by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian). Marketers they are abandoning the “permission model” and reverting to the “interruption model” in their online advertising.
Tag archives: bob hoffman
The Ad Contrarian: Why social channels are cloning television in 2014
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) Last year, Facebook pretty much abandoned the fantasy and got into the interruption model big time. Great big traditional ads started appearing in our streams. Facebook still has pretensions of social media, but it’s pretty clear what it really is — a social media channel with traditional advertising plastered all over it.
The Ad Contrarian: 10 TV Spots We Don’t Need To See In 2014
In order to inspire creative people to do better, here are 10 TV spots that we’ve all seen a thousand times and we really don’t need to see again in 2014.
The Ad Contrarian: How status anxiety sinks adland
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) One of the great afflictions suffered by people in the advertising industry is status anxiety — worrying about what people think of you.
The Ad Contrarian: Adland — salespeople or sociologists?
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) Somewhere along the line, the ad industry decided that advertising should be about consumers, not products. This unnoticed and unremarked-upon mutation has had a profound impact on the nature and effectiveness of what we do.
The Ad Contrarian: The ‘engagement’ farce at the YouTube Music Awards
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) Online advocates have been trying to convince us that the proper measurement of online success is “engagement.” Engagement is a very imprecise and confusing term. Nobody can agree on what engagement means, how to measure it, or what value it has.
The Ad Contrarian: Big data and marketing bull
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) The era of “big data” is quickly becoming the era of “big bullshit” — bullshit on a grander scale than ever before. We’ve always had ability to bullshit with words. Now we have the ability to bullshit with math.
The Ad Contrarian: Agencies are selling clients the wrong kind of miracles
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) With the exceptions of pop music and fashion, there is probably no more trendy business than advertising. Every few years we invent a trendy new miracle and everyone immediately jumps on it. But selling the wrong kind of miracles is a very dangerous and short-sighted habit to adopt.
The Ad Contrarian: Fake traffic could cost advertisers $9.5 billion this year
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) On 17 June, 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.
The Ad Contrarian: Media buyers are ruining everything
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) I think that a substantial part of what makes our culture such a toxic cesspool can be laid at the feet of agency media buyers. Yup, all this rot is their fault.