If Advertising Isn't Driving You Crazy, You're Not Paying Attention

A little over a year ago my agency pitched an account.

The pitch process took 4 months, entailed 4 different rounds of presentations and included three different consulting companies -- one "search" consultant, one "fee" consultant, and one "production cost" consultant.

Halfway into the pitch process the ceo of the company got fired. They hired a new ceo. He had previously been their ceo but

Currency Across The Ecosystem

Stop the presses.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Association of National Advertisers, and the American Association of Advertising Agencies, along with Bain & Company and MediaLink are banding together in the hope of  "Making Measurement Make Sense."

This should be good for a few laughs.

Apparently, what this fuster-cluck is all about is finding a way to take all the incomprehensible,

The Usual Nonsense

In a piece several weeks ago in Adweek called A Critical Turning Point for Online Video Advertising, a young lady who works for a "digital ad fulfillment company" laments...
"Consumer behavior has shifted, yet online video represents only 7% of the ad market"She further goes on to say...
"In 2010, it became overwhelmingly evident that online video sites had found the right formula for  delivering

Ego Disguised As Advertising

I did a little experiment the other day. I went back and watched Super Bowl spots out of context. In other words, I watched them two weeks after The Big Event.

My hypothesis was this -- in order to get a true perspective on the merits of these spots required me to view them out of the context of hysteria in which they ran.

Because the Super Bowl is such A Big Deal it's easy to lose perspective

Self-Hating Grown-Ups

If there is one thing that truly makes me sick, it's mature people fawning over youth.

I think it started in the 1960's when youth culture became an obsession. Condescending clergymen, misguided commencement speakers, and pandering magazine covers proclaimed the arrival of a new species of human. They were young, caring, involved, and committed. They were going to change the world.

They changed

Intro To My New Book

I recently spent several weeks away from this blog trying to finish up a new book I've been working on called 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising. Here is the intro to the book.

Introduction

The title of this book is 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising. But, as you'll see, there are actually 105. You paid for 101, but you're getting 105. Consequently, you owe me four contrarian ideas.

Slow Company

For some reason, Fast Company has taken it upon itself to publish some of the dumbest articles about advertising I've ever read.

The latest one is called Could 2012 Super Bowl Spots Double Their Impact As iAds?

The article's premise is based on a piece of junk research done by Nielsen (on Apple's behalf) that purports to demonstrate that...
"...Apple's iAds appear to be twice as effective as a

It's Better To Be Employed Than Right

Recently I wrote about the book The Big Short, and how it applies to the current online ad bubble. The Big Short is about the crash of the financial system in 2008 and the people who saw it coming.

There is a lesson I learned from the book that is important to ad contras -- being right often doesn't matter.

One of the heroes of the book -- who had a remarkable record of investment acumen -- had

Unequivocal Proof That No One Has Ever Clicked On A Web Ad

Here at Ad Contrarian Global Headquarters, we sometimes enjoy role playing. Not the French maid kind of role playing, the business kind. Not that we have anything against French maids...

Today, I am going to role play. I am going to pretend I am a web data analyst and use the mathematics and logic of web analysis to prove to you that no one has ever clicked on a web ad intentionally. Sound like

Gravity And The Web

Today's post is being published in Adweek's online edition. It's called Gravity and the Web. It includes ideas from a post I wrote earlier this year plus some new stuff. Click here and leave nice comments.

Ads That Look Like Super Bowl Ads

It's time to admit it. The era of the Super Bowl ad is over.

This has been going on for years. We haven't recognized it because of Culture Lag -- the period of time it takes to realize that a cultural phenomenon is dead. Sometimes it takes years.  Sometimes decades. The Super Bowl spot is dead but it's going to take a while for us to catch on.

The advertising industry seems no longer capable of

Obligatory Super Bowl Post (#4)

My fourth year of random thoughts on the Super Bowl:
Most Notes Ever Sung Torturing The Star Spangled Banner: Christina Aguilera

No Wonder They Skipped It Last Year: Pepsi

It Wouldn't Be The Super Bowl Without Monkeys: CareerBuilder

Action Movie Trailer That Looked Like Every Other Action Movie Trailer: All of 'em

Longest Run For The Shortest Slide: Audi; Kia Optima; Motorola Xoom

Why The Social Media Bubble Won't Burst

During my recent well-deserved sabbatical from blogging, I read a book about the financial meltdown of 2008 called The Big Short, by Michael Lewis.

The book is about the Wall Street morons and hustlers -- oops, I mean experts -- who, to an alarming degree, control our economy. Anyone who believes in the preposterous "wisdom of crowds" needs to read this book.

For those who don't know much

Sex And The Super Bowl

For a hack copywriter, nothing gets your blood pumping like the prospect of writing a spot for the Super Bowl. (Well, that and being introduced to an impressionable young account coordinator. But that's another story...)

I had my chance at Super Bowl glory.

In 1998, my agency had an account called Vivus. Vivus had developed a product called Muse. Muse was the first of the "new-age" erectile

Torturing The Data

If, like me, you are required to sit through a great many advertising and marketing presentations, I am pretty sure you've noticed something. These meetings have become far less about ideas and far more about numbers.

The advertising industry is trying its best to shed itself of the one thing that made it valuable and interesting -- ideas -- and become as one with its clients.

Before I dig

Culture Lag

For years I have been writing about the foolishness of marketers who squander their budgets marketing to young people.

They make a lousy primary target for most marketers. Yet they are the default (and sometimes unspoken) target for everything from cars to banks, even though they provide substantially less opportunity than other target groups (for stats on this, see The Amazing Blindness of

Pepsi Screws Up The Narrative

Last year, in a much ballyhooed move, Pepsi-Cola dropped its long-standing annual commitment to Super Bowl advertising in favor of a social media campaign.

This sent shock waves through the marketing chattersphere.

It was highly trumpeted as another symbol of the ascendancy of social media and the decline of that dead old bird, the 30-second tv spot. The media loved the story, as it confirmed

Death Cab For Bobby

I was in New York City recently. As a former resident, and frequent visitor, I am a confirmed subway user. However, on this recent trip circumstances dictated that on a few occasions I had to take a cab.

Apparently there is now a 10 question test they give before they issue a taxi license.

Here is the test:
Have you ever taken a shower? 
Have you ever had an article of clothing laundered or dry

The Young And The Witless

Here at Ad Contrarian global headquarters, we believe that one of the sacred responsibilities of a self-styled contrarian is to annoy the shit out of robo-thinkers.

Consequently, when we get comments from them that are critical of our opinions or our charming personality we are secretly delighted.

One of the disheartening things we have noticed, however, is the frequency with which negative

Is The Magic Over?

Could it be that the spell has been broken?

Is it possible that the silly season has at long last ended?

Can it be that the infantile belief in the magical power of web advertising is finally hitting the wall of reality?

Yesterday, a piece in Mashable (deliciously entitled, "Contrarian Survey Shows Advertisers Ditching Digital for TV") reported a significant drop in interest in web advertising

Decontaminating The Web

Advertising was once a much more interesting business.

It wasn't run by mealy-mouthed lawyers and financiers. It was run by foul-mouthed entrepreneurs and craftsmen, who actually knew how to make an ad. It wasn't about technology and metrics. It was about ideas and strategy.

American neighborhoods were once much more interesting places.

Each had a unique personality. There were shoe stores and

The Legend of Marketing Man

Basically, there are two types of men -- Feckless Weasels and Smelly Hairballs.

Your classic Feckless Weasel lives in Berkeley, drives a Subaru Outback, spends 80% of his time trying to please his shrill harridan of a wife, and wastes the other 20% of his life "reasoning" with his horrid children ("Now, Joshie, you remember we said that in a restaurant you shouldn't put your feet in other

Pseudo-Scientists At War

According to Ad Age,  Forrester and Nielsen can't agree on how much time people spend with TV and the web. As a matter if fact, they are so far apart it's ridiculous.

Forrester says people spend as much time each week on the web as they do watching TV -- about 13 hours each. Nielsen says, no way. They say people spend less than 13 hours on the web and 34 hours with TV -- almost three times as

Brilliance of the 30-Second Spot

Woody Allen once said that 89 minutes is the perfect length for a movie.

I think the ad industry may have accidentally stumbled upon the perfect length for a video message when it decided on the 30-second TV spot. It's just enough time to establish a premise, deliver a sales message, throw in a gag, and get out.

Of course, there is no more maligned artifact of "traditional" advertising than

Your Web Metrics Are Wrong

Last weekend I read a terrific article* entitled TV Leaking Billions Of Dollars To Online Media. It's about the fallaciousness of web metrics. In it, the author states:
...billions of dollars in sales are incorrectly being attributed to online advertisements that are completely or partially being generated by television.  This is resulting in an incorrect ratio of perceived value between

Groundhog Day At The 4A's

Stop the presses!

The 4A's is having a conference. And it's about "transformation." Yeah, that's right, in case you hadn't heard, digital is changing everything! Oh my god! Why didn't anyone tell me?

From an email I recently received promoting this conference:
"...The marketing landscape has changed, permanently and irrevocably. The consumers are in control. Digital means everything. The mood

Creativity Without Talent

Someone once asked me about a copywriter who had worked for me. "Is he creative?" the person asked. "Very" I replied, "and it's a shame because he's not very talented."I, too, am burdened with this frustrating affliction -- more creativity than talent.

I spend an inordinate amount of time writing and playing musical instruments. I love doing these things. But, alas, I'm just not very good at

My Top 10 New Year's Resolutions

Here are my New Years resolutions for 2011:
1. I will not slow-dance with Eliot Spitzer 2. I will answer the telephone in French  3. I will not pick up my dog's poop unless he picks up mine 4. I will take at least 3 showers this year in a suit5. I will actively work for the deportation of digital natives 6. When they ask for my order at the drive-thru window, I will use my super- funny yodeling