The Itch To Pitch

My unrelenting commitment to bringing you the finest in firmly-held, ill-informed opinions has lead me down a dangerous path. I have forced myself to watch 3 episodes of The Pitch.

The things I do for you people...

Even though I have a very high opinion of the power of TV advertising, the truth is I almost never watch TV. (And even though I have a very low opinion of the power of web advertising, I am addicted to the web.)

Other bloggers and commentators have been brutal in their reviews of The Pitch. Viewers have expressed their opinions by unanimously staying away (the May 7th episode got a Nielsen rating of 0 -- seriously.) I can see why. But I have actually found it fascinating. The enlightening aspects of the show have been these:

1. The alarmingly high regard that unremarkable agency people have for themselves and their agencies. (One agency head who claimed he did the best advertising anywhere listed GoDaddy as one of his accounts. I rest my case.)

2. The shallowness of the thinking during the creative development process.

3. The inability of clients to recognize good ideas.

In each of the three episodes I watched, the losing agency had a better idea than the winner. In each case, the client was unable to recognize a better idea, and made their judgment on quantity rather than quality. In other words, they selected the agency that had blown their idea out in more directions, rather than the agency that had the better idea.

In no case was there any indication that the agencies gave anything but the most perfunctory attempt to create a coherent strategy. (In fairness, this could simply be a function of the way the editor has chosen to cut the episodes.)

The part that I find most laughable comes at the very beginning of every episode. The head boy at each agency describes how brilliantly unique his agency is -- by utilizing the identical cliches that every other head boy uses.

It's pretty clear that any agency with a sense of pride or self-worth would not participate in this monstrosity of a show. The problem is that the whole ad industry is being represented by these mediocrities.

There are some very smart people in the ad business. It is discouraging that this program has chosen to use -- or has been forced to use -- such unexceptional talent to represent us.

It's a good thing no one's watching.

The Facebook Massacre

I am mildly surprised that Facebook has dropped so far so fast.

Although I thought the Facebook IPO valuation was a cruel and stupid joke, and I predicted that it would dive, I really didn't think it would happen this quickly or dramatically.

As I write this, the value of Facebook shares has dropped almost 30% in two weeks. At a putative value of $100 billion, that's a loss of $30 billion in value. That's about $2 billion a day. Even I can't blow money that fast.

The frightening thing to owners of Facebook shares has to be that over the next 6 months the "lock-up" period expires. This means that early owners of Facebook --who have been required by law to hold onto their shares -- will be allowed to sell them. A bunch of shareholders may decide it's better to cash out now, and shares could flood the market.

In the next 90 days, 10% of Facebook shares (over 250 million of 'em) will become "unlocked." In the next 6 months, 1.7 billion (with a b) shares will be unlocked.

With demand for Facebook shares already way below expectations, it could get ugly early.

The amazing thing about the Facebook IPO hysteria is that the whole foundation was built on -- as my dear mother used to say -- shit and glue. Facebook's revenue model is dependent on selling advertising space, and there is compelling evidence that paid advertising on Facebook has thus far been uniquely ineffective.

But we live in an age in which the marketing and advertising industries trust unreliable and foolhardy pundits and experts more than we trust facts or the evidence of our own eyes.

For example...

• Can you recall a single marketing message that has appeared on your smart phone? 
• Are there any "conversations about brands" going on at your Twitter feed now? Please go there and check.
• Have you ever seen a normal person use a QR code?
• When was the last time you watched a YouTube video about a product?
• What was the last piece of online "content" about a brand you linked to?

And yet, the fables and nonsense being spread regarding all these magical new tools dominate the marketing conversation.

Could it be that the Facebook face plant will serve the purpose of injecting some reality into the fantasy world of advertising and marketing?

Not a freakin' chance.

TV Getting Ready To Die Again

After 10 years of injudiciously predicting the death of television, you'd think the advertising and marketing press would exhibit a little self-control on this subject. No such luck.

A new study was released recently and it was accompanied by headlines like these:

"Don't Mean To Be Alarmist, But The TV Business May Be Starting To Collapse"

"UH OH: This Nielsen Data Suggests People Aren't Watching TV Anymore"

The proximate cause of these headlines was a Nielsen study called "Global Online Consumers and Multi-Screen Media: Today and Tomorrow."

The two big findings from the study that prompted the headlines were these:

• The number of people who watched television at least once a month declined from 90 percent to 83 percent last year.

• More people watched video on a computer (84%) in the last measured month than watched it on a TV (83%)

Taken at face value these are pretty convincing numbers. There is only one problem. They are totally, utterly, completely worthless. Did I state that strongly enough?

Here's what's wrong with them:

• The numbers are self-reported. Nielsen says: "responses are only indicative of respondents’ beliefs about their own media usage, rather than actual metered data." In other words, the numbers are a report of what people said, not what they did. Anyone who knows the first thing about research knows that self-reported media behavior is meaningless. From The Economist......"one of the oddest and most consistent findings of television research: that people seem unaware of their own behaviour. In surveys they almost always underestimate how much television they watch, and greatly overstate the extent to which they watch video in any other form. In particular, they underestimate their consumption of live television... "

• The sample is beyond a joke. Nielsen only surveyed internet users. This is like comparing orange juice usage to apple juice usage by only surveying orange juice users. Even Nielsen cops to the ludicrousness of this, "...Results may therefore, among other possibilities, over-report online usage via computers, under-report traditional television usage..." Not only did they only survey online users, the study itself was conducted online -- double skewing the results. There is not a credible testing facility in the universe that would do anything but laugh this "research" out of the lab.

As you know, here at The Ad Contrarian, we don't make predictions (other than awesome ones about Facebook and Pepsi.) We just report the facts and try to interpret what they mean.

The last reliable data we've seen say that TV viewing is at its highest point ever, and that online viewing of video represents only 2% of all video viewing.

The minute we see data that suggests that TV is collapsing or that people aren't watching it anymore, we'll let you know. Right now, this Nielsen nonsense leaves us magnificently unconvinced.

In Other News...
I have been struggling for weeks to get a new commenting system for this blog. The problem is that the 3rd party system I have used for years is going out of business and it seems that if I change to another system I will lose the 5 years of comments accumulated on the blog. The only solution seems to be to change to a new version of Blogger (which is the platform this blog is built on) and presumably I can import my old comments and start using the built-in Blogger commenting system. However, a) I don't trust that the old comments will import correctly, as everything else I have been told has turned out to be wrong and b) I have tried (and so has my IT department) to change to the new blogger format and it is fraught with crazy problems. I apologize to all my readers and commenters. I like to read your comments -- even the dumb ones that contradict me -- and I'm sorry it has become so difficult. There is an awkward work-around. You can go to the title of a post, click on the title, and a commenting box along with others' comments will appear at the bottom of the post. Right now, it's the best I can do.