Where The Ads Will Be

Box And One

Much to do this week in AdWorld around the rise of online ad blockers. Bob Garfield at Media Post points out, correctly, that the current hue and cry is dumb, that the industry hasn't fixed the problem for the decade or more that it was on the horizon, and advertising execs need to finally cotton to the fact that, well, No One Likes Them, or their ads. They just tolerated them while they had to, and now, they don't have to.

Which pivots to Roi Carthy for AdAge, who turns a column into an advertisement (ironic!) for his company's ad blocking software. Consumers have a right to this stuff, you see, the same way that they had a right to download music for free, walk into stadiums without paying for a ticket, and just go to the supermarket and eat your way through the produce section. Wait, no one has the right to do that, even if no one's watching and you won't be caught? Then why does the software exist?

Don't have enough dumb in your life? Then step on down to hear the next approach, where consumers wouldn't block ads if the ads were just better. Also, if ads never, ever had malware. Because blaming all advertisers for a few bad actors is totally fair. People blocking ads are heroes!

Completing the collection of Oh, What A Piece Of Work Is Man? Ben Barokas at Sourcepoint, who equates his company's software as so meaningful, he's Superman (in a cape, no less) to online publishers. Why? Because his software blocks the ad blockers, allowing for the publishers to put the ads that the scofflaws didn't want to see... back in front of them. (Feel free to add a Nelson Muntzian Ha Ha! here.)

Heck of a way to run a railroad, folks.

Anyway, the plain and simple of online ads is this. The nits have won the day, up to now, because they've managed to only pay for clicks. The criminals have won the day, up to now, because Web publishers went to the lowest common denominator with Flash for a solid decade longer then they should have. The idiots who contributed to a world in which digital content couldn't be monetized have won the day, up to now, because it was easier to cry Hell In A Handbasket and Privacy Violation, rather than commit to software that might have monetized traffic enough to carry the day.

But, well, nits, criminals and idiots have never, in the course of human history, kept winning the day in perpetuity in areas of Real Business. And online ads are a real business, if only because other formats have, believe it or not, even worse problems.

Television is suffering viewership losses that are not going to reverse themselves, as younger generations have increasingly chosen their own screens. Print ads wish they had the problems that online did, because it would mean people were still trying to fix the issue, rather than just write it off as a lost cause. Outdoor is in a better boat than print, and has the wild card hope that the Internet of Things might one day save the business, but they'll take the hit if everyone keeps staring into their screens, particularly on mass transit. Telemarketing, radio, direct mail, the Yellow Pages -- all occupying different points on the continuum of obsolescence, all tremendously impacted by the continuing earthquake of worldwide connectivity and communication.

Online ads have, no question, Serious Issues... but these are UI and UX issues, rather than fundamental and critical failings. Will there be more fits and starts? Of course. But there are Serious People (hello, Alphabet!) at work on these issues, and way too much Serious Money at stake to leave things to the nits, criminals and idiots.

The eyes are on screens. The ads will be where the eyes are. The details of how will be worked out.

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Your eyes were on this column; if you like or share it, more eyes happen, and I am happy. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes on the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

My Five Worst Clients

Population: You

Because, well, nothing has the comic punch of another person's misfortune, and each was special in its very own way. Names not used because of a well-earned fear of Rhymes With Beagle, and because naming them might cause them to reappear in my life, and life is too short for that. (Currently serving none of these fine folks. Life is Good.) On to the pain!

5) Our new functionality is amazing, and nobody's happy

Yes, this was inspired by the great Louis CK. But it happened before this routine.

Big presentation, major client. Client is unhappy for all kinds of reasons, not many of them related to things I'm personally responsible for, but hey, that's the gig. If we don't make them happy, they might walk away to another company, and that would be really bad, as they are one of our whales.

I get to my show-stopping part of the presentation, the new functionality that makes sense on every tactical sales level, the new wrinkle that hasn't failed in any test cell. It's going to be great for them. I'm very enthused to bring it to them. It's not going to alter their branding, lessen their profit margins, or cost them anything more. I am delivering them the closest thing to a panacea that I've ever had the good fortune to present, in a 20-year career of searching for moments just like this one.

Silence... and then the best/worst client line ever. "Why weren't we told about this before?"

Um, maybe because we wanted to try it with a client or three that wasn't the hardest people in the world to deal with? Maybe because you had created a climate of fear and intimidation with your constant negativity, so much so that creatives only ever just executed what you ordered them to do? Maybe because you never let us test anything before, so we didn't think to come running to you, with arms open, so we could get punched in the face?

I'm still aghast about this, on some level. Justifiably so, I think.

4) Font Phun

Tiny little eyestrain font. No consumer has ever, to this day, read anything in this area, because it's a Web banner and honest and for true, those don't get looked at as if they were Picassos on the walls of the Louvre, under magnifying glasses. Same template every time, the only thing that ever changes is the headline offer, never the same offer twice, because testing 5% increments of your discount off percentage is True Testing Genius. And every time, every revision, the same question: Are you sure that's Our Font? Did you double check it? Did you triple check it? It's very, very important that it's in Our Font!

Um, no, it's not. The first 20+ times we got that instruction didn't take. We didn't just leave that font in as a locked down design element; once out of every six times, we changed one character in that area to a nearly identical font, and laughed like naughty, naughty school children, because we had so gotten over on you, Agency From Hell. It was the only reason we had a business in the first place, was so that we could nefariously change your fonts. Muhahaha! Such delicious evil we perpetrated, all at the expense of your brand police's sanity.

Um, well, no, we just left the font the same it always was. Like Sane People. And unlike the Font Phun Agency...

3) Click Here to Click Here

I have an issue with Click Here. To me, Click Here is shorthand for This Copy Writer Has No Ideas And Should Sell Shoes Instead. It's not as short as Go or a simple radio (>) button. It turns your design-forward ghost button into retro-dumb. It doesn't denote a benefit, like Learn More, or a command, like Save, Shop, or even Browse. It's longer than the nearly as odious Submit, and there's a half dozen other things wrong with it, really. I'm not a fan. No one should be.

So when you find yourself on the phone with a client having to not just defend the idea that other language should be used? Then hear those options described in terms that just make you go "Whuuuttttt"?

Well, that's a special client moment. One that makes my special client list! Next...

2) Give Me Your Opinion, So Long As It Mirrors Mine

This one was very, very special indeed. I'm working for one company in an ancilliary consumer category, having recently worked for another that served the same audience. I find myself, some time later, in the presence of high management for the new company... who want my opinion on the terms of a deal that they are going to offer to the management of my old employer. They want a scouting report. Of people that I worked with, every day, for years. Good idea!

The deal was, to be kind, laughable, even as a first round, low-ball offer. To make this offer, especially to the right/wrong person at my old company, would have been the end of all negotiations, probably for years; they took things like this personally, especially on points that seemed to lack a certain level of respect.

Tip-toeing around the landmine as best as I can, I offer up my best assessment of the situation -- that this was not a deal that would be received well. Perhaps a restructuring, or smaller v1, would be in order.

I'm told that I'm wrong, and that they will take the deal as is. Well, OK then. I think, but do not say, why did you want my opinion in the first place? I try to resolve the conversation by speaking to the management's persuasion skills, give the name and contact info of the person that would be best, and know that I'll be moving on soon. And was! Happily!

1) We Hate Your Winning Ad So Very, Very Much

Unknown client then, famous client now. Back in the bad old days, their ad was tanking for my company's distribution, and they gave my team and I a shot at making a new ad. We did. Happy day -- it won! By a lot, and kept on winning for about 18 months after that, or an absolute eternity in online. And survived a half dozen client provided tests, none of which used any of the possible learnings from our winning ad, all while telling us how much they hate, hate, hated our art. (Well, sure. After all, who doesn't hate money?)

Have any client burn stories to share? Please do!

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One of my best moments comes when you like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or visit my agency's site. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Tales of Marketing Horror: Silo Town

Got Your Number

You're nobody in this town
You're nobody in this crowd
You're nobody till everybody in this town
thinks you're poison,
Got your number, knows it must be avoided
You're nobody till everybody in this town
thinks you're a bastard

- Elvis Costello, "This Town"

Part of a continuing series of moments from my career, in which great breakthroughs came from great setbacks. The point, as always, is to work away from fear, and learn from every mistake. Besides, they make for better stories.

Stay in the game long enough, especially in shaky start-ups, and not every move will be on the rise. Sometimes, you have to go lateral to go up later, and that was the circumstance some number of gigs ago, when I found myself at a new position, with new responsibilities, in an area of marketing and advertising that I had not worked in before. Luckily, my predecessor had not impressed with work ethic (11 to 4 was the scuttlebutt) or politics (screaming fits are not exactly unique in creative, but your work had better be absolutely aces to make up for it, and, well, it wasn't). So I felt fairly confident that I would make up for a shortfall of experience with my motor, because, well, I have a motor.

On my first day at the new gig, I was introduced to someone who was, I was told, very enthused to have me on board, even though we did not work in the same department, and had not been on the list to interview me in the hiring process. (Feel free to set the Alert status to Yellow right about now.) After a half hour of very excited conversation in a hallway while I was between meetings, my new manager quickly called me in to their office, motioned to shut the door, and told me, point blank in under a minute with no preamble or pleasantries, that the co-worker in question was a snake and a menace and would waste my time every single day, if I gave them the opportunity. Also, that part of my performance evaluation would involve the efficient use of my time.

Welcome, in other words, to Silo Town, with a population of one more than yesterday.

Stepping away from the land mine to the best of my ability, I assured my manager that I got the message, and that I appreciated the candor. I let them vent for a bit more about the co-worker, and closed with an assurance that all of my time was going to be taken up with overhauling the position in the fashion we had discussed in the interview process.

In the subsequent weeks, I was polite but crisp with the co-worker, who eventually got the gist that I was aligned strongly to my manager, and hence, something of a lost cause to what they were trying to accomplish. Over the next few months, I learned enough about the company to understand the rift, and to learn that the chasm was not going to be something I could overcome. I kept to my department, and eventually, both my manager and the co-worker left the company, and I picked up a dramatically better manager.

Lessons learned?

1) No matter what your powers are as a change agent, there are limits. The position in question was one of the greatest successes in my career. I built a team that I still work with to this day, learned an incredible amount of tactics and tricks in an entirely new realm of marketing and advertising, and achieved terrific performance metrics. But silos are silos for reasons, and unless you have hire and fire power, you might have to work around the problem, rather than correct it.

2) Silos are absolute red flags for leadership. In the case of this start-up, what needed to happen was a clearing of the air by the CEO, and if that didn't create change, a personnel decision. Instead, the situation was allowed to fester and resolve on its own, which created a significant amount of distraction, especially for junior personnel that was inexperienced with this kind of issue. It wasn't just both principals who were lost in the cross-fire. The old-school belief that competing interests will drive each area to greater productivity is bunk, especially in start ups. What kills a start up is distraction, much more than a lack of initiative.

3) Silos are best learned about in the interview process. Candidly, I would have taken the gig anyway; I needed the paycheck. But if the situation had been different, and this was a lateral rather than a rising role, it would have given me pause. It's on you as a candidate to learn about these as best as you can, especially since it's not generally information that will be readily volunteered.

4) If you can avoid being too far in one camp or another, it's your best move. While I didn't associate too much with my manager's red-button co-worker, I did establish working relationships throughout the company, and avoided distraction with, well, tasks. This helped to broaden my network, leading to contracting roles later, and a much greater sense of job satisfaction and security.

5) Time wounds all heels. Silos tend to fall in time because new management understands just how destructive they can be, and will not tolerate their existence. My start-up moved on to better personnel in time, but not before other issues fundamentally altered the business. I'm glad that I stayed, though -- again, more contacts and contracting opportunities for later.

6) Every dispute isn't 50/50. My manager put me in a difficult position, but in the long run, the judgment was correct. As a company, we were better off when the co-worker moved on, and while I don't know of any particular ill will from the targeted co-worker, they also haven't exactly offered up assistance or an offer at other points between gigs. I don't know if I would go far as to use the word snake, but I also would not ask for a reference.

Oh, and just on the off chance that you find this story too crazy to draw major lessons from? It happened again at the start-up after this one, where my manager tell me not to talk to an entire department, because they were such a problem. In the long run, this was the correct assessment, and in the longer run, it should have been my cue to seek new employment immediately. My manager did, and has been happier ever since.

Because that's the biggest problem with Silo Town. No one's really happy to live there... and life's too short to work where no one's really happy.

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To make me really happy, please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.