Avoid Rubber Necking

Watch For It!

On my way to work this morning, my GPS alerted me of a delay ahead, but didn't tell me to leave the road for another route. Next, I saw a highway sign that asked me to go to the left lane, due to a vehicle fire. Expecting a major problem, the traffic slowed down for a full mile in advance, despite the road never being blocked, because the vehicle in question had burned some time ago, and wasn't even on the road. Just plainly visible for a gawker delay, nothing more.

As we come to the close of Q2 in the U.S. in the worlds of marketing and advertising, I'm struck, as always, by the sound of virtual crickets. But this year is a little ominous. If only for the road signs.

You'd think that, having been in the space this long, I'd just arrange vacation time to coincide with this time. The leading lights in the industry go to the south of France to spend an unconscionable amount of money on awards and connections. The rest of the U.S. closes up shop before the July 4 holiday weekend. Q4, when everyone makes most of their money, is too far away for serious grinding. There's every reason to take the time off and find a beach, roller coaster, mountain range or whatever works for you. And if I didn't have more pressing matters to take care of, and a child who is close enough to college age to make every dime we spend something that gets considered many times over, I'd be off as well.

But this year, there's a little tension in the lapse, because there just seems to be an inordinate amount of uncertainty in the industry about, well, everything. Will the Brexit vote continue to reverberate through the world's markets, sparking employment shifts and lower spends in the UK? No one really knows the severity of the damage, or if it will eventually reverse itself. Of course, it's impossible to discuss Brexit without bringing up the US presidential race, which has a similar or stronger ability to change outlooks. The vacant spot in the Supreme Court and recent major decisions almost seems minor in comparison to that upheaval, along with the rancor in Congress over gun control measures. Every day is a crisis, beyond even the media's need for crisis.

But the crisis in just don't know goes beyond politics. The Rio Olympics is happening in a country in unprecedented chaos, between the Zika epidemic and the political uncertainty following a presidential impeachment. The Islamic State has lost ground in Iraq, which seems to create more appetite for soft targets abroad. Syria continues to be heart-breaking, Russia seems downright provocative, this all somehow ignores North Korea and their missile tests, and so on, and so on.

Getting back to matters that are more directly connected to our world, ad blocking is exploding in popularity. Smartphones have changed every aspect of digital marketing, from responsive coding in email to new rules in optimization and UI. Viewability and fraud remain active fires, publishers continue to struggle to avoid race to the bottom CPMs, and everyone I know who works in digital wonders just how in hell analog maintains their billables.

Realistically, all of this will get kicked down the road, rather than actively settled, during the holiday period. Possibly to clear the decks for some fresh crisis, even. But in a period of both real and ginned up crisis, just being able to keep your head and grind out your work is, just by itself, an increasingly rare skill.

And if that isn't enough to keep your eyes and ears from all the distractions?

Just remember how many of your colleagues are getting left behind from all of the rubber necking...

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