Advertising is alive and well and living…Well, …everywhere

Bob Hoffman is an old-school adman. he famously writes a blog called the Ad Contrarian. He gave this talk in London recently “The Golden Age Of Bullshit”. It's worth watching and paying attention to what he has to say.

He invokes scientific method and the great Physicist Richard Feynman as well as some statistics that will make social media gurus' vintage glasses fog up.

He makes the point that social media never built a big brand in the way that television has. He says traditional ads create demand but digital media - the Internet - is terrific at fulfilling demand. That's a clear point well made. Rather than buying into the bullshit that 'television is dying' as if it was in a battle to the death with social media or digital media generally - it makes sense to look at the facts - rather than getting caught up in hype.

Hoffman wonders where the pugnacious contrarians are in advertising? - something I've wondered about myself. He says when social media pundits question his understanding about using social tools - he points to the fact that his blog has more than three million views and that he has used social media to propel his book 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising to number one in Amazon's advertising books category.

He also talks about a topic near and dear to my heart - that the ad industry studiously avoids baby boomers. Once again he invokes the facts. If US boomers were a country they'd be the third biggest in the world - after China and the US (setting aside the logic that another country would fill America's spot once the geezers have defected). The reasons he gives make perfect sense - it is the uncomfortable truth that, though Boomers buy most of the products and services in the US economy they are largely ignored and are the target audience for just 5% of advertising expended. Young people in advertising just don't want to be seen to be associated with them. Advertising also helps shape our distorted attitudes towards aging (but that's a story for another day). The point is that marketers are missing out on the opportunity to gain more than their fair share if they ignore the most influential demographic.

I hope you do watch the video and maybe leave some comment on it. 

Visit his Ad Contrarian blog

Some of the highlights.

Hoffman refers to this speech in his speech - start the clip at 1':19" to skip the intro and 7':10 to hear the part referenced: 

"One of the greatest threats we face is, simply put, bullshit. We're drowning in it. We're drowning in rhetoric that is just true enough not to be a lie - in industry sponsored research - in social media's imitation of human connection - in legalese and corporate double speak. It infects every facet of public life, corrupting our discourse, wrecking our trust in major institutions and lowering our standards for the truth."