The sudoku problem and the delusion of conservative ad men

This is in response to Mr. Rory sutherland’s article about targeting in advertising. Read that article before reading this one. ______________________________ “By deluding everyone that the whole of advertising is reducible to “the efficient and inexpensive delivery of targeted messages” through the extensive use of data and algorithms, two companies have gained a multi-billion-dollar rent-seeking […]

2018: A good year to disrupt creative agencies

Two things happened recently, that have filled me with an existential dread as an advertising guy. I see a leak in the advertising industry’s ship. But instead of fixing it, the two indicators are telling me that advertising industry is busy being in denial – telling its employees, its clients that everything is fine, all […]

The precariat agencies

I am interested in the changing dynamics of agency business. So I tend to read whatever I can about new efforts being made to reinvent businesses. Some of the efforts are truly astounding – the AI agency Born, for example – sounds very interesting. Then there is Maana, a big data company that helps make […]

Advertising industry’s new ‘Pivot’

No planet for old businesses Exhibit 1: On 16 June 2017, Amazon.com Inc. announced that it is acquiring Whole Foods Market Inc., for $13.7 billion in an all-cash transaction. By the end of that day, Walmart, Kroger, Target & Costco had lost their market caps by 5.8%, 7.1%, 9.1% and 15.7% respectively. On the eighth […]

Targeting: the holy grail of 201x’s ad-tech creeps

Traditional advertising was famously opaque. As the old adage went – “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” So when digital advertising came about, the initial siren songs were about the promise of precise targeting and reducing the ‘wastage’. That siren song has not lost […]

Fool’s pride

Are you not a fool if you take pride in doing something that imprisons you, that belittles you, that curtails you, that is detrimental to your interests? If your agree, then let’s check if you are a fool or not. Imagine you are a middle management guy, with a team of 5-6 people reporting to […]

Agency as a platform

Future of advertising: Agency as open source platform