Online Ad Criminals

On June 17th, we published a piece called The $7.5 Billion Ad Swindle. It was about the massive fraud that is being perpetrated on advertisers by criminality within the online advertising industry.

A new report by Solve Media indicates that the fraud is growing at an alarming rate. According to an Adweek piece last week, in just 3 months the size of the fraud has jumped to about $9.5 billion this year (by the way, kudos to Mike Shields of Adweek who won't let this story go away.)

In the first quarter of 2013, Solve reports that the amount of suspicious web advertising traffic has risen from 43% to 46%. That means that 46% of the viewership reported by websites seems to be fraudulent. It is not people. It is computer programs (bots) pretending to be people to drive up the numbers and screw advertisers out of billions of dollars.

Not only that, suspicious advertising traffic has also started to rear its ugly head big time on mobile sites. Over 1/3 of mobile traffic during this time period was suspicious.

As the problem becomes more severe, the silence from online publishers, ad networks, and agencies remains deafening.

Just like 15 years ago when everybody was soaking the dot-com clowns for all they were worth, nobody wants to kill the golden goose. When corporate management finally figures out how their money is being pissed away, CMO heads will roll and agencies will be fired.

Until then, nobody seems to care that half of online ad money is being stolen by con men and swindlers. The insane naivete and cluelessness that has permeated the whole online advertising enterprise since its inception is still shocking.

Now it has taken a new form. Not only are marketers ignoring the awful truth about the ineffectiveness of online advertising, they are turning a blind eye to the fact that they are being skinned alive by crooks and their willfully corrupt accomplices in the ad world.

And if you think the fraud in the U.S, is bad, get a look at these numbers from some other countries. According to Solve...

• 92% of web traffic in China is suspicious
• 80% of Venezuela's web traffic is suspicious
• 77% of web traffic in the Ukraine is suspicious
• In Singapore 86% of mobile traffic is suspicious

The irony in all this is that the web was supposed to make advertising so much more accountable by giving us accurate tracking of advertising traffic. Well, they were right about one thing. It's being tracked. And what the tracking has revealed is the likelihood that there is an astounding amount of criminal activity at work.

Fortunately for the thieves, charlatans, and hustlers, nobody seems to give a shit.

An Industry Of Umpires

In baseball, the players play the game and the umpires' make sure there is a smooth and decorous process.

The fans come to see the talent of the players. When umpires impose themselves disproportionately on the flow of the game they are roundly booed.

The best umpires are the ones who are virtually invisible. The worst umpires are the ones who think the game is about them.

A very strange phenomenon has happened in the advertising industry. Almost unnoticed, the umpires have taken over the game.

The players -- the people who actually make the ads -- have been marginalized. They are now "support."

The business is in such a state of disarray that the umpires are playing the game. The account managers, the planners, the strategists and data analysts are now taking the at-bats and running the bases.

There has always been a certain type of activist "umpire" in the ad business. Like in baseball, the really good ones are catalysts for a smoother, more enjoyable and better played game. The really bad ones think the game is about them.

The sad thing is that while baseball fans would never pay to watch umpires play ball,  clients are actually more comfortable with this arrangement.

Something has gone very wrong. Either the players no longer have the talent to keep the paying customers interested, or the customers have forgotten what the game is about.

Ad Exec Says He Didn't Know Anything

CHICAGO -- Advertising executive Fenton Schmetz admitted today that all during his successful 18-year advertising career he didn't know anything.

Schmetz, who most recently held the position of Chief Irritation Officer at Compucom, a worldwide, international, global, intercontinental agency said in an interview, "I really don't know anything about advertising or marketing or people or business. I just made things up. I don't even know how to pay my cable bill."

When asked how he was able to fool people for 18 years, Schmetz said, "I would ask people to come into my office and show me what they were working on. Then I would say 'I don't like that' and I would make them change it. After they changed it a few times I would say 'OK, that's better.' Also, sometimes I went to meetings and ate blueberry scones and nodded my head."

Schmetz said he was first attracted to advertising by the clothing. "I always looked very good in black t-shirts and I thought that if I could just find a job where I could wear a black t-shirt every day I would do very well. Oh, and expensive eye wear. I always wanted to wear expensive eye wear. The other thing that attracted me to advertising is that I like friendly girls and I found that advertising has a lot of them."

Schmetz said the most difficult challenge for him during his tenure at Compucom came at lunch. "During the work day it was easy to fool people. I just took the things that everyone else said and moved a few words around. Like, they would say, 'We need a multi-channel solution that leverages our disruption across the ecosystem' and then I'd wait a few minutes and I would say, 'I think we need disruption across the ecosystem that leverages our multi-channel solutions.' Everyone seemed to agree."

"That part was easy. The hard part came at lunch when people started talking in English."

Schmetz explained that the aspect of advertising he liked best was being with clients. "I think I was very good at working with our clients. I would make statements about 'value propositions' and 'engagement' and 'use cases' and they would nod their heads and then we'd go have a drink. Sometimes we'd go to Las Vegas and pretend to have a conference about social media, which I was really good at."

Asked why he decided to come forward with his admission at this time, Schmetz said, "It's time for me to move on. I feel like I've accomplished everything I can do here. But I want to apologize to my colleagues and clients. It was wrong of me to claim I understood anything. I have no idea why people buy stuff. I don't know what makes a good ad. I don't know anything. Honestly, I don't even know what an 'ecosystem' is. Is it like when you hear your own voice or something?"

When told of Schmetz's departure, one of his clients, Rajai Pargamanianaianan, CMO of Doodeo, said, "We are very sorry to see Fenton leave. He played an important role in our success. He had one of the most fertile marketing minds we've ever worked with. He deeply understood our value proposition and our engagement and our use cases."

What is Schmetz going to miss most about advertising? "Oh, definitely the intellectual stimulation of trying to rearrange sentences to say the same thing everyone else is saying but in a much more complicated way. It's not as easy as you think. Also, I will miss the friendly girls."

What does he plan to do next? "I'm thinking of starting a blog."