BadMen: How Advertising Went From A Minor Annoyance To A Major Menace – Bob Hoffman
This was the first time I’d read a book on advertising that directly covered a period in which I was a part of the industry. And while some of the themes were not new (e.g. agency deals directing spend into deals for their benefit), the scale and proliferation of it was.
It was also the first time that I realised that I, as a front-line client manager, was unknowingly involved in this process.
Within the agency world at this time I was a mid-level planner/client director working on the UK part of some large international clients.
Directives came though, “all digital display spend will now be programmatic and using our proprietary system”. “Why?” we asked… “because this is the best and most cost-efficient way to deploy your clients spend” At the time, everyone nodded along, probably too embarrassed to admit we didn’t really understand this new and clearly shiny and future facing way of reaching our client’s audience. The room (and tolerance) for pushback from planners and clients was… minimal.
Money was not moved into these channels for greater effectiveness for clients, it was moved because of the increased margins and layers of opaque ad-tech that could multiply agency fees under the radar. The graph shows what the reality was for every pound spend in agencies over this period… less than 28p of the £1 on “working media”.
One colleague I later lent this book to returned it to me and gleefully remarked, “thanks for lending me that, this was basically my job at my old agency”. The agency being another one of the largest global networks.
We now see agencies building more and more tech solutions, with the term “AI technology” now appearing to be used as much as “proprietary ad-tech” was about 10 years ago. While we will adapt to and adopt the incredible powers of AI, you need to do it with a partner you can trust.
It’s time to Redefine Media.
