The Bitter Blogger

You know those lists of favorite blogs that bloggers have on their home pages? They're called "blog rolls." Kind of like egg rolls, except even greasier.

I've done a little survey of marketing and advertising blogs. You know how many blog rolls The Ad Contrarian appears on? None. Zippo. Bupkis. Nada.

Can you imagine that not one of these creepy low-life bloggers would include your and my

Proust And Advertising

Whenever an ad agency gets fired, I look forward to getting a nice laugh out of the bullshit PR release that always accompanies the firing.The client asserts how critical the agency has been to their success and how much they respect and admire the agency they're dumping.Marcel Proust said it best:"When two people part it is the one who is not in love who makes the tender speeches."Why You Read

Immune To Advertising?

Fish can’t see the ocean because they're swimming in it. Apparently there is a whole new breed of marketing pundit who can’t see advertising for the same reason.Advertising has become so pervasive that otherwise intelligent people think it’s not there. Seth Godin talks about "the death of traditional advertising"; ADWEEK talks about "today's post-advertising world."I wonder what world these

The People Who Always Get It Wrong

According to The People Who Always Get It Wrong (the press) the American love affair with the automobile is over. No less authority than The New York Times announced this on Sunday.In a piece entitled Putting The Dream Car Out To Pasture we are subjected to every America/Automobile cliché ever concocted, plus a generous helping of new age socio-babble.“Beyond the bad economic news may lurk a

Best Ad Of The Week

TAC is traveling. See you Monday. Meanwhile, best ad of the week.

Arguing From The Extreme

One of the really annoying habits of advertising people is arguing from the extreme.By arguing from the extreme, I mean taking the most extraordinary example of something and using this extraordinary case as if it were the norm.This has been going on for years. Whenever I would get in a discussion with someone about account planning I would always get an earful about "got milk?" Whenever I would

Vacationing Isn't Easy

Aloha.TAC is vacationing this week on a South Pacific island. In typical fashion, I'm only seeing the dark side. So maybe you can help.1. How am I supposed to stop thinking about all the gross stuff that's floating around invisibly in the pool?2. How am I supposed to stop thinking about the sharks that are patrolling the waters looking for tasty morsels like me?3. How come I can hit a golf ball

Backpedaling To Victory

Now that some of the more preposterous claims made by Web 2.0 maniacs are being challenged by data, TAC predicts you will start to see some heavy backpedaling. The backpedaling will come in a few different forms:Redefinition: "Social media doesn't really mean..."; "The Long Tail doesn't really mean..."; "Conversation doesn't really mean..."Blaming the victim: "Companies just don't know how to use

The $10,000 Conversation

Social media marketing is a huge waste of money. That's the gist of an article in The Wall Street Journal yesterday.I've been writing -- some hardened souls might say ranting -- about the stupidity of social media marketing for quite some time. (If you're new here, you might want to read: The Mindless Herd, Sure To Fail, Clueless, The Cluefree Manifesto, How The Narcissistic Keep In Touch With

Why The Web Is A Lousy Ad Medium

What if you picked up the telephone and instead of getting a dial tone you got an ad?What if you picked up a dictionary and instead of finding a definition you found an ad?In both cases you'd be angry. Why? Because the telephone is a medium of communication and you don't want to be slowed down. The dictionary is a medium of information and you don't want to be sidetracked.On the other hand, you

Social Media and The Heavy User

If you promise not to tell my competitors I'll tell you a secret.One of the keys to being successful in the advertising business is to target the "heavy user." By heavy user, I mean the high value customer who spends a lot of money in your category.Without going into detail (if you want detail, read The Ad Contrarian book) the key points are these:In many categories one heavy user can be worth as

6 Things Creative Directors Need To Know

On Friday we talked about why creative director is a stinky job. Today we're going to talk about the only saving grace: making good ads. Below is what I think I've learned about that. Some of these thoughts have appeared in TAC before.Six things you need to know if you're going to be a happy, healthy creative director.1. Hiring is everything.If you have terrific people, the advertising business

I Can’t Stop You From Becoming A Creative Director...

...but maybe I can stop you from becoming a lousy one.I was an ad agency creative director for over 20 years. It’s a stinky job.I’ve been a copywriter, a creative director, president of an international ad agency, and ceo of my own agency. By far, creative director was the most difficult, frustrating and horrifying.One of the reasons the job is so difficult is because you have four different

It's The Heavy User, Stupid

One of the biggest problems that many marketers are facing is that they are too deeply invested in a questionable online philosophy.

The philosophy is centered on "social media" (blogs, networking websites, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) For the sake of this post, I’m going to call this philosophy New Age Marketing .

Whatever you call it, this philosophy centers around three hypotheses:
That online

Gleeful And Proud

Some commentors yesterday accused me of being unbecomingly gleeful over a Yankelovich study which showed that social media ain't all that fabulous in creating "conversations" about brands.I plead 100% guilty.Frankly, I'm fully fed-up with the incessant stream of baloney I'm exposed to about Web 2.0 and social media. Here's this week's nominee for grand marshal of the double-talk parade. From

Is The Conversation Over?

One of the axioms of Web 2.0 zealots is that "markets are conversations" and that online social media (blogs, networking websites, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) are uniquely capable of stimulating "conversations" among consumers.Just one tiny problem. They're wrong.On June 18, some facts arrived. And I think the social media maniacs are going to find the facts a little disturbing.According to The New

Two...Two...Two Blogs in One.

THE PHONELESS PHONEHey...old person...yeah, you...I have news.Apparently email is over. Done. Kaput.I discovered this slowly as my emails to my daughter went unanswered. When I asked about it I was told, "I never check my email."At first I chalked this up to standard teen pigheadedness. But then I realized she really doesn't check her email.I spoke to other old farts. I found out that some kids

The Long Trail of Baloney

Another pillar of Web 2.0 is crumbling. It looks like The Long Tail is just a tall tale.The Long Tail theory, developed by Wired editor Chris Anderson, proposed that the web made it possible to make more money selling niche products to niche markets than selling hit products to a mass market. In other words, Amazon could make more money selling erudite books to humanities majors than selling

Thank God It's Over

If you're a regular here at TAC, you know that since last December we've been railing against a series of web films created for the Ritz-Carlton (see Ritz Bits, Web Films vs Bagels, This Film Is Rated T For Torture, and Worst Of The Web.)Well the third and final film has been released and it's every bit as awful as the other two.First, it's in black and white, so you know it's "art."It features

One Year Later

Today is the first anniversary of The Ad Contrarian blog.Ten days into it I thought I had run out of things to say. Apparently I have a bigger mouth than I imagined.Five Things I've Learned About Blogging This Year:It ain't easy being entertaining every day. Or ever, for that matter.The biggest asset a blogger can have is insomnia.The professionals (the ones who blog for money) are way better