people from signing on. If making ads becomes little more than pushing a few buttons, where’s the joy? You might as well be working in the ticket booth at the movie theater. Stretching your brain to create something new is fun. Pushing buttons and letting machines do it is not.

What talented, imaginative person is going to want to work in advertising if his or her job is to a large degree automated? I’m not saying we’re there now, but it sure looks like we’re headed there. And I'm not saying we can abandon AI. It's here and, let's not kid ourselves, it's here to stay

If you think the creative process should be gratifying, you might want to consider a different career. The ad industry continues to optimize for efficiency over craftsmanship. It may be good for the bottom line, but it ain't a whole lot of fun.

According to the Harvard Business Review, marketers' spending on social media dropped from 17% in the spring of 2023 to 11% in the spring of 2024. This was the lowest spending level in seven years. 

According to HBR, here are some of the reasons why spending on social has dropped:

• Clutter
• "Social media fatigue"
• "Social media hasn’t delivered desired gains"
• Attribution problems

Nonetheless, when asked to estimate what they'll be spending on social in 5 years, marketers projected they'd be spending 66% more. Which makes absolutely no sense. But that's marketers for ya. 

That's the gist of a lawsuit that the FTC has filed against Facebook that is scheduled to go to court in a few days. If Meta is found guilty they could be forced to sell off WhatsApp and/or Instagram.

But these days, in pay-to-play  Washington, it seems like everything is for sale. So don't bet against Meta.

The Z-Bag, who contributed $1 million to Trump's inauguration party and $22 million to Trump's presidential library, is out to get his money's worth. According to published reports he's been to the White House three times since Trump took office kissing ass and begging for the FTC to drop the case. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, even "some of Trump’s aides have grown frustrated at the company’s lobbying strategy, believing it has been too aggressive." Out-hustling the world's greatest hustler? You gotta admire the kid.

Here's something I wrote about Pepsi a long time ago...

If your whole world is crumbling and you desperately need a laugh, you can always Google "Pepsi marketing" and have yourself a hearty chuckle. Just spend a few minutes rooting around in their amazing alternate universe and you're sure to find a treasure trove of nonsense guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

Here at Ad Contrarian Labs, we have been chronicling the wonderfully entertaining, yet seriously preposterous, goings-on at Pepsi for years. And every time we think it can't get any more silly, we are proven wrong.

In an article that appeared recently, Pepsi seems to have created a whole new vocabulary of knucklehead double-talk. Pepsi leads the league in that category. Some of it comes from the 'Pepsi Global Beverage Group Foresight Director.' Yes, they actually have someone with that title. The more dreadful their business gets, the more ridiculously pompous their titles get.

I wonder how the 'Pepsi Global Beverage Group Foresight Director' gets along with the 'President-Global Enjoyment' (Yes, they have someone called that) and the 'Global Chief Marketing Officer-Hydration' (Yup, one of those, too.) I'm starting to believe the most creative employee in the company is the HR nitwit who comes up with these breathtaking titles.

As an aside, I think I have a good strategy for bringing Pepsi's beverage business back to life. Fire all the overfed worldwide globalizers and hire an Ad Manager who'll let the agency make some decent fucking ads. 

But I digress...

The Global Beverage Group Foresight Director thinks he has the solution to Pepsi's problems. He says..."There's a growing realization that... innovation has to come out of the brand soul." Apparently, in the ever-more-ludicrous lexicon of brand babble, brands no longer have DNA, now they have soul.

It seems that innovation has not been coming out of Pepsi's "brand soul." It's been coming out of their nostrils or the janitor's closet or something. Now they are searching for the brand's soul and -- bingo! -- out will come the innovations. Sounds like fun.

I wonder how much a 'branding consultant' is going to charge them to find the brand's soul? Personally, I wouldn't do it for less than $2 million. 

The Global Beverage Group Foresight Director also thinks it's important  "...that people running a brand share a 'sense of being' with its customers."

As a sometime Pepsi customer, it is very clear to me that the people running the brand and I do not share a sense of being. I'm not even sure I have a sense of being. Sometimes around 3 a.m. I have a sense of peeing, but I don't think that counts.  

The Global Beverage Group Foresight Director wants the people who run the brand and me to "... form 'one big force' sharing the same goal." Gosh, imagine if I shared the same goal with a soda team. What an awesome life it would be. The Pepsi brand team and little ol' me. It's a sugary, carbonated dream come true.
                                                                                                                     h/t Jeff Piggott

Meanwhile a whole flock of scavengers are circling the rotting carcass of TikTok hoping to enjoy a lavish meal. The most recent attendees at the party include Amazon and Walmart. 

I'll stick with my initial prediction: The gang that gets TikTok will be the one that offers the greatest value to Trump Friends and Family.

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