I always look to the ‘Voice’ section of AdWeek to find some of the most frothy hyperventilations about ad Tech. One can spend days unpacking a headline or a few short paragraphs replete with thickly packed nonsense, and use it for a course on Deranged Marketing Theory, Digital Brain Washing or Delusional Data Lust.
One day, we’ll look back at the gargantuan pile of regurgitated pseudo-science that slick talking technocrats passed off as insightful innovation and be ashamed of ourselves. How could we have dreamed up such horrific tapestries of phraseology designed to obfuscate as it pretends to illuminate, only to serve a deficient marketing tool that all the words in the world cannot fix? Why not just come clean and focus on the truth? OK. Take a walk with me as we explore the twisted logic and demented inventions conjured by a media mind that believes “Signal Planning Removes Static – smart data allows media execs to stop using panels, predictions and funnels to find real consumers”.
What the hell does that mean, you ask? (yes, I can read your mind with my special telepathy device built in my lab using a toaster, TV antenna and hamster wheel; very ingenious if I may say so myself). It means my dear friend and reader of this blog, that people are nuts!! And so the article begins….
“There are still lots of brands that define their consumers based on age, gender, income and education.” Still? …as IF that’s a problem. Lots? …No, ALL – if it exists in the collective consciousness, it means they have made themselves known by targeting broad swaths of the population. Any succsessful Brand would have gained that type of notoriety by using just the type of targeting you go on to argue is problematic.
“The problems with that kind of definition have been examined in marketing research journals ad nauseam.” I’ll guess that to cite one reputable source as proof would have been impossible and to cite the hundreds of crackpot studies conducted by firms with a self-serving interest would have been easier.
“It’s time to…welcome the age of Signals. The age of signals began with the rise of programmatic buying, which was the first time behavioral data was able to inform media buying. Social accelerated the use of signals and enabled custom audiences…accelerated the purchase funnel and moved the purchase journey to mobile.” Programmatic is a black box of waste and fraud. Nobody asked to have data about their behavior collected. If you are defining a very specific audience, you are operating towards the bottom of the funnel. The data used to gather that audience was based on stalking their interactions with Categories and Brands which they learned of through top of the funnel Awareness and Consideration. When you speak of informing media you speak of retargeting and DR. You can’t build a Brand this way. You can however, haunt people. BO! What the hell does “accelerate the purchase funnel” mean? The consumer journey is a comical farce that sounds good in board rooms, as if marketers can cast a spell and turn consumers into mindless drones controlled by pushing messages and pulling levers. Please. Human behavior and preference is in constant flux. We are as different from one another as we are different from ourselves given our moods, situations, environmental factors and whims. Demography does not = destiny so stop acting as if how we interact with a screen is the essence of our humanity and consumerism.
I learned a few new terms:
“Pulsing: ongoing promotions”. No need to just say promotions.
“Bursts: launches.” I guess launches has way too many syllables
“Pillars: always on media schedules.” This is also known as constant consideration, or Branding.
“These approaches made sense in the absence of data, but now that we have data, we need to move on.” OK listen up, FORD, APPLE, COKE, VERIZON, COMCAST and yes,,, YOU TOO P+G, it’s time to wake up and move on from promotions, launches and branding…. WE HAVE DATA !!!
“We should be using this data (in the form of signals) that has been activated by the consumer.” Activated? No. We are resigned to a status quo that we neither asked for nor like; Websites, browsers, devices and apps infested with trackers and pixels and beacons, oh my !
Then there’s the usual nonsense about “consumers promoting Brands, talking about them on social media, searching on google and installing the Brands apps on their phone.” I’ll make this quick. A very small percentage of consumers constitute the vast majority of brand chatter on social. Searching is a result of Branding. Anyone with more than 2 “Brands apps” on their phone is rare. But these are all good sources of Signals, so keep listening!
“All a brand should care about is that the consumer is ready to buy again.” If you’re a brand don’t listen to that advise. You’ll never grow your Brand on the backs of loyal customers alone.
“If Brands have lots of money, they may consider talking to consumers when they anticipate they’ll be entering a category, even before their signals indicate shopping behaviors.” We can read minds but must charge a higher rate for that service in order to offset the cost of the very ingenious telepathy device built using a toaster, TV antenna and hamster wheel. In what world is serving a banner ad “talking to a consumer”.
“Signals remove static”. I’d argue that not only are signals themselves static but so is this entire piece. You can read it in the Sept issue of AdWeek, page 12. The nosiest medium is the internet. The signals sent through it at us are messy, creepy, ineffective, annoying, and are so plentiful that we pretty much completely ignore them. Because of tracking we don’t know if the 1 pitiful banner ad we do see is aimed at a population or just us and therefore it loses its signaling value all together. I wonder if they know anything about real Signaling Theory or if they just choose to ignore it…
How’s that for Signals and Static??
