Son of Friday Filler

Last week I started something called "Friday Filler" in which I threw a few odds and ends together. People seemed to like it so I'm going to continue it. Actually, I really don't give a shit if people liked it, writing 5 posts a week is too damn hard.

This Could Cost Him Votes In Berkeley.

Reinventing Iconic Bullshit:
Last week, McKinney in Raleigh N.C, won the Sherwin-Williams account. From Adweek:

McKinney president Jeff Jones said that agency and client would now "work to reinvent this truly iconic American brand for future growth and prove its expertise in the marketplace.

Are there any brands left that aren't "iconic?"

And if it's so ifuckingconic, why does it need to be "reinvented?"

And how does a brand have "expertise in the marketplace?" I thought humans had expertise. Although, apparently not in language.

Hey, Jeff, you're in the fucking communication business, okay?

Sarah Silverman:
I can't wait for this election to be over so people will stop sending me "The Big Schlep." If I wanted unfunny video I'd get a DVD of Whoopi Goldberg.

Note to Sarah: No matter how noble the cause, pedantic is never funny.

It's Just A Coincidence, Right?
We know all news organizations are unbiased (they promised!) and all polling is scientific (they said so!)

So it's just a wacky coincidence that in this morning's polls the most liberal, CBS/NYTimes, has Obama up by the widest margin (+11) and the most conservative, FOXNews, has him up by the smallest margin (+3).

The difference? A mere 367%.

From CBS/NYTimes: "With less than one week until Election Day, Barack Obama maintains a clear lead over John McCain..."

From FOXNews: "The race for the White House has tightened significantly..."

Just a wacky coincidence, right? Yeah, right.

October:
Is the worst month of the year and Halloween is the worst day of the year. Good fucking riddance.

Next Week:
It's going to be "Recession Week" here at TAC. Five days of advice and opinions about advertising and marketing while the world comes crashing down around us...talk about your fun! It's even got its own logo, just like on cable! Why am I using so many fucking exclamation marks?!

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More Social Media Baloney

Remember TAC's first rule of research: Never trust a study done by an interested party.

Here's a lovely example.

The ClickZ Network reports that in a study released by Razorfish...

"...many MySpace and Facebook users said ads on their favorite social sites have prompted them to buy something"

Sounds promising, doesn't it? Just don't look too closely.

"Razorfish describes the survey respondents as "connected consumers." It defines them as people with broadband access who spent at least $200 online (emphasis mine) in the past year, used a community site such as MySpace (mine again) and consumed or made some type of digital media including videos and music."

In other words, they only sampled the most likely suspects.

And what did they find?

"Razorfish...found that 40 percent of the respondents said they made purchases due to seeing those ads."

So let's translate this into plain English.

Among the fraction of the population most likely to respond to an online ad, who have visited social sites probably thousands of time, 40% claim to have responded to an ad once.

And we're supposed to be impressed with this?

But of all the bullshit in this report, the sentence I really love is this one:

"Connected consumers have enthusiastically embraced social media.

This is a beautiful bit of tautological bullshit. Since they define "connected consumers" as those who "have used a community site such as MySpace," what this sentence really means is this: Those who have embraced social media have embraced social media.

Razorfish has a vested interest in encouraging online advertising. If you want reliable information about the effectiveness of advertising on social media, get it somewhere else.

Like Here:

Want the real scoop? From a Global Advertising Study done by AOL:

"Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often. That tiny percentage makes up the vast majority of banner ad clicks.

Who are these "heavy clickers"? They are predominantly female, indexing at a rate almost double the male population. They are older. They are predominantly Midwesterners...they look at sweepstakes far more than any other kind of content. Yes, these are the same people that tend to open direct mail and love to talk to telemarketers."

Not exactly the MySpace, Facebook crowd.

Next Week:
Don't miss "Recession Week" here at TAC. Five days of advice and opinions about advertising and marketing while the world comes crashing down around us. It's even got a logo, just like on cable!

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Pols Not Spending On Web

Once again, the hype about online advertising has been proven wrong.

At the beginning of this presidential cycle, pundits were gushing about how the web was where the action would be, and how online advertising would challenge traditional tv ads.

Not even close.

Back in January, a Lehman Brothers forecast predicted that this year candidates would spend as much as $110 million in online advertising.

The actual number? According to media research firm Borrell Associates, the real number is less than $18 million.

Hey, but let's be fair. Lehman was only off by 610%

"We found that most of it was search," said Kip Cassino, Borrell's VP of research... According to Federal Election Commission reports analyzed by ClickZ News, nearly 60 percent of Obama's online ad dollars went towards Google as of August...By the end of her race for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton's camp spent 57 percent of its online ad money on Google. "

So not only is there way less ad money being spent online, the money isn't really going to advertising. It's going to Google...um, I mean, search.

Time to wake up, people. For the most part online display advertising ain't worth shit. Social media, ditto.

Afterthought:
How could the geniuses at Lehman Brothers have been so wrong? Hard to figure.

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