Badvertising 03/11/22

In last week’s blog we reminisced about how much advertising has changed. This week, it’s more of the same. Hey, many of you have asked about us doing more multi-part series so here it is. Trouble is, we then have to write the blog about the same subject we wrote about last week. Okay, it won’t be exactly the same. It’ll be the same, only different. Glad we cleared that up. This is how targeted advertising has become. Say you were looking for some living room furniture. You type into your search engine the word “sofa.” Now the data scientists of the ad world know you are over 50, otherwise you would have typed in “couch.” Furthermore they know you like soft, overstuffed things so they serve you ads for easy chairs, recliners, extra fluffy pillows, etc. And they know you like the color “yellow” (I just made that part up). So it’s all about data collection, and then how to micro-target all that data to the exact right person. And who doesn’t want to read an entire blog about data collection?

The point is, I can sound like I know what I’m talking about, but I actually have no clue what I’m talking about. The ad business has gone from two weeks in Beverly Hills, driving a Mustang Convertible, and going to Nobu for dinner, to coming up with an “event” and then an invitation to said “event.” Like Tecate Beer Tuesdays at your local taqueria. So a copywriter, which is what I used to be, has to come up with clever lines like, “Music, fun and friends! Join us for Tecate Tuesday’s at Mole Mole in beautiful, downtown Poughkeepsie!” Oh, and they love exclamation marks. Absolutely love them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I don’t know about you but I’d rather be shooting a commercial with Brad Pitt and Penelope Cruz sipping cold ones on a beach in sunny Acapulco, but this is what the business has become. And if you’re really lucky these days, you can shoot a video of people drinking beers at the aforementioned Mole Mole on your iphone, edit it on your computer, and then run it on Twitter for under $5,000, soup to nuts. Which version of advertising would you rather be in?

Happily John and I discovered comics instead which is wayyyy more rewarding (except for the getting paid part).

So that’s it for this week, we’ll be back next week with another multi-parter. And before you know it, Spring will have sprung.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John