There ain't much fun left in the ol' ad business. Thank goodness we can still get a good laugh out of watching advertising dimwits get royally sodomized by the crooks in the online ad industry.
If you're as entertained as I am by the astounding dumbness of online advertisers, and amused by watching them piss away billions of dollars, you're going to love this story.
MediaPost ran a piece yesterday in which a video appeared that claimed that just one reasonably sized bot-net could be responsible for one billion fraudulent ad impressions every day.
This is just too good to be true.
It must also be said that the video was produced by a company that sells ad fraud protection, so they are not a disinterested party.
But if this is even close to true, it is beyond mind-boggling.
I am reluctant to post the video because it is clearly a commercial for the company in question. But it gives us such a lovely picture of how clueless online advertisers are being screwed that, on balance, I'm going to post it.
Online ad fraud is completely out of control and, incredibly, no one is taking it seriously.
I can see why ad agencies and online producers and ad networks aren't taking it seriously -- they're cleaning up. But how fucking dumb can the idiot clients who are flushing billions of dollars down the digitoilet be? I guess the answer is astoundingly fucking dumb.
Earlier this week, in a piece about digital ad fraud Rance Crain, president and editor-in-chief of Ad Age (who wisely referenced yours truly) had this to say...
"...marketers are in the most denial...despite the overwhelming evidence that there is massive fraud in the digital marketplace....It's gotten so out of control that ad trade associations are stepping in to save marketers from themselves."Of course, no one wants to kill the golden goose. Everyone's making too much money. As Crain says...
"But why change? Fraud pumps up publishers' traffic, exchanges get paid a percentage for trading it -- the more clicks the better -- and agencies can bring those great results to clients."This will never change as long as brain-dead advertisers keep feeding the fraud machine.
The really fabulous thing about all this is that advertisers are not just getting passively penetrated, they are insisting that agencies give it to them deeper and harder. They can't get enough of this stuff. "Thank you, sir, may I have another?"
As I wrote here over a year ago...
Not only are marketers ignoring the awful truth about the ineffectiveness of online advertising, they are turning a blind eye to the fact that they are being skinned alive by crooks and their willfully corrupt accomplices in the ad world...Fortunately for the thieves, charlatans, and hustlers, nobody seems to give a shit.It is a truly amazing story.
Thanks to Dave Kissel for the link.
