The Danger of Monoculture, Or How Potatoes Should Inform Your Marketing & Advertising Choices

Long Fry Me

In my social feed this weekend was a marvelous rant about, of all things, potatoes. Don't worry, it applies to marketing and advertising, and most specifically, email work. But first, we've got to get the background, or What I Learned.

It turns out that there has been hundreds of varieties of potatoes in our past. The Incas are said to have had thousands, many of which have not been seen before or since. What has happened in the centuries since is that the commercial market has driven down the number of potatoes that are viable economically, which means that we're down to, at most, 50 or 60 kinds of potatoes today.

At this point, your eyes may glaze over a bit and say, um, Dave? It's a potato. How different can they be, really? If no one insisted that we keep eating them, maybe they tasted terrible. And the answer is... well, I have no idea, and you have no idea, and if we applied the same logic to birds, the world would be a lot less fun for a whole lot of people, and maybe the skies would be thick with nothing but pigeons. Not exactly appealing.

But leave that as it lies. The single biggest potato on the planet, from an economic standpoint, is the Russet Burbank. And the reason why the RB is such an economic monster is because it makes long and perfect French fries, which is to say, it's more or less the official potato of McDonald's.

Once again, I'm going to be rude and anticipate your reaction: you have a problem with McDonald's french fries? Dear Lord in heaven, no. I don't eat them much any more, because I am of the age where denying myself pleasures is its own strange reward, and once you start to consume them, its pretty much impossible to stop. So I just don't put myself in their path. (This is more trouble than you might imagine, in that there is a McDonald's within a 3-minute walk of my home. Troubling. Luckily, as I write this, it's too late in the evening to cave. Moving on.)

The problem isn't with the commerce; it's with the potato itself. RBs are adored by more than just fast food lovers. They also bite the dust to every fungus, weevil, blight and microbe that you can imagine. In terms of sustainability, the RB is a fainting violet. If it were a heroine in an action movie, it would faint a half dozen times, and be abandoned by the hero for something with a little more meat on her bones. If it were a stock car at Daytona, it would lead after five laps, then explode. It's just not meant for massive cultivation.

Which means that, well, we have to force things. Massive micro-management, fertilization, et cetera. You pretty much need soil that grows nothing but RBs to grow RBs... which puts us right into a rather substantial point in human history, at least as it relates to people related to me. The Irish Potato Famine, which happened in the 19th century when there was also a monoculture that couldn't overcome a blight, and flooded America with so many Irish, it makes for all kinds of old-school anti-immigrant moments now. But let's walk it back from the political.

In email and digital marketing and advertising, testing to a monoculture is depressingly easy. You A/B test to the point of optimal efficiency, usually around a single metric if you want to set up maximum possible fail, or just make one number. Let's say it's open rates, or click, since that's easiest to monitor. Then the world changes -- ISPs stop delivering that kind of subject line, consumers stop responding to that call to action, dayparts fail and so on and so on -- and hey presto, you've got a monoculture that's failing, and all kinds of Crisis. With no data that says, um, let's try Next Best Potato and see if we can get 95% of what we had.

There's a better way, of course.

A rich biosphere, with an environment that looks at multiple metrics. A tolerance for "losing" art, so long as it provides a good learning point. Re-testing "optimal" practices to make sure the world hasn't changed dramatically without your notice. Understanding that some campaigns might be better served by multi-use, or video run times, or tracked acquisition, or synergy to other marketing channels and collateral. And so on.

It's a lot more complicated than just making one kind of potato, and maybe even a little less lucrative.

But only in the short run.

Oh, and there's also this...

We're marketing and advertising people, not farmers.

And we have a hell of a lot more fun, and learn a hell of a lot more in the doing, when we make more than one kind of product.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Testing Versus Winning

Something Like This

Here's a dirty little secret about marketing and advertising.. a significant percentage of the people who do this kind of work pretty much *hate* testing.

There are reasons for this, of course.

Testing takes time, and discipline. It can be screwed up in any number of ways, many of them just plain maddening, and if you don't catch the mistake, you can do true damage with a false reading. It requires you to be willing to "waste" a significant percentage of your inventory on creative that no one is rooting for. Worst of all, it can take your brand-new work, the stuff that you are exceptionally proud of, and fast-track it to the dumpster, because data just won't be stopped, really. And if you want to be truly doctrinaire about it, once you start testing, you never really *stop*, because it acts as your de facto insurance policy, to ensure that your control is still optimal.

I've had any number of clients refuse to run a test, just because they were so in love with the new art, and/or that dissatisfied with the control. In each and every case, I've tried to push back for all of the direct marketing virtues. In most of these cases, the client stayed with their gut and ran without a test, and (here's where the direct marketing purist in me feels ill) it sometimes really worked out for them.

Note the pronoun there: them, not me.

This is also where a couple of cross purposes come into play. Part of being a marketer is being a scientist, and that science doesn't really have an end goal. The journey is the thing. Creative can always be optimized more, there's always some new clue or option not tried from the data, and the world will give you clues, if you're open to hear them.

The executive can look at this and wonder when the law of diminishing returns kicks in, or question the talent involved from creative professionals who would subject themselves to the long work of incremental steps to optimal. It all seems like something that you wouldn't get from top tier agency work, or a process that would lend itself to automation... but that's never been the way it's worked out for me, or how it seems to operate in the real world.

Now that we've gone through all of the reasons why people don't do it, the reasons why it's still the best way to work: it ensures that you never damage your client. It ensures job security, because you've either got a lift, or you've got learnings that will later result in a lift. (Or marketability for a future client.) It creates either single variable steps that take you were you want to go, or if those aren't driving enough of a data difference to pass statistical significance, bigger swings. And if you're fortunate enough to either work in a position where you can see a lot of tests go through the pipe, or in a cross-medium or category house, one where you can bring in learnings from another field, you can seem a lot smarter than you actually am.

I've been fortunate enough to work in this kind of business for decades, and have never felt "burned out"... because we've tested, and learned, and used the results from that testing to fuel the next chapter in the story. Plus, with technological changes, the ability to beat a control has never been "easier", or more important.

So if you're one of those marketing and advertising pros that considers test to be just another four letter word that's not worth the trouble, or beneath your talents...

Well, actually, stay just the way you are.

Because you might be smarter than me, or more talented...

But you won't be more effective.

And I might need to beat you one day.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Let's Get iHacky

Very, Very Different

Let's just get this out of the way quickly. I'm probably the wrong person to ask about the importance of personal privacy as it relates to personal electronic devices.

Why? Well, I've worked at companies that were successful, for a time, because they correctly predicted how little consumers actually cared about it, at least when it related to shopping behavior, and how they had the opportunity to trade parts of it in for discounts. I also grew up in a time and economic background before ubiquitous personal technology, which means that I've never completely cottoned to the idea that I should give a screen all of my secrets. Or that such things were actually all that valuable, or interesting, to anyone, really.

So when the point comes around to discuss, as everyone with a column seemingly must, where the world should sit in terms of Apple's continued battle to avoid hacking their own gear... well, um, I have a few questions. Independent of the powerless propagation of one of two opinions.

1) Hasn't this entire discussion for the past few days made Apple's products, well, must-own equipment for criminals?

They're going to bat for you, bad people. Patronize them accordingly! But you probably want to act fast about that, since...

2) Isn't the iPhone the single biggest target on the planet for hackers right about now?

All we've heard for the past week is how incredibly powerful and valuable a hack of this hardware would be. If you've got the skills or the contacts, you'd have to think this would be on the top of your to-do list now. After all, if you can hack a phone -- just one measly phone! -- all of the rest of them become incredibly vulnerable to any criminal mischief you can imagine, and you can sell your hack for bitcoins on the dark Web, which is where I presume all such spectacular fits of criminal behavior are patronized. Speaking of which...

3) How is it that we don't have people capable of this tremendous criminal mischief on the public payroll?

I have to say, I'm a little bit disappointed. Any number of television dramas and conspiracy theorists have assured me of the remarkable degree of State Power, from black helicopters to drone warfare to extradition and Edward Snowden's adventures and so on, and so on. And yet, here's a maniac's phone, the same phone that millions of other people have, and no one can crack it. It's very disappointing, really. Next, you'll be telling me the moon landing wasn't faked, there's no aliens in Area 51, and there aren't treasure maps on the back of historical documents. Is there nothing left to believe in?

As for the actual privacy issues here... well, what we've got is a crisis of invention. No one invented a perfect car trunk that could never be opened by anyone but the owner of the car, but if they had... well, there probably might have been law enforcement having an issue along the way. Particularly if this was a relatively new feature to trunks, since the iPhone didn't have the current level of encryption just 18 months ago.

I'm not a fan of rampant government access to my devices; no one is. But the idea that a company gets to profit when unintended criminal consequences occur... well, um, not usually. I'm also not quite sure why your special little phone gets to be different from your computer, your car, your home, your safety deposit box, and so on, and so on.

But then again, I'm the wrong person to ask about personal privacy...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

On Entering The Pipeline

Let's Get Shifty

A base rule of marketing and advertising: it works on you, even if you are aware of it, well, working on you. I'm as prone to going for 2 for 1 deals, limited time offers, brand marketing blandishments and all of the rest as, well, anyone of my demographic class. Especially if the purchase in question is a low consideration moment in a retail setting, everything in the marketers' bag of tricks works on me. Even if I stop to think about why I'm buying something, it doesn't really matter. Tactics matter.

Which leads me to the latest moment of strong self-awareness, where my wife and I have started the process towards buying a new car. Our eldest daughter is moving towards driving age, has shown an aptitude for it in drivers education courses, and is poorly served by available public and school transportation. So we're going to gift her the 20-year-old Ford that's been serving as our second car, and add a third set of wheels that will serve as the primary ride for my wife, and for when we're all together as a family. (Our other car is a 6-year-old Honda hybrid, which is on its last payment.)

We've got several months before our daughter turns 16. It's also not as if we'll need to add a vehicle on that day, given that minors aren't allowed to drive without a parent for a good chunk of time. The idea is to go for one of the new set of sedan/SUV "crossovers" that avoid the issues that minivans have, but also don't completely abandon fuel economy, storage capacity, or passenger comfort. Finally, we haven't been in the market for a new car in many years, and don't really know that much about how these cars handle. Customer reviews are pretty similar on a lot of these, so test drives matter. Which means, well, going to a lot of dealerships. Three so far, with more to follow.

What's striking about this experience is how similar the different conversations are. You walk around the showroom and enjoy, or not, the prompt attention of commissioned salespeople. You give them your situation, and given that you are just going to take up someone's time without a sale today, a basic apology for where you are in the process. You take the test drive, and try to be polite about your level of interest in the vehicle in question. You learn what you can, then drive back to the dealership, and end the process with a cursory meeting with some supervisor, who thinks about a hard sell approach, and then thinks better of it. Then you go home, in your not at all new car, and try to remember all of the reasons why you can't just get something new today, because man alive, that new car is so much nicer than your current ride.

What comes next, of course, is the follow-up marketing; the emails, phone calls and alerts of what's available *right now* that would be just perfect for our needs. There will also be the promises of future service, possible incentives and offers, and so on, and so on. All of which is entirely defensible and expected, especially given how much is on the line for the various individuals we've met in the process, since they need to move multiple units every month to, well, remain employed. That's all occurring in a world where the Internet destroys margins at the dealer level, and makes competition at a price point easier and easier to know. Oh, and it's also with the possibility of technology just ending this business at some point, since self-driving technology is probably a when, rather than an if.

I feel bad for these guys, honestly. Even in the best of times, competition has always been intense, and it can't be a lot of fun to work in a business where tech just makes your job harder every month. But I don't feel so much for them that I'll take a worse deal, or fail to make my due diligence, once we've figured out our preference for brand, model and trim.

Oh, and the fact that all of my television and digital ads now seem to be relevant to my new car search?

Sure, it's a little bit creepy. But it's also reminded me to expand my consideration set to a few more vehicles that might be better for our needs.

Speaking of another business where tech makes your job harder every month...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Ads With A Hard R

My movie made how much?

A week ago as I write this, "Deadpool" opened to U.S. movie screens. Despite being a movie with a hard R rating that launched in the dead zone of February, it's brought in over $170 million in the US, and $300 million worldwide. With fan ratings and box office that more or less ensures repeat and word of mouth business, there's really no telling how much this could wind up bringing in. It also only cost about $58 million to make, which means it might be the best thing to ever happen to Fox. This is an absolute home run that's going to cover for a lot of strikeouts.

While the concept of the film is a little more talky and self-aware than most, it's still a superhero action movie; it does well in foreign markets, assuming its allowed to be shown despite content issues. My guess is that it will eventually make over $600 million at the box office, which is kind of astounding for a property that took forever to make, and owes its existence to "leaked" footage and fan community viral work. A sequel is inevitable, and if there was an over/under on how many of these eventually get made, I'd take the over at 3.5 in a heartbeat.

So why does it make me think about marketing and advertising?

Because of the reasons why it's doing well, and how they could, honestly, be ported to advertising with better martech.

A little more background first. Instead of following the usual tropes, Deadpool breaks the rules and doesn't feel like something that's been made before. It also manages to feel subversive through comedic mayhem and the fact that its hero is a cheerful psychopath, like, well, every video game avatar for decades. Rather than go for beyond tired gritty realism, Deadpool enjoys having powers, and refuses to admit to any responsibility for, well, anything.

Now, imagine you were an ad pro for a beer company. What kind of earned media and social play could you possibly get for your client if your ad was able to go to the lengths that Deadpool does in content matter?

Well, the Miller Light "Catfight" commercial dropped eight years ago, and hasn't really been done since. It also got millions of viral views, and did all of that before mobile tech exploded the amount of videos seen online.

How hard is it, really, for Samuel L. Jackson to use some of his signature profanity on different versions of those Capital One card ads, but just with adtech that makes sure the viewer is likely of age? Or salacious fast food spots to deliver, um, more branding impact?

It doesn't just have to go down the crass path, of course. I'm a father of young daughters, and if I could opt in for animated movie spots instead of horror trailers for the next five years, I'd be all over it. But the Deadpool tactic (hell, just being able to have a spend for the Red Band trailer of that movie would work) is where the growth will come.

You know how the rest of this goes, right? Adtech and martech that already exists on a retargeting level, that just needs to make the jump to the last mile. Cable and broadcast providers that have to sign off on the possibility of an outrage letter or six. And the money, as always, ready to come in and change the equation at a moment's notice.

Oh, and one last thing on this? There are already ads with profanity, and wildly successful ones. On podcasts, where hosts who do off the script reads seem to be bringing in major bank.

After all, if you can tune in content with this kind of rating, why can't the ads match what the audience has chosen to accept?

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Better Call A Second Screen

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

The other night, I settled down to watch one of my favorite shows, AMC's "Better Call Saul", the spin-off to "Breaking Bad" that stars veteran comic genius Bob Odenkirk in a dramatic role. This column is only tangentially about that, though. I did something fairly rare for me; I watched it live. And in so doing, got the note for the "second screen experience", in which you can go to a web site and get additional points and trivia while the show plays out. So I did.

The content is fairly low-level, and doesn't really add that much to your enjoyment of the show. But what is being offered is a reason, however thin, to continue to separate yourself as a viewer, from the less lucrative on demand or subsequent streaming service, along with a greater share of voice for the show's lead advertiser. (Acura, and it says something fairly impressive that I remembered that, right?)

Now, the BCS crew is clearly making all of this "extra" content for later DVD release, so dishing out the additional behind-the-scenes filler doesn't seem to be causing them any undue strain. From an advertising standpoint, maybe it spikes the live ratings a bit, or helps to retain the audience a little more in subsequent episodes. On a personal level, I can't say it's going to work on me, because my professional basketball jones is strong, and a live game will always trump a canned drama. But I digress.

The point is that by using the now ubiquitous technology, the live show is made slightly more DVR-proof, and greater branding awareness of the network and advertisers is generated. If it works, and that's easily determined through live site traffic, we'll see more of it, on more shows. Maybe it will make the difference between what kind of shows are given the green light, and which ones are renewed or canceled. It's not just using tech to go beyond the traditional screen. It's using tech to fundamentally alter the business.

Which, of course, opens up all kinds of interesting marketing and advertising plays in the here and now, and much more so later, if the site ever becomes more interesting than the channel. Maybe more content unlocks on desired activity, like viewing longer ads. Perhaps you could get the season ad-free with, say, the acceptance of a test drive. Or the site uses retargeting tech to re-engage the viewer on show night. I'm pretty sure I'd notice, and probably even click on, banners for Saul Goodman. After all, I work in online marketing and advertising. I might need his services someday. (This is where people who are familiar with the show are, with any luck, chuckling darkly.

Now, something that has absolutely nothing to do with marketing, or advertising, but seemed to me absolutely fascinating.

After the show was over, AMC broadcast a talk show with Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn, who plays Odenkirk's love interest on the show. After a complimentary question about the chemistry that she and Odenkirk displayed, where the couple just feel like they've been together for years and years, Seehorn talked about an incident in which she tailed her co-star for hours, early in their working relationship, when Odenkirk was under the weather and unable to speak. Rather than fill the time with her own voice, Seehorn matched Odenkirk's silence.

You'd expect that to be awkward, and I'm sure that on some level it was... but it also made both actors very aware of each other, and to get beyond the need to impress, entertain, amuse and look good. Because, well, not talking. So they just became very aware of their body language, quirks and non-verbal emotions, the way that, well, people who have been in a long relationship with each other get.

Which also led me to the following realization. Many of my hobbies and day to day life lend themselves to similar experiences. Poker games. Going to a game. Playing a round of golf. And so on. All of these skew a little more traditionally male, and all of them can be done without a great deal of chit chat. It makes me wonder if this is at play in career advancement, personal networking and the like. And whether it's just easier, for one group of people.

So if I'm quiet near you, in one of my consulting or office gigs?

Might just be a compliment.

And the start of a very long-term relationship...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Banners Up, Criminals Down

Not So Fast, Grabby

Two notes from the social feed this week that made me wonder if we've got a trend. And if we've got this one, it's a pretty big one.

First, news out of Paris that Criteo, the market leader in B2C retargeting for years, passed $1B in sales. That's a whole lot of ads, and the remarkable thing about that amount is just how deep and sustainable it is. Criteo is a worldwide operation, with banner ads working on a CPC basis, and placements in any number of languages and consumer categories. They also were leaders in monetizing mobile, and making the utterly correct move of having their own publisher relation and media buying team, rather than relying on the same old automated indexes that everyone else used. When ad fraud and viewability went from niche to world-changing problem in 2014 and 2015, Criteo didn't just have better and more exclusive ad inventory. They had the only placements that anyone felt good about having. The doom and gloom probably helped their sales, not hurt.

Next, the report from Integral Ad Sciences, the ad monitoring business that's been reflecting the doom and gloom in the sector for years now. Funny thing: they think this world has turned the corner as well, with a sharp rise in media quality in Q4 of last year, and fraud dropping by as much as a third in programmatic display. Viewability also kicked up for programmatic, and even did so on the dirty old exchanges, and while the numbers are still not where they should be -- honestly, when you know there's fraud and non-viewable ads in your campaign, the idea that there is less of it is not a great feeling -- it's still on the right side of the trends.

Why? Well, because Web advertising is best understood as a Google / Alphabet product, and that company isn't going to let a revenue stream go to ground, just because a bunch of criminals want to make it so. Pretty smart people there, and reasonably well-capitalized. They might be able to fight against the tide of crime.

And while this isn't probably going to be a smooth arc to perfection, since ad fraud is such a target rich environment with worldwide access, the fact that the world got better in 2015 is, just by itself, incredibly encouraging. It proves that there is not an ocean of malfeasance, and the good actors are not armed with brooms. It's more of a fair fight than that.

But hold on. Aren't banners still something that no one ever clicks on purpose, and built on the current user experience mirage of error clicks on mobile? Well, there's some of that, especially for low brands and pure acquisition moves, and marketers that are dumb/lazy enough to think that anything, even a premium ad campaign in the safest of environments, is truly set and forget.

But for good brands on solid content sites, for advertisers that know enough to run A/B tests to show lift, and use the medium for a constant stream of learning engine goodness?

Well, they probably never stopped running ads. Because ads work. Always have, always will, especially if you've got the right list, offer and execution. T'was ever thus, t'was ever will be. Even in a world with fraud.

Oh, and one last thing for all of the people who seem so invested in the death of a medium...

What medium were you hoping would gain from the demise of this one?

And hasn't someone else declared it's dead yet, too?

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Too Slow Tech

Faster, Please

As I was scraping the ice off my car the other day -- it's been a mild winter, but it's still completely fine by me if it ends soon -- I was left to think, as always, about technology. How nice a remote starter would have been, so my car could have begun the job without me. How close that tech is, really. And lo and behold, when I got to my desk and checked my social feed, there it was: the app to not just remote start your Tesla from your Apple Watch (well, OK, missing both of those things), but to have it open your garage and come on down the driveway to meet you. Next, of course, will be when the car drives me to work, and lets me get more sleep, because hey, more sleep. And it's not as if driving is that much of a pleasure. I'd happily take another half hour nap. Naps are great. (I'm kidding, I'd probably just use the time to do more work. It's a sickness.)

Now, all of that tech is pretty much at our fingertips, and if it was our top priority as a nation, it would probably be legal in months. But it's not, and if I had to bet the over/under on when it would actually happen in my MidAtlantic part of the world, I'd want at least a decade. That will be a decade of unnecessary deaths from driver error and fatigue, preventable fatalities where the car could have taken over for someone who was intoxicated or suddenly ill, increased greenhouse gases from the inefficient use of transportation, and, dammit, a decade of naps that I could clearly use.

It's not just the driverless car that's going to come slower than you might want. Wearable technology has a clear use in remote monitoring in healthcare, but it will probably take a really long time, because, well, inertia and billing and the medical establishment's lack of regard for patient competence, or tech they don't own and operate. We've mapped the human genome years ago, but the clear and present advantages of such a breakthrough don't seem to be very apparent.

Want to go beyond the health sciences? There's traces of water on Mars, and the ability to draw replenishable power from solar panels, and... no timeline for when we're going to have more than probes up there. There's an increasing amount of water on moons in our solar system, which means that there might even be alien life within reach, but once more, no clear timeline on when we might move than from conjecture to proof. 3-D printers and the Internet of Things and all of these next level businesses that you read about in the Gartner Group or see valued in the markets, all of it tantalizing close, but slow, slow, slow. We were supposed to have flying cars and robot laundry and so much more by now, right?

Why? Well, we're spoiled. The tech that's in our hands every day -- phones and screens and the like -- has gotten so much better, so quickly, that we're lost all perspective on how fast things actually happen, and how it all has to be backwards compatible with the existing infrastructure. Also, how many parts of our world are *not* like the Internet, or able to take down years of venture capital before it can exist without clear profit.

Sometimes, the pace of change and technology all seems to be going so bewilderingly fast, especially when it runs against ethics or employment or the environment. But in reality, it's not going fast enough, and we will, someday, wonder how we managed to put up with life as we knew it.

Tomorrow comes fast. With another forecast for snow to clear off my car.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Past The NFL Event Horizon

Showing Its Age?

I'm a father of daughters, and while I'm a big sports fan and blogger, I've never really insisted on my kids liking what I like, or watching what I watch. That's even extended to past Super Bowls. But with the game this year featuring musical acts they've heard of during the halftime show, I extended the invite to my man cave, then took notes of the neophyte reactions. There's possibly some telling stuff here for the future marketing of the biggest show in America, but one that's going to need to grow to replace aging demographics fairly soon. So instead of providing yet another ranking of the ads that cost $5 million to show during the telecast and next to nothing online, let's get into the diary...

> Pre-Game

The news that people bet on how long the national anthem will go was utterly fascinating to the kids. They immediately whipped out their phones to time it, giggled like mad when it became apparent that Lady Gaga was milking it, and we were off to a rollicking start to the evening of snark.

My youngest then asks, "Dad, why did the airplanes fly over the stadium?" Can't say I've got a good answer for that one. Also, having been in stadiums where that happened? Not pleasant!

The amount of preparation and pretense around the flipping of a coin also strikes the crowd as kind of crazy. Looking at it objectively, I can't say they're wrong. Why a coin? Why do we need to explain that the coin has a heads and a tails, as if that's not kind of how coins work? Why not Rock/Paper/Scissors (Nothing beats rock! Good old rock!), or just have the ubiquitous Microsoft Surface tablet computers on the sidelines spit out a random generation? Well, Because Tradition. Moving on.

> First Quarter

Willem Dafoe replaces Marilyn Monroe for the latest Snickers ad, and it just causes bewilderment. "Who's that guy?" Then, after the reveal, with maximum sarcasm, "I love the transpobia." Cheap advertiser humor might not be a great move in another decade or two.

Oh, and the ultrasound Doritos ad, and Puppy Monkey Baby for Mountain Dew? Jaw-dropping astonishment, but no interest in, say, having some of the product. (Both were in my cave, actually.) I suppose that's what they were going for. In less explosive news, as they've heard and loved Flight of the Conchords and Key and Peele, they were good with the Marmot and Squarespace ads. Though not, of course, actual customers.

Second Quarter

Carolina scores, but running back Jonathan Stewart does not hold to the team's season-long pattern of giving the ball to a kid. (They know about this because, well, I've told them.) This gets a lot of side eye from the new audience, and more or less kills off any rooting interest for either team.

As for Peyton Manning, who you would think would be on everyone's mind after being in a billion ads? Not on their radar. They don't do ads outside of this game, really. They do kind of laugh at him when he stumbles on defensive pressure, then tries to throw an underhand pass forward that ends in sloppiness.

By the end of the second quarter, the party is entirely on their phones trying to Snapchat each other with the most embarrassing possible exposure, and are clearly just killing time before halftime.

Halftime!

At the two hour mark, people are lapsing into food comas, but the appearance of Coldplay gets them back online. They sing along without too much enthusiasm because they know the songs, then express concern for the innocence of the youngest when Beyonce and Bruno Mars enter the arena.

Good times are had as we all kind of Mystery Science Theater the experience, and when the telecast moves to a retrospective of the past 50 halftime shows, complete with video of multiple performers who are no longer with us, they're more or less blissfully unaware of all of the recent deaths. As soon as the music's over, so are the teens.

Third Quarter

My youngest is in the game just long enough for her to be the only person in the room for the PSA on domestic abuse. Kind of happy she was tuned out at that point, honestly. My wife and I send her off to bed, and that's it for the next generation for the rest of the night. In terms of good snark, my wife contributes "Is he still alive?" as a reaction to the Christopher Walken Kia ad, but otherwise, well, not much to note.

So, final tally?

My good TV screen holds no sway over their personal phones. A game that you don't get into by a certain age won't hold much sway. Telling someone how much an ad costs won't make them care about it, other than to wonder just how messed up adults are. (Can't argue with them on that one.) It's still football, and no matter how much you dress up a dull game, dull games are dull games.

By the end of the third quarter, I was pretty much the only way paying attention, even to the ads. When I checked in with everyone afterward, they were glad they watched and had the time together, but mostly just because it was family time, and no one asked me who won. I suppose they'll watch it again next year, but I can't say for certain. You've got some work to do, NFL...

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The Emperor's New Super

When my kids were younger, I'd read to them before bedtime, mostly because it would spark conversations, and there's nothing better in my world as a father than the conversations.

One of which has occurred often enough so that the kids know the answer before they even asked the question. "Daddy, what's your favorite fairy tale?" My answer, always, is "The Emperor's New Clothes", the classic point of how peer pressure to see something that isn't there doesn't, well, create it's own reality. I give it my own special spin by noting how much I love the tailors in this story, who get paid for, well, nothing. (When I tell the story, they get away clean and live happily ever after. A better ending, really.)

So it's the days before the final pro football game of the season, which is also the 50th of its kind. It's also the week where the media persists in the shared public delusion that ads with a $5 million 30-second price tag are culturally relevant. Also, that we should watch them with the same attention that we might, well, watch the game, despite the fact that they will all be online now or later, and they are, well, ads. Many of which will be beaten into the ground for anyone who watches sports within a week.

It's also, well, right in my wheelhouse, in that I blog about sports as well as marketing and advertising. So why resist the easy content, right? I should just kick my feet back and let the blog write itself, maybe with a piece about old vs new (one of the team's quarterbacks has been on every ad campaign in the past 15 years, while the other has a young guy that's likely to be on every one in the next 10 years), or serious vs. fun players, or...

Well, no. I just can't do it. Because while I enjoy that advertisers have a gold ring to shoot for -- it's not like there are many creatives that get the chance to talk to nine figures of people at once -- the plain and simple is that this was an irresponsible marketing decision decades ago, and it's a more irresponsible one now.

But it's not really the reach that's driving this, because getting to nine figures of people isn't really a good move for anyone outside of maybe a laundry detergent manufacturer, and maybe not even them. There's just not that many consumer segments where the prospect list goes that deep.

It's just the spectacle of how much the placement costs, and the knowledge that every 30 second spot is another $5 million down the memory hole.

As for the idea that the ads are content now, well, no. They are ads. And while content has gone down in value a lot in the past few years, with user-generated work and fan fiction and cosplay and all sorts of weak tea getting a foothold in the mainstream, um, no. They are ads. Even the "best" native work isn't content, because They. Are. Ads. Moving on.)

Paying attention to these campaigns just because of the price tag is like going to a 5-star restaurant to drink the tap water. It's like making a new car purchase decision based entirely on the paint job. It's like refusing to consider clothes in a shopping trip if they are on sale.

It is, basically, insane.

And the fact that the insanity happens every year, and only seems to get more insane?

Well, that doesn't make the emperor any less naked, does it?

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

They Who Must Not Be Named

Pleased To Meet You

The other day, I was on the phone with a good friend from my network, for the first time in a long time. As we caught up and talked about some of the places we've been, the conversation turned to a mutual acquaintance that had done well for themself, while their company had, well, not. As my contact had inside knowledge on the size of the largesse, and how little that seemed to be, well, earned, the mutual thought went through both of us: namely, what a perversion of the process this was, and how unjust it seemed, compared to what others had done and received for their time.

It is, of course, a terrible place for your brain to go, and yet, it's pretty much irresistible. Think about it long enough, and you'll lose your faith in capitalism, or at the very least, a just and loving deity. But the plain and simple fact about people who drive no value to anyone but themselves is, that, well, at the end of the day, they have to be them... and in so being, they will be unlikely to know real peace or satisfaction from that windfall.

Or, at least, that's the hope.

The reality is, of course, whatever occurs in that particular situation. We also might not have the full story of the work done by the person we didn't think much of, or what their real agenda or mission was. For all we know, we've got it all wrong, or even if that's not the case, that they might be doing amazing work for charity, or have a bevy of challenged family that need the funds. Hell, even if it's all going to terrible luxury purchases, some artisan had to make those, right? Capitalism wins again.

There's also this, and the very obvious reason why this entire post was (as far as you know) theoretical, along with anonymous... my contact and I are tight, but what if we had the conversation in a coffee shop, rather than on the phone? And the right / wrong person was in said shop, and caught wind of our true feelings?

Well, that's how billables, opportunities, and connections dry up, honestly. And if we've both learned anything over the years -- and we've learned a lot -- it's this: there is no such thing as job security in this world, and you are only as good as your network.

Which might include our affluent friend!

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.