"My Job Is To Make Good Ads"

I am writing a novel about a creative director at an advertising agency. Or perhaps, more accurately, I was writing a novel until a few months ago when I ran out of words.

Last week I was re-reading what I had written. I found something from the novel that I thought would make good blog material. The creative director is explaining his job...

"...my job is to make good ads.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Good ads are easy to make at home. They’re easy to make in ad school. They’re remarkably easy to make in bars. The one place, however, where it’s almost impossible to make a good ad is at an ad agency.

Ad agencies are staffed and structured in such a way as to put the maximal number of obstacles in the way of creating good ads. This is because agencies analyze everything there is to be analyzed about an ad. 

It has been my experience that nothing creative can survive the indignity of being broken down to its smallest constituent components. It’s like trying to decide if a movie is good by scrutinizing the frames."

One of these days I'll finish the damn thing.

The 6 Stages Of Digital Delusion

One of our axioms here at The Ad Contrarian worldwide headquarters is that in today's world of marketing, delusional thinking is not just acceptable, it's mandatory.

Digital media have been the primary cause and the primary beneficiary of delusional thinking. The fascinating thing is that the cycle of delusion has been going on for over 10 years and we still don't recognize it.

Here are the 6 stages of digital delusion:

1. The Miracle Is Acknowledged: It may be podcasting or banner advertising, YouTube, Twitter or Facebook. Whatever it is, it is going to "change everything." It will be the focus of hysterical attention in the trade press and will often find its way into the business section of the newspaper.

2. The Big Success: A company somewhere has a big success. This is where the danger starts. The success is plastered all over every trade magazine and analyzed at every conference. It is "proof" that the miracle is real.

3. Experts Are Hatched: Clever entrepreneurs gather up a Powerpointful of cliches and march them around from conference to conference. They write articles, and even books, on how not to be left behind.

4. The Bandwagon Rolls: Everyone who knows nothing is suddenly asking the marketing department, "what is our (your miracle here) strategy?" Fearing that she will be thought insufficiently trendy, every CMO is suddenly looking for an agency that is expert at (your miracle here).

5. Reality Rears Its Ugly Head: The numbers dribble in. Oops...people are ignoring our miracle 955 million at a time. The miracle seems to be working for everyone but us!

6. The Back-Pedaling Begins: "Well, it's just part of an integrated program..." say the former zealots. The experts start blaming the victims, "Hey, we never promised...We told you you had to..."

This cycle has repeated itself so many times that it is comical. Here are just some of the digital miracles that have turned out to be "just part of an integrated program..."

    ...websites... blogs... banners... podcasts... MySpace... Second Life... widgets... YouTube... Facebook... Facebook apps... Hulu...games... Twitter... iAds...Linked In... FourSquare... Pinterest... QR codes... and now... content (whatever the hell that means.)

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.


Which reminds me...
...what the hell ever happened to "the conversation?"

Losing Our Contrarian Status?

One of the great joys of being an Ad Contra is thumbing your nose at the smug experts of the marketing world. But there’s always the danger that the mainstream will start accepting your ideas -- and then all the fun evaporates.

There is a disturbing trend developing. We Ad Contras are in danger of having our annoying opinions co-opted by the mainstream.

In the past few weeks there have been a number of shocking incidents that lead me to believe that our truculent points of view about online advertising and social media marketing are gaining traction in the "real" world.

• A few weeks ago an article from Reuters laid out the dysfunctional state of the display advertising industry.

• Then Digiday published a flattering interview that was sympathetic to our point of view. Worse, it was one of their top 5 stories last week.

• I spoke at a social media conference last week and I was not escorted out by security.

• Then the Huffington Post also ran a sympathetic piece.

• ComScore released a study which pretty much verified everything we've been saying about online advertising delusions.

• Yesterday, The San Francisco Chronicle ran a piece called Big Investors Rethinking Social Media which describes the disaster that is the social media business and "the pricking of the social media bubble."
  

This is very dismaying. If there's one thing that annoys us Ad Contras it's suspension of hostilities.

Hopefully, there are still plenty of deluded marketing digiholics who will continue to dream on. Unfortunately, their assertions and arguments are usually so lame as to hardly  require rebuttal. They have no facts, only opinions and assertions.

Let's hope the "everything is dead" crowd and the "digital changes everything" maniacs don't go all soft on us. We still need a good fight.

Which reminds me... don't miss Wednesday's upcoming post, "The 6 Stages Of Digital Delusion."