Encore post: Answer the call (to action)

You can’t overstate the ability of advertising people to inhale their own fumes. It may be part of the job description. I’ll have to check with HR.

Many of them have what I’d call an unrealistic sense of consumer behavior that should rightfully be filed under wishful thinking. For example, against all evidence from the beginning of advertising time, there’s a prevailing thought that just because you bark an order at the consumer and tell them to do something, they’ll actually do it.

If it were only that easy.

How else to explain the fact almost every piece of—let’s call it marketing communication—that gets produced has what’s referred to in the biz as a CTA. In civilian terms, a Call To Action.

It’s the instruction from the advertiser on what they want you to do next. And it’s not one-size-fits-all. There is no standard CTA. It can be anything from Learn More to Call Now. Sign Up to Get Started. Take the Survey to Talk To Us. Let’s Go to Join Free For A Month (that was Netflix-it was a great month).

It’s a good thing it’s there. Otherwise how would you know what to do, amiright?

Here’s the truth: agencies consider a 2% click rate on web ad CTAs a resounding success. If you were getting a 2% return on any investment in your life you’d be looking for a new place to invest. But when it’s a 2% click through on banner ads (don’t get me started), the champagne is flowing, the overgrown frat boys are high-fivin', backs are being slapped and the junior team is getting assigned the agency promo piece touting their digital prowess.

On every agency brief—the six to eight page document explaining the assignment and showing that otherwise educated people don't know what brief means—there’s a description about what the agency/client wants the consumer to do as a result of seeing the CTA. For example, “Include CTA to visit website to drive user to website.”

Hey, Captain Obvious, what color was George Washington’s white horse?

Anyway, it occurred to me how much better agency life would be if there were CTAs, like these, that you could click on when the situation called for it.

Make It Stop
Anytime anyone calls a meeting about what they discussed at the last meeting, and what they'll be discussing in the next meeting as a result of this meeting, all you do is click on this CTA and immediately all the sounds stop coming out of their mouth. Their lips are moving, but they're not saying anything. Oh wait, that's already happening.

Go Away
This one's a lifesaver. Great for personal space invaders, hallway talkers or the smug, self-righteous contrarian that lives to argue with everything you say. It's essentially the CTA that wishes them into the cornfield. I'm guessing that's going to be one crowded cornfield.

Not This Again
Remember that revision the client wanted, and you made, and then they took it out? And now they want it back in? This happens on a daily basis on every account in every agency. It just makes you shake your head and ask if they've always had this much trouble making up their mind (well, yes and no - BAM!). Hit this CTA, and it resets time back 15 minutes before the original request got re-requested. Normally only Superman can turn back time by flying counter clockwise to the earth's rotation. This will make it a lot easier on him.

Drop It
Basically a trap door for every occasion. Whatever they're doing to bother you, just hit this CTA and a trapdoor opens under them. Laugh and smile as they go plummeting down an endless tunnel that will eventually land them in the seventh circle of hell.

Or another meeting.

Encore post: Answer the call

You can’t overstate the ability of advertising people to inhale their own fumes. It may be part of the job description. I’ll have to check with HR.

Many of them have what I’d call an unrealistic sense of consumer behavior that should rightfully be filed under wishful thinking. For example, against all evidence from the beginning of advertising time, there’s a prevailing thought that just because you bark an order at the consumer and tell them to do something, they’ll actually do it.

If it were only that easy.

How else to explain the fact almost every piece of—let’s call it marketing communication—that gets produced has what’s referred to in the biz as a CTA. In civilian terms, a Call To Action.

It’s the instruction from the advertiser on what they want you to do next. And it’s not one-size-fits-all. There is no standard CTA. It can be anything from Learn More to Call Now. Sign Up to Get Started. Take the Survey to Talk To Us. Let’s Go to Join Free For A Month (that was Netflix-it was a great month).

It’s a good thing it’s there. Otherwise how would you know what to do, amiright?

Here’s the truth: agencies consider a 2% click rate on web ad CTAs a resounding success. If you were getting a 2% return on any investment in your life you’d be looking for a new place to invest. But when it’s a 2% click through on banner ads (don’t get me started), the champagne is flowing, the overgrown frat boys are high-fivin', backs are being slapped and the junior team is getting assigned the agency promo piece touting their digital prowess.

On every agency brief—the six to eight page document explaining the assignment and showing that otherwise educated people don't know what brief means—there’s a description about what the agency/client wants the consumer to do as a result of seeing the CTA. For example, “Include CTA to visit website to drive user to website.”

Hey, Captain Obvious, what color was George Washington’s white horse?

Anyway, it occurred to me how much better agency life would be if there were CTAs, like these, that you could click on when the situation called for it.

Make It Stop
Anytime anyone calls a meeting about what they discussed at the last meeting, and what they'll be discussing in the next meeting as a result of this meeting, all you do is click on this CTA and immediately all the sounds stop coming out of their mouth. Their lips are moving, but they're not saying anything. Oh wait, that's already happening.

Go Away
This one's a lifesaver. Great for personal space invaders, hallway talkers or the smug, self-righteous contrarian that lives to argue with everything you say. It's essentially the CTA that wishes them into the cornfield. I'm guessing that's going to be one crowded cornfield.

Not This Again
Remember that revision the client wanted, and you made, and then they took it out? And now they want it back in? This happens on a daily basis on every account in every agency. It just makes you shake your head and ask if they've always had this much trouble making up their mind (well, yes and no - BAM!). Hit this CTA, and it resets time back 15 minutes before the original request got re-requested. Normally only Superman can turn back time by flying counter clockwise to the earth's rotation. This will make it a lot easier on him.

Drop It
Basically a trap door for every occasion. Whatever they're doing to bother you, just hit this CTA and a trapdoor opens under them. Laugh and smile as they go plummeting down an endless tunnel that will eventually land them in the seventh circle of hell.

Or another meeting.

Zuckerbot 3000 goes to Washington

As expected, the Zuckerbot 3000 performed admirably at the senate hearings on internet privacy today.

The emotion protocol was clearly disabled, rendering the 3000 calm and collected under questioning that no doubt would've crashed last year's model. Clearly the Phase II testing, preparation and recently improved controller module integration paid off.

Far less composed and knowledgable were many of the senators questioning the 3000. They were throwing around terms they thought would make them sound tech savvy, like banner ads, personal information, instant messaging, apps and so on. It's a good thing the humor architecture build isn't too nuanced, otherwise the 3000 might've broken into a human-sounding chuckle.

Setting Zuckerbot chat in sleep mode for a bit, here's the thing: I rarely have any sympathy for Zuckerberg. While I understand and appreciate his monumental accomplishment, to me he's alway seemed like a Steve Jobs wanna-be, trading black turtlenecks for gray t-shirts, hoodies and a monotone. But watching these unfocused senators asking questions that were all over the board, from Cambridge Analytica to Russian election tampering to privacy protection, revealed how little they actually know about the very technology they're conducting hearings on.

And Zuckerberg, by contrast, knows everything. Certainly about Facebook, maybe even technology. He was far more articulate, knowledgable and impressive than the self-serving senators posturing while they made their five-minute speeches and interrupted him.

Granted being more impressive than the current crop of senators isn't exactly hard work, but still.

There was a lot of speculation about how these hearings would go, but the most dead on description was the one Bob Hoffman wrote for his blog, the Ad Contrarian. You'll find it here.

At the end of the day (yes, I said it), I'm not sure how to feel about it all. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a strong, long-time advocate of personal privacy. It took me years to use online banking. I fiercely guard my social security number. I rarely post pictures of myself or my family. And I even wear a wig and disguise when I go out in public.

No I don't. But if I did, I'd have one that used a lot of black and was very slimming.

If I seem uncharacteristically ambivalent here, it's because I understand Facebook isn't using some techno-hypnotizing-whammy-jammy to extract any information from me I don't want to give them. Everything Facebook knows about me has been volunteered. It's how they use and who they share the information with that's the issue. But again, in the name of personal responsibility and reading the small print, once I've surrendered it, it's out there.

I think the lesson for us all is if you don't want information about yourself out in the world, don't post it online. That's why I never post about my breakup with Scarlett Johansson.

It's nobody's business.

What game?

I hear there's a game on today. Nah, I'm just messing with ya. I know today is the Super Bowl. Here's the thing: I don't care.

In fact, on of my list of five things I couldn't care less about, four of them are the Super Bowl.

It won't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, despite my rigorous workout routine of Double-Double's and Neapolitan shakes, that I'm not the sports guy. I'm the movie guy. The theatre guy. The concert guy. The comedy club guy. The TV bingeing guy. The horse racing guy. The car racing guy. The "let's drop everything and go to Vegas" guy.

The football guy? Not so much.

My feeling is every year, Super Bowl Sunday is the best day to do anything else. Between 3:30pm and 7pm, you'll never have a better day to go shopping at the mall. See a movie. Go to Disneyland. Try that restaurant you can never get reservations at. Traffic is non-existent. Crowds disappear. And parking is plentiful.

Of course, because I'm in advertising, there's pressure and a certain amount of obligation to watch the Super Bowl commercials. Every year, ever since the brilliant, industry-changing, Ridley Scott directed Apple 1984 spot, clients blow a shit-ton (technical term) of cash on their Super Bowl spots.

There's a lot of creativity on display. But that's also a lot of cash that could've been better spent much more effectively in any number of different ways. Or maybe not as effectively. As one of my creative colleagues at the agency told me, "Do you have any idea how many banner ads no one looks at that kind of money could buy?"

As I write this, it's about an hour and a half into the game. Here's my take so far:

The Doritos/Mountain Dew spot with Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman in a lip-synced rap battle is pretty fun.

The Tide series of spots, with Stranger Things David Harbour show a surprising amount of creativity for a brand not known for it with the premise every ad is a Tide ad.

The Pringles spot with Bill Hader tries way too hard to recreate the success of "Wasssupp!" from a few years ago, only now the word is "Wow!" I think the word is "Yawn."

The Australian Tourism spot with Danny McBride and Chris Hemsworth was going along nicely, until the shot of original Crockadile Dundee star Paul Hogan, who's 78-years old and looks every second of it 'mate.

I'm not offended easily, but in what I believe will be a monumental backfire I'm fairly certain Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. never intended his voice and words to be used selling Dodge RAM trucks.

Obviously I haven't seen them all yet, but I can already tell you my favorite, whether I like it or not, will be the one my agency did (Team player, hello?)

Super Bowl is also where the studios break out trailer premieres for their most anxiously awaited films. It's a testimony to the enormously talented Ron Howard—who was brought in after original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired with only weeks to go in production—that the Stars Wars movie Solo looks unbelievably awesome.

Who couldn't use a movie where dinosaurs are running amok—again. Thankfully, Juraissic World Fallen Kingdom looks like it's going to fill that vacuum just swell.

Towering Inferno pedigreed Skyscraper with Dwayne Johnson looks like a few hours of mindless fun (just like my high school girlfriend).

That's all I have for now. I'm going to get back to not watching the game and thinking of unencumbered places I can go for the next two hours while it's on.

Right after I don't watch the Justin Timberlake halftime show.

Answer the call

You can’t overstate the ability of advertising people to inhale their own fumes. It may be part of the job description. I’ll have to check with HR.

Many of them have what I’d call an unrealistic sense of consumer behavior that should rightfully be filed under wishful thinking. For example, against all evidence from the beginning of advertising time, there’s a prevailing thought that just because you bark an order at the consumer and tell them to do something, they’ll actually do it.

If it were only that easy.

How else to explain the fact almost every piece of—let’s call it marketing communication—that gets produced has what’s referred to in the biz as a CTA. In civilian terms, a Call To Action.

It’s the instruction from the advertiser on what they want you to do next. And it’s not one-size-fits-all. There is no standard CTA. It can be anything from Learn More to Call Now. Sign Up to Get Started. Take the Survey to Talk To Us. Let’s Go to Join Free For A Month (that was Netflix-it was a great month).

It’s a good thing it’s there. Otherwise how would you know what to do, amiright?

Here’s the truth: agencies consider a 2% click rate on web ad CTAs a resounding success. If you were getting a 2% return on any investment in your life you’d be looking for a new place to invest. But when it’s a 2% click through on banner ads (don’t get me started), the champagne is flowing, the overgrown frat boys are high-fivin', backs are being slapped and the junior team is getting assigned the agency promo piece touting their digital prowess.

On every agency brief—the six to eight page document explaining the assignment and showing that otherwise educated people don't know what brief means—there’s a description about what the agency/client wants the consumer to do as a result of seeing the CTA. For example, “Include CTA to visit website to drive user to website.”

Hey, Captain Obvious, what color was George Washington’s white horse?

Anyway, it occurred to me how much better agency life would be if there were CTAs, like these, that you could click on when the situation called for it.

Make It Stop
Anytime anyone calls a meeting about what they discussed at the last meeting, and what they'll be discussing in the next meeting as a result of this meeting, all you do is click on this CTA and immediately all the sounds stop coming out of their mouth. Their lips are moving, but they're not saying anything. Oh wait, that's already happening.

Go Away
This one's a lifesaver. Great for personal space invaders, hallway talkers or the smug, self-righteous contrarian that lives to argue with everything you say. It's essentially the CTA that wishes them into the cornfield. I'm guessing that's going to be one crowded cornfield.

Not This Again
Remember that revision the client wanted, and you made, and then they took it out? And now they want it back in? This happens on a daily basis on every account in every agency. It just makes you shake your head and ask if they've always had this much trouble making up their mind (well, yes and no - BAM!). Hit this CTA, and it resets time back 15 minutes before the original request got re-requested. Normally only Superman can turn back time by flying counter clockwise to the earth's rotation. This will make it a lot easier on him.

Drop It
Basically a trap door for every occasion. Whatever they're doing to bother you, just hit this CTA and a trapdoor opens under them. Laugh and smile as they go plummeting down an endless tunnel that will eventually land them in the seventh circle of hell.

Or another meeting.

Look who got it right

Yesterday General Motors made the overdue decision to pull all paid advertising from Facebook. My question is what took so long? And how long will it be before other companies come to the same conclusion?

As I've said many times, including here, online advertising just doesn't work as advertised.

I'm also a bit glad. Facebook has played fast and loose for so long with its privacy terms - weighing them mostly in their favor - that I can't be sorry they're taking a hit, albeit a small one, financially.

I know it seems like I'm biting the hand that feeds me. Lord knows it isn't the first time and it won't be the last. But the fact is that with so few people actually clicking on internet banner ads, page takeovers and in-app advertising to Learn More, Get Info or Buy Now, it's just not worth the expenditure.

It was only a matter of time before companies wised up. It's just surprising it was GM, not a company known for making prudent financial decisions in the past.

As both advertisers and users grow weary of Facebook and leave, which has already begun, Facebook will have to try to reinvent itself in a way that gives the customers what they want. And what they want, as proven by their total disregard for Facebook ads, is less advertising.

That's not going to help the projected earnings statement promised to investors in this week's IPO.

On the other hand, as a lot of companies head for the exit, it's going to give smaller ones the opportunity they wouldn't have otherwise had to reach whoever is left on Facebook.

Which can only be good news for these guys.