"Ground-Breaking" Baloney

It looks like online ad sales organizations are getting desperate. Their research is starting to look almost as dubious as traditional ad research.

Earlier this week I read a press release entitled .Fox Networks and comScore Reveal Ground-Breaking Findings About the Branding Impact of Online Advertising which claimed that...

".Fox Networks (pronounced “dot-fox”), the leading global online network from Fox International Channels (FIC) and comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, today unveiled the findings of a ground-breaking U.K. study."

And what did this earth-shattering study prove? I don't know. Something about...

"Research confirms ability of video and display advertising to drive sustained brand engagement regardless of users clicking on ads or not."

In other words, even though no one's clicking on display ads, these ads are still driving "sustained brand engagement" whatever the hell that means.

The release is a masterpiece of obfuscation with no raw data whatsoever, just comparisons. So we don't know how much the advertisers spent, how "sustained brand engagement" is measured, whether there were any sales results, what the ROI was...

Just a few of dicey numbers that can't be analyzed.

More wind-breaking than ground-breaking.

Meaningful Relationships?

If you haven't seen it, an interesting piece showed up last week in The Harvard Business Review called The Social Media Bubble. It's by a guy named Umair Haque who is Director of the Havas Media Lab (do you think they have test tubes and Bunsen burners?)

The article is not about social media marketing (which is what I'm always going off about) but about social media itself.

His overall point is that social media debases the meaning of "relationship"

• "It used to mean someone you could count on. Today, it means someone you can swap bits with."

• "Far from fueling meaningful conversation, today's "social" web is a world full of the linguistic equivalent of drive-by shootings."

• "To be "friends" with 1000 people who are also obsessed with vintage 1960s glasses isn't friendship — it's just a single, solitary shared interest."

• "If the "relationships" created on today's Internet were valuable, perhaps people (or advertisers) might pay for the opportunity to enjoy them. Yet, few, if any, do — anywhere, ever. ..That's because there's no there there. I can swap bits with pseudo-strangers at any number of sites. "Friends" like that are a commodity — not a valuable, unique good."

• "The internet itself isn't disempowering government by giving voices to the traditionally voiceless; it's empowering authoritarian states to limit and circumscribe freedom by radically lowering the costs of surveillance and enforcement." (By the way, back in July, in a post called Iran: Twitter's Blair Witch we made the same point..."Let's try and remember something here. Tyrants don't get to power by being stupid. They're watching and learning...Technology isn't only effective at spreading information...It's also pretty good at suppressing it")

Although I'm very vocal about my skepticism about social media marketing, I actually enjoy social media. What do you guys think of Haque's points?

Just A Note On The Irresponsibility Of The Press

A few weeks ago we wrote a piece called Crisis In The Newsroom about the deterioration of journalism in the US. Yesterday an AP release left me speechless. It stated that US forces would begin an attack on Kandahar, stronghold of the Taliban in Afghanistan, in June. Don't these people realize that there are lives at stake and that by publishing this stuff they're endangering the lives of young men and women? What's going on here?

"You First Must Learn How To See"

Last week I posted a piece called Reality At The DMV. It was about understanding who our customers really are by visiting the DMV and looking around.

One ignorant commenter wrote the following:

"My point is that the scum of the earth waiting in line at your local DMV is not our target audience for anything other than target practice."

In response to that, a wise commenter named Rob wrote the following:

TIME: Day 1 of Year 1 (circa 1981)
PLACE: Los Angeles
CLASS: FINE ARTS INTRO
My teacher (a sculptor of some renown) takes roll, and then informs us of this nugget:
"Before you can learn how to draw, you first must learn how to see."
We then spent the day walking down Vermont Ave., up Figueroa, over to Broadway and through Chinatown. Along the way we visited; A Revival Meeting/Tamale Factory/Sat and talked with the Homeless/Went to a swap meet/Rosedale Cemetery/Korean Sweat Shop/Ate chicken feet.
The best stop was The Junkyard, at which time our Professor instructed us to find
something of beauty amid all the discards.
IT WAS GREAT!
I've never forgotten that lesson!
One day my boss (a rather effete and affected agency CD sort) invited me to attend a showing of 'In The American West' celebrating Richard Avedon's work. As we strolled up
to talk with Avedon, my boss uttered some disparaging remarks about the slovenly
and disheveled nature of his featured subjects. Avedon then tersely shot back:
"They are quite beautiful to me!"
Like it or not;
Wal-Mart
The Sizzler
Hyundai/Toyota/Ford Dealerships
The Lavanderia
are where you'll find the bulk of the folks
whom we profess to know so much about.
They're all around us, in some cases right there in our very own living rooms!
You just have to be open to seeing it.

Thanks, Rob