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