This Just In: Advertisers Still Idiots

In case you were worried that advertisers had started to learn how to think straight, forget about it. They're just as dumb as ever.

This was confirmed in a recent article about TV on the Bloomberg Businessweek website.

A little background -- for years we have been writing about the stupidity of marketers who are constantly chasing young people. Just to recap, here are some numbers:

• People over 50 control over 75% of the financial assets of the US
• They dominate 94% of all consumer packaged goods categories
• They purchase almost 40% of consumer packaged goods
• Even in technology categories, where marketers assume young people dominate, baby boomers "are purchasing at rates just as high as other segments, and because they are often buying for their kids, many are double-dipping." 
• According to Nielsen, less than 5% of advertising is aimed at them

There have been a lot of articles in the past few years about how marketers are waking up to the foolishness of chasing people with no money and ignoring the people with all the money. No effing way. They're just as stupid as ever.

According to numbers in the aforementioned article, advertisers are paying 13% more for an 18-49 target than for a 25-54 target. Let's see what they're getting for their extra money.

• The median income for someone under 25 in 2010 was $24,140.
• The mean income for someone 45-64 was $60,700.

So for their extra 13% they're getting some people with less than half the income. But wait, there's more.

Since the difference between 18-49 and 25-54 is only the 5 years at either end, and since these 5 years represent only 1/6 of the total number of people in the demo group, advertisers were actually paying 78%* more for 18-25's than they were for 49-54's.

They paid 78% more for people with 60% less income.

Pretty smart, huh?

*Warning: This is copywriter math. If I were you I'd check it.

The Story Of The Facebook Monster And The Wrong Weapon

Once upon a time, there was a thing called traditional advertising. The purpose of traditional advertising was to create demand for things.

People did this with funny television and radio commercials and pretty newspaper and magazine ads and billboards and blimps and butt danglers and hooter wobblers.

Sometimes it was darn effective. And hundreds and hundreds of brands of soda pop and toys and toothpaste and cookies and cars and beer and paper towels and cake mixes and computers and sneakers and candy bars and... well, anyway, it grew and it grew.

Traditional advertising had a funny little cousin. It was called the Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages was different. Its purpose was not to create demand. Its purpose was to fulfill demand.

So when Timmy had already decided he wanted a pair of sneakers, he went to the Yellow Pages to find out where to buy them.

It was a handy system -- traditional advertising to create demand, and its funny little cousin to fulfill demand.

And then one day the internet came along. Advertisers, who are very, very smart at understanding what used to be true, thought that the internet would be like traditional advertising. And they used it the same way. They used it to try to create demand. They put pretty ads just about everywhere you could put one.

On this kind of site and that kind of site.

In between things and on top of things.

Before things and after things. 

But there was a problem. After 15 years of doing this, not one of these online advertisers had created a single major brand of anything. No soda pop or toys or toothpaste or cookies or cars or beer or paper towels or cake mixes or computers or sneakers or candy bars or...

Then, one day, there came along a really smart monster. The really smart monster had a silly name -- Google. This monster realized that the internet wasn't really like traditional advertising. It was more like the funny little cousin. The monster thought that the internet wouldn't be so good for creating demand, but it would be really good for fulfilling demand.

So the monster built itself a home that was very much like the funny little cousin's -- where people could go to find things they wanted. And the monster was right. And it grew and it grew and it grew.

Now the story gets spine-tingling. One day, another monster came along. Its name was Facebook. And everybody loved this new monster. He was way more fun and friendly than Google.

Now there were two advertising monsters. And they were fighting. The winner would get lots and lots of money. The loser would get lots and lots of money, too. But not as much as the winner.

Each monster had a different weapon. The Google monster's weapon was fulfilling demand. The Facebook monster's weapon was... uh-oh, you guessed it... creating demand.

So even though everybody loved the Facebook monster, it turned out that the Google monster's weapon was 25 times more powerful!

Now here's the fun part. The people who spend lots and lots of money for advertising were so fucking stupid darn silly, that after 15 years they still didn't understand it. They still thought the internet was like television and radio and newspapers and magazines and billboards and blimps and butt danglers and hooter wobblers. They thought it was really good for creating demand. And they kept spending money trying to do this. Silly guys!

Well, believe it or not, this little misunderstanding gave the Facebook monster (known to everyone on his block as "that creepy Zuckerberg kid") the idea that maybe his weapon really was powerful after all, and that if he could just find a way to redesign it so it worked really well in a new carry-around container he could win.

But, uh-oh, the problem was not where the monster's weapon was used. The problem was, the monster had the wrong weapon.

But there's a happy ending. Even though the Facebook monster had the wrong weapon, advertising people were so fucking stupid kind and generous that he still made more money than you could ever imagine.

Strange Habits

Back when I was just a little baby copywriter, I used to have lunch most days at a bar and restaurant called Reno Barsochini's on Battery Street in San Francisco. Reno was a former baseball player and friend of Joe DiMaggio. He also had one of the great all-time names.

I don't know what kind of ballplayer Reno was, but he wasn't much of a restaurateur. He made a good hamburger, though, and that's all I needed.

Most days while I was eating my hamburger, Hal Riney would wander in and sit at the bar. He rarely looked at anyone and even more rarely talked to anyone. He would order a bourbon or two and sit there with a yellow pad and write. For all I know, he may have written "Morning In America" at that bar.

At the time, it seemed like a strange way to work. Now I find myself also having strange work habits.

First of all, I do most of my work at home. I go to the office every day, but mostly I can't concentrate there. The office is for meetings, and chatting, and lunch, and planning, and talking about work, not doing it.

For every hour I spend at work I spend at least an hour working at home.

Second, I do most of my work lying down. At home I do it lying on a sofa or lying in bed in the middle of the night. In the office, I do it lying on a sofa in my office. If I have mindless work to do -- answering emails, or doing time sheets -- I do it at my desk. But if I have to think, I need to get away from my desk.

I have developed a fondness for strange work habits. To my permanent dismay, however, doing good work seems to take more than just strange habits.

Wouldn't it be great if all it took was some bourbon and a yellow pad?