Legendary musician and music producer T Bone Burnett came to SXSW 2019 to slay digital demons. I highly recommend that you make some time to watch his keynote and/or read the text of his speech. It may shake you awake. There is so much to digest in Burnett’s speech that no recap is going to […]
Privacy
Thanks To “Surveillance Capitalism,” The Googleplex Knows What You’ll Buy Next
Careful where and what you click. Every keystroke you make is evidence. If you’re not comfortable with being spied on every time you open a window, I highly suggest you spend some time with this brilliant article by John Naughton in The Guardian. I would say that it is an eye-opening exploration of our lost privacy, […]
Digital Advertising’s Frankenstein Is Wreaking Havoc and Damaging Democracy
“We need a digital economy where our data and our attention is not for sale to the highest bidding authoritarian or demagogue.” -Zeynep Tufekci What has the digital ad man wrought when the same algorithms companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get you to click on ads are also used to organize your […]
Ask And You Shall Receive A Thoughtful Answer
Russian hackers are now meddling in the French election. French newspaper, Libération, is fighting back with a search engine staffed by real-life journalists. Libération with the help of J. Walter Thompson/Paris came up with the anti-hoax service CheckNews.fr, a search engine trading cold algorithms for journalists for three days before the French elections. In related […]
I Can’t Talk Right Now, I’m Not Driving
By now, you’ve heard just how important it is to connect all your devices to each other and to your car and home in an interlocking web of digital advertising vulnerability. This is where Connected Car by Harman can help. What would be a boring TV campaign is made less so by the acting of […]
Can Marketers Ever Publicly Embrace Privacy?
I always feel like I’m straddling both sides of the marketing equation. Because I’m a consumer, too, and often things hit me like a consumer, not an advertising copywriter. The increasing ability of marketers to collect reams of information is particularly concerning to me. Not because they can, but because they simply don’t know what […]
Google’s PRISM-Driven Doublespeak Needlessly Misleading
Some things are still sacred, but your privacy on corporate-owned communications networks is not, and never has been. This fact of digital life has been evident for years, but the recent revelation that the National Security Agency is working closely with leading tech companies, makes it crystal clear–anything you write, say, record, transfer etc. is […]
No One Was Hurt During The Making Of This Invasive Advertising
Would you stand up for a friend? No, seriously, if a friend called in the middle of the night and needed you to bail them out of a poker game gone wrong, would you rush over there with the ransom money to free your homey? Carlsberg drinkers would. Will Burns, CEO of Ideasicle loves the […]
People Love What They Love, Privacy Be Damned
Instagram’s move to “liberate” its users’ photos for advertising purposes was the act of a corporate buffoon. But it was all a big misunderstanding say the leaders of the company. Interestingly, there’s no misunderstanding that people still love Instagram regardless of the stand on privacy and painful awkwardness. In my piece on Instagram that appeared […]
Facebook Fumbles and Yahoo! Recovers
Mark Zuckerberg knows how to strike a nerve. Which is odd, because striking a chord is how most men and women make a lot of money. Naturally, he stepped over the privacy line again. This time his prize purchase of 2012 — Instagram for just shy of one billion dollars — is at risk of […]
Promoted Tweets To Increasingly Find Their Targets
Brands have been promoting their Tweets for awhile now, but thanks to a new offering from Twitter, brands are now able to more accurately target these Tweets to readers receptive to such messaging. As part of its new targeting feature, Twitter will now allow advertisers to send paid ads, in the form of Tweets, to […]
Provided He Could Advertise On Facebook, What Would Wanamaker Do?
Just last week, we looked at Google’s elaborate courtship of advertisers. Now, it’s Facebook’s turn to woo. According to The Wall Street Journal, New York-based Carolyn Everson, 40, is Facebook’s “liaison” with Madison Avenue, and she’s busy providing big brands the kind of data they need to justify their ad buys on the social platform […]
