Category: marketing

marketing politics

The other email scandal

In the field of email marketing permission is a big deal. Without it you get spam. As someone who makes a living being a responsible marketer, the way in which political parties and candidates disregard the same laws they write for us to follow is appalling.

I support Hillary Clinton in this presidential election because I’m not insane. As a result, I’ve made three $100 donations to her campaign over the past year or so. This resulted in an obscene amount of email being sent to me trying to pry more money from my bank account. Sometimes, more than one message a day. Eventually, I was able to opt-out of these messages (after more than one try) and haven’t received any more. Until last Friday. What happened on Friday? Hillary picked Tim Kaine to be her running mate.

In the past four days, I’ve received a dozen thirteen emails (in the fifteen minutes it took me to write this, I got another one) supposedly from Hillary herself, from Senator Kaine, from HillaryClinton.com, from Michelle and Barack Obama, and even one from ol’ Bill Clinton. This is simply inexcusable. If I were to do this in my work life, I’d consider it a breach of professional ethics.

This is not unique to Hillary’s campaign. Obama’s was just as bad. I also recall how my email address was seemingly passed around to any and all candidates who’d have it resulting in one memorable beseechment for donations from Charlie Rangel and communications from random pols in Colorado I’ve never head of.

I’ll probably make more donations to her campaign in the months to come, but her literal spamming of me (not to mention the incessant phone calls asking for money) leave a very bitter taste in my mouth.

#ImWithHer, for sure, but I’m certainly not with her marketing tactics.

Apple marketing media

Cont blocked

iOS 9 introduced the option of blocking web ads and tracking scripts in Safari and a lot of the internet lost its shit. Moral introspection ensued as blocking plug-ins shot to the top of the App Store charts.

I work in digital marketing so I do get that Apple’s move here threatens to severely knock my universe out of balance, but I also acknowledge that the world of online advertising has become actively hostile to those for whom the ads are intended. Bloated pages suck down mobile user’s metered bandwidth and waste their time loading, not to mention the “ads” that automatically redirect site visitors to app stores or other destinations and those that block page content or so crowd it out that it’s hard to find, let alone read. Publishers have allowed advertisers to absolutely ruin the web experience in too many cases in exchange for the few shekels they get in return. The question isn’t why has Apple allowed this to happen, the question is what took so long?

Apple, of course, makes next to nothing from advertising (iAds aside which are of negligible import to anyone). Their business model is based on hardware revenue and those sales are founded on exceptional consumer experience and today’s online advertising model does nothing but erode that. It’s in Apple’s interest to allow its consumers this kind of control. Simple as that.

Of course, publishers need money to publish. The rush towards ad blocking doesn’t spell the end to an ad-based model, it spells the end of the crazy bullshit model that’s evolved organically and unchecked. We as consumers either have to pay sites to read them or we have to let them show us ads (or maybe a little of both). Expecting the web to be delivered free of any charge is totally unrealistic and ultimately unethical. 

The top-selling iOS blocker, Crystal, is now allowing what they call “acceptable ads” from marketers who pay for the privilege safe passage through their filter. They’re teaming with Eyeo, the company behind the browser plug-in AdBlock Plus, and using their database of more than 700 advertisers who meet Eyeo’s criteria. I put it on my phone the day iOS 9 dropped and my recollection is it was free at that time, but it’s currently 99¢. So Crystal is trying to profit from both ends of the pipeline while Eyeo only does so from the advertisers. Since Crystal didn’t say anything about this possibility when it launched, a lot of people are pissed. 

In theory, I think this is the right path for those of us who know that there must be some exchange of value in order to maintain a thriving content model on the web. If the ad industry won’t or can’t abide by acceptable, self-imposed guidelines, then I suppose it’s not unexpected that others like Eyeo would do it for them and that consumers would pick which model they like best. As I said, I don’t think this spells the end of the “free web.” I think it spells the end of the version we have now. Or, at least, the beginning of the end. It’ll be rough sailing for some smaller sites and I expect a lot of them will fade away. But the status quo is not acceptable (and it’s only getting worse). 

A not insignificant shelter in the storm of consumer’s ad-blocking fury on iOS is the niggling detail that content blockers only work in Safari. They don’t apply to web views within apps. That means if you click a link in Facebook or any other app that opens that URL without switching over to Safari (using something called WebKit, the default behavior of most apps on iOS), then the content blocker isn’t engaged. In keeping an eye on my own behavior, I see that the vast majority of my web visits happen outside Safari. Probably north of 80%. Until such time that Apple extends ad blocking functionality to these WebKit sessions, the real impact won’t be felt. But if/when that does happen, shit’s gonna get real.

marketing media social

The aliens of Facebook

The more I think about this secret Facebook psych test the more I’m disturbed by it. And not in the outrage de jour kind of way, either. Facebook is a company with nearly a billion daily users and no compunction regarding screwing with their emotional state. What does it say about a company that would do such a thing with apparently no idea normal non-Facebook employees would be horrified by it? Reading their reaction to the outrage, it seems as though they’re truly blindsided by it. Unbelievable. 

Every successful corporation has a kind of cultural DNA that motivates their actions. Facebook’s DNA is truly and deeply screwed up. It’s like the company is run by a group of aliens who only somewhat understand how humans work and only have that insight based on analyzing social graph data. 

This episode raises all kinds of questions for me. How big is too big in social media? Who will ensure companies like Facebook are acting in an ethical manner? How can misuse of their power to influence us (either by them or third parties) be safeguarded against? 

I guess, in a way, it’s a good thing Facebook stumbled face-first into this pile of horseshit in the innocently and socially clueless way they did. Now we know what can be done to us by them. How will we respond? And when I say “we” I mean everyone since that’s approximately Facebook’s user base. Every damned one. 

marketing

Brandbowl

Of the commercials I didn’t see beforehand, I’d have to say this little pug was pretty funny. Even better that it was done for about $500.

Honorable mention also to the Doritos resurrection spot. I still think the VW Vader ad was the best, though the version they showed on-air was shortened and not nearly as good (though about $3 million cheaper to air).

The most tone-deaf was easily the second Groupon ad. I’m not easily offended so I won’t pretend that I was, but seriously? Mocking oppressed Tibetans? Who thought that was a good idea?

There were many bad or mediocre ads, but probably the most pointless and misfired, in my opinion, was the Stella Artois spot with Adrian Brody. I kept waiting for it to get funny. But it never did. Plus, he’s not that great of a singer. The Moto Xoom ad was technically very well done, but was another where the marketers thought the best way to sell their product was by mocking those who buy the competitors’. I just don’t understand that approach. It clearly isn’t working for Windows Phone 7.

marketing

Super what?

I’m with Gruber. That fantastic Darth Vader VW commercial hit the YouTubes on Wednesday with no way to know it was destined for the Super Bowl. Less than 24 hours after it hit, it had 900,000 views. Right now, about 4 days later, it has nearly 11 million. I bet at least a dozen of my friends have shared it on Facebook. A rare example of a truly viral video.

So I have two questions. One, if you’re spending about $100,000 a second for Super Bowl air time, why do you spill the ad to the internet days before? Isn’t that (minimally) half the reason anyone watches the Super Bowl? For the ads? (Case in point: Today, while checking out at the grocery store, I heard the cashier in the next lane telling a customer which her favorite ads from last year.) Two, why in the hell are you spending $3 million for a 30 second spot in the first place when YouTube and Facebook (among other things) allow your fans to target the ad far better than your media buyer could?