Scams upon scams: The data-driven advertising grift
This entire essay is just full of ideas I disagree with.<p>First is the old chestnut: Why does <i>company</i> keep advertising <i>product</i> to me after I&#x27;ve already bought it!? This is one of those child-like criticisms that keeps rearing it&#x27;s ignorant head. Literally, you are <i>ignorant</i> as to why they are doing it. Your ignorance as to why doesn&#x27;t imply their stupidity. Amazon does it. Google does it. I&#x27;m sure Facebook does it. So either three of the biggest companies in the world are full of stupid idiots or perhaps you are just ignorant to the reason they are doing it.<p>&gt; Their ethos is that if a human can do a task, a machine can do that task better, and not cost them anything such as salary, pensions or or a basic level of respect<p>No, their ethos is - we can&#x27;t possibly have any reasonable number of humans do the task. In what universe could we imagine hiring a sufficient number of humans to sift through the data Google has collected? They have immense data on literal billions of humans. How much time would it take any person to understand you as a person sufficiently by painstakingly reviewing your data so that Google could send you perfect ads? The very premise of this is ridiculous beyond reason.<p>So the conclusion is based on the premise that having humans do the task is impossible. We have no other option than to use machines and algorithms to attempt the task because it is the only viable alternative.<p>&gt; Advertisers, then, are getting served a steaming turd on a plate rather than the medium-rare filet mignon they were promised.<p>Advertisers are making a value judgement based on the options they have available to them. They can advertise on TV, radio, or magazines. They can advertise on podcasts, YouTube channels or Instagram feeds by directly contacting the creators and doing sponsored content. They can put up billboards and wrap public buses. They can put people in public squares and hand out flyers, do personal demos and offer prizes. I couldn&#x27;t even scratch the surface of what is available to modern companies for promotional purposes. The fact that Facebook, Amazon and Google are as large as they are suggest there is <i>some</i> value being derived by companies given that they have plenty of alternate options available to them.<p>&gt; There isn’t any evidence to suggest that an ad targeted to 35 year old men with children with an interest in football is any more likely to result in sales of Football Dad socks than a poster for Football Dad socks at a bus stop. But an entire industry is based on pretending that this is the case.<p>I really don&#x27;t think they are. But let&#x27;s compare the idea to the other advertising avenues I listed. TV ads are broadly targeted based on the time of day the show runs at as well as the content of the show. Magazine ads are broadly targeted based on the content of the magazine. Junk mail and flyers are broadly targeted to people living in a particular geographic area.<p>But I guess this MSc in marketing knows more than the entire industry they claim to be from.