The Online Ad Industry Wanted Interactivity? They Got It.

About 2 1/2 years ago in this space I wrote the following about online advertising:

"As far as I'm concerned, it's a house of cards."

Then a few months later I wrote...

"I never make predictions. But online advertising is a train wreck waiting to happen."

Sadly, it's starting to look as if I may have stumbled on the truth.

Through a combination of greed, stupidity, and arrogance the online advertising industry is facing the greatest crisis of its young life.

First, let's be clear about something -- the hysteria now swirling around ad blocking is probably out of proportion to the reality of the problem. Advertisers have been witlessly ignoring the fraud, ineffectiveness, and corruption of online advertising for years. It's not likely that they will all simultaneously stop being stupid.

But there's also very little question that there is a major problem. The use of ad blocking software is growing at alarming rates and this can easily turn into a disaster for a lot of publishers whose revenue model is built on advertising (which is almost everyone.)

The industry should have known. There were many people who warned that its practices were dishonorable, unprincipled, and nefarious. We were dismissed as "Luddite dinosaurs" who "just didn't get it" by arrogant ignoramuses. Now we'll see who "didn't get it."

Despite my disdain for the digital ad industry, I take no pleasure in this crisis. A lot of hard-working, well-meaning people are likely to be hurt by the venal, greedy behavior of an industry out of control.

There were three potential paths for online advertising:

1. The industry could have policed itself. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (Inactive Advertising Bureau) or the 4A's or the ANA could have set reasonable standards of behavior. They did nothing.

2. Governments could have stepped in and set standards. They, wisely, have kept their noses out of this mess. Nobody with a functioning brain wants to get in the middle of this shit fight.

3. Consequently, consumers are in full revolt. The online ad industry wanted interactivity? They got it.


Notes: 
Next Monday, 9/28, I will be speaking at Advertising Week, NY. The talk will be at 10:30 am at the AOL Stage, 11 Times Square. The title of the talk will be "Marketers Are From Mars, Consumers Are From New Jersey." Please come out and protect me when digital maniacs storm the stage and try to strangle me. More info here. 

Later this week (Thursday 9/24) I will be speaking in Winnipeg, Canada to the Broadcasters Association of Manitoba. More info here. 

Then on Friday I will be speaking to advertising and marketing students in Winnipeg.

Let The Back-Pedaling Begin

In about 10 days I'll be speaking at Advertising Week in New York.

I can't wait.

Not because of anything I'll be doing. What I can't wait for is to hear the epic bullshit that will be emanating from the online advertising community.

With the alarming growth of ad blocking, with the revelations about fraud and corruption, and the scandalous disclosures of agency kickbacks over the past year, I expect Advertising Week to be a truly monumental festival of back-pedaling, excuse-making, and history re-writing by the arrogant aristocrats of online advertising.

All the digital bullshit artists who sold us a shady, sleazy bill of goods...

...who pompously lectured us on how consumers are turned off by traditional advertising and want the irresistible charm of precision targeted messages...

...who berated us about our outdated practices and pontificated about their superior "real time" marketing...

....who told us that their data driven advertising would be so much more engaging and effective...

are now going to have to explain to us why consumers are fleeing online advertising faster than Donald Trump at a Mexican road rally.

It's going to be great to watch them claim that they didn't really say this...and they didn't really mean that...

They'll be blaming the victims, "marketers need to understand..." and torturing the logic, "it doesn't mean that online advertising isn't..."

It's going to be fun to talk.  But it's going to be a lot more fun to listen.

We Can't Let Go Of The Delusion

The advertising and marketing industries are so caught up in their underwear, and so deeply possessed by delusion, that it is time for everyone to sit down, take a deep breath, and re-think what they're doing.

About twenty years ago we started to become exposed to a new and thrilling vision of advertising. The vision went something like this:

Technology is on the brink of allowing us to deliver programming to people on a customized basis. Soon they will be able to watch any tv program, listen to any song, view any movie, at will and on demand.

This presents us advertisers with an equally thrilling opportunity. We, too, can can deliver any message about any product or service individualized to the customer's need by following the trail of their entertainment and social behavior.

By analyzing consumer media behavior, we can be remarkably precise in our ability to send them the right message, at the right time, in the right place.

This was the promise of ad tech. There was only one problem. We were wrong.

While people love the ability to customize their entertainment and social behavior, they hate the customization and "precision targeting" of ad tech.

Online ad blocking is surging. In the U.S. it grew 50% last year. Worldwide it grew 70%

Marketers -- while knowing this intellectually -- still haven't accepted it emotionally. They are still in denial.

They have so much invested in the ad tech hypothesis that they can't let go of it no matter how much evidence there is that it is wrong.