I was recently asked to explain what I do and why I do it. This always gets me mildly uncomfortable and sets me thinking. I know this sounds pompous, but the short answer is that I want to use whatever limited abilities I have to be a subversive force in the marketing and advertising world. I think we need subversive thinking. I am sure we don't really know all the things we pretend to know. I think this needs to be pointed out often and at high volume. The job of subversives is to undermine the dogma, conventional wisdom, and entrenched interests in our business by finding facts and espousing opinions that challenge our supposed experts. That's the only way well-articulated bullshit can be exposed. The marketing and advertising industries are in a very strange phase these days. Usually in culture and society it is the young people who challenge the tired legends and rituals to lay bare the flaws. But in our industry, it is the young who have become the guardians of the overwor...
As we've all been told a thousand times by marketing and media geniuses, television is dead. Here are a few examples: Business Insider: " The Death Of TV As We've Known It Is Finally Here " Forbes: " Why Television Is Dead " Politico: " TV Is Dead. Now What? " Tragically, here at the Ketel One Conference Center overlooking the campus of The Ad Contrarian world headquarters, we've been a little negligent recently in chronicling the death of television. So today we're going to do a little catching up. Nielsen just released its Total Audience Report for the second quarter of 2016, so let's have a look at how the dead are doing: • On average, adults 18+ spent 4 hours and 9 minutes a day watching live television. • This is over 4 times as much time as they spent online on a laptop or desktop • It is over twice as much time as they spent connected on a smartphone ...
We know that fraud is a major problem for online advertisers. But we don't know how big a problem it is. Estimates range from 2% to 90% -- which is another way of saying we have no fucking idea. The ANA ( Association of National Advertisers ) estimates that ad fraud will cost marketers $7.2 billion this year. But this estimate is based on assumptions that are imprecise at best. If any of the assumptions baked into this estimate is incorrect or inaccurate, the number could go up or down dramatically. The $7.2 billion number represents about 5% of worldwide online ad spending. To give you an example of how fuzzy this number is, the WFA ( World Federation of Advertisers ) says that the actual amount of fraud could easily be 30% -- or six times this. Believe it or not, if fraud accounts for just 10% of the online advertising system, in 9 years ad fraud will be the second largest source of criminal activity in the world , second only to drug trafficking. And ad fraud carries with it al...
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