new

The most recent issue of the Harvard Business Review has an article called, god help us, "What’s The Value Of A Like?" It's about a study that four professors and associate professors did on how "liking" a brand on Facebook affects behavior. This article seems at least 3 years out of date since I think it's now pretty clear even to unreconstructed social media maniacs that "likes" have no value. Apparently the article was spawned by a horseshit study done by comScore and Facebook... "...A recent influential study by comScore and Facebook found that compared with the general population, people who liked Starbucks’s Facebook page or who had a Facebook friend who liked the page spent 8% more and transacted 11% more frequently over the course of a month." The Harvard Business Review article correctly pointed out the flaw in this nonsense... "...that study and others like it contain a fatal logical flaw: those who already have positi...

There is an annoying new imperative in the ad business that seems to have had a big moment recently at the Super Bowl. It's the compulsion of brands to rub our noses in their virtue. Now, believe me, I have nothing but the highest regard for people, institutions, and companies that do good work. But I have nothing but contempt for brands that hook their "brand purpose" to trendy causes and then do the opposite. You listening Audi? Don't pitch me your high-minded Super Bowl bullshit about what to " tell my daughter " when you have zero women on your management Board . I know what to tell my daughter. It's to stay away from bullshit artists like you. Corporations that tie their supposed virtue to trendy causes are annoying. Those that do it and then practice the opposite are trash. Doing what's right is not an after-school project, it's your responsibility. So do what's right and then shut up about it.  When I give money to charities, causes, ...

We advertising people often spend months trying to develop the correct messages for our brands. We do consumer research, we create strategy documents, we write briefs, we develop many rounds of creative material, we test and refine these materials, and then we launch them. It is not hyperbole to say that we are obsessive about "messaging." However, there are some very smart people who think that there is an equally important aspect to advertising success that we pay almost no attention to. It's called " signaling ." This is well-known in academic circles, but let me try to explain it in idiot blogger terms (if you want to read what grown-ups say about it, check out Don Marti , Rory Sutherland , and Doc Searls .) I walk into a room. I announce that I am the handsomest man in the world. I have just "said" one thing, but communicated another. What I have communicated is that I am a big jerk. My message was undermined by what I signaled. This is one of the...

We poor oppressed advertising and marketing people are daily fed many flavors of bullshit. One of the least understood is research bullshit. Research, because it sports the veneer of science, is generally not subjected to the same degree of scrutiny as, say, media bullshit or creative bullshit. But, make no mistake, research bullshit is just as pervasive in our sorrowful world. Here at the headquarters of Ad Contrarian Labs , we like to feature some nice research bullshit every now and then just to stay on our toes and keep our readers on the lookout. Yesterday I was reading a piece in the Research Brief From The Center For Media Research. Now, I have no idea where the Center For Media Research is, but based on the logo at the top of the page, I have a feeling it's a laptop in the basement of the MediaPost office. Anyway, the story in question was a little convoluted so I'm not going to recap the whole thing (if you want to read it you can find it here .) But I want to highlig...

There are days here at the West Coast Regional Campus of The Ad Contrarian Worldwide Global Headquarters that we just sit around and scratch our heads. We think about how online advertisers are being penetrated in every possible orifice and we wonder why in the world they don't do something about it? See if you agree with our logic. Adtech has proven to be an utter disaster. Unless you are Google, Facebook, or WPP, adtech is a monstrosity that is stealing your money , harming your business, threatening your security, and alienating your customers. If you're an advertiser, adtech middlemen are scraping 60-70% of your media dollars ( WFA and The Guardian ) P&G says that "precision targeting," the great value proposition of adtech is actually harmful to their marketing efforts. Because adtech is a black box, you don't know where your ads run or who may be profiting from them. In fact, you may be unwittingly funding terrorists, nazis, and pornographers . Adtec...

As agencies and marketers continue to throw good money after bad on online ad fantasies, the depth of their gullibility continues to amaze. Yesterday the leading Australian advertising publication, Mumbrella , published a shocking article about Nielsen's re-calibration of Facebook video streaming numbers in Australia. If you remember, a few months ago advertisers discovered that Facebook had been overstating its video streaming numbers by 60% to 80% for a period of two years. According to Nielsen, in Australia the overstatement was much larger than that -- an astonishing 94%. After Nielsen threw away Facebook's horseshit numbers and recalculated based on true data, they found that the value for Australian video streaming on Facebook dropped by 94% over the course of a month. Here's what the numbers looked like before and after Facebook's bullshit was re-calculated.   Despite the overwhelming evidence that all the data we are given about online advertising eventually tu...