SD#23: Drama in ad fraud, millennials and productivity addiction
June 19, 2022
Hi friends,
Welcome to another edition of Seven Dawns, your weekly newsletter on marketing, productivity, psychology and more.
Our seven ideas this week:
1. (Marketing) Ad fraud shenanigans getting out of control Last week, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) released a mind-blowing report on ad fraud. For years Bob Hoffman and other advertising gurus have been saying that ad fraud is way larger than anyone knew. This report confirmed it.While most researchers have estimated ad fraud in 2022 to be in the colossal neighbourhood of $60 billion, the report from the ANA estimates ad fraud to be about double that, at $120 billion. But that wasn’t all! The drama ensued as ANA took down the above report because… It wasn’t their report in the first place. They copied the chart from a different business and claimed it as theirs. The ginormous irony is that ANA for years have been claiming how ad fraud is dropping and only takes a small portion of the industry. They wrote titles on how we’re ‘winning the battle against fraud’. As Bob likes to say ‘you can’t make this shit up’. Bob Hoffman’s newsletter piece |
2. (Society) Millennials have experienced slower economic growth than any previous generation During the boomer generation’s first 15 years of work, U.S. GDP per capita grew about 35%. For Gen X, growth was closer to 30%. But in the same amount of time, GDP increased by less than 20% for millennials. Prof G Show – Scott Gallowa |
3. (Investing) To be an investor is to live constantly at the intersection of story and uncertainty Dan Loab in the first quarter 2022 Investor Letter from Third Point thoughts on being an investor: To be an investor is to live constantly at the intersection of story and uncertainty. We build our mental models, frameworks, and processes to try to accurately price securities and overlay them with a story about the economic, geopolitical, and psychological factors that frame the backdrop to value them. The key, of course, is to change your framework when the environment changes. Even the most sophisticated quant investors employing hundreds of PhD mathematicians and physicists find that their models can fall short due to the ever-changing topography of the surface area of relevant data. Full letter |
4. (Psychology) You are not alone While we all appear completely different on the outside, everyone is more or less struggling with the same three or four problems. Sure, the contexts change and the cultures are varied and everyone’s life stories are inevitably different. But at our core, whether we’re an insecure teenager from Quebec, an overworked woman from India, a worrisome grandmother from Texas, or a desperate immigrant living in Australia, we all seem to struggle with the same small grouping of stressors and anxieties…. Because while our values, cultures, and life circumstances change—our core struggles as humans remain the same. Relationships are hard but necessary. Trauma is inevitable, but healing is possible. Emotions cannot be conquered but must be accepted and managed. A sense of purpose is not found, it must be created. Mark Manson in his newsletter |
5. (Marketing) If creating an ad would be simply developing a coherent argument, advertising would be easy Ever since Peter Field and Les Binet shook the marketing world with their work in long-term and short-term advertising, things haven’t been the same. Every week you see articles arguing for one side or another or both. Long-term brand advertising. Short-term activation. How many times have we heard it? Mark Ritson wrote a piece on how so many marketers get it wrong by trying to combine the two into one smudgy piece of paint. And he has a good argument. At the core of the argument from Field and Binet has always been the idea that long-term advertising should have an emotional message. One that doesn’t necessarily scream product at your customers but rather engages with them and gently reminds them about your brand. So that when they do come to the decision of purchase, they remember who to search for. So many marketers make the mistake of stuffing their adverts with product messaging. We spend hours in meetings discussing how and why our products are better functionally and we feel inspired to transfer all of that to our ads. And so it’s only natural that we come back to that product messaging. It’s the easy route. It’s also one that frankly doesn’t produce good advertising. It doesn’t move people. Doesn’t inspire or make you feel anything. We, as marketers, must do a better job at explaining the value of long-term brand advertising focused on emotions. Otherwise, advertising would be so easy |
6. (Psychology) Kindness is not weakness Some of what holds people back from showing greater love is the sense that it would be dangerous and woolly-minded to do so. Too much sensitivity and sweetness, too much tolerance and sympathy appear to be the enemies of an appropriately grown-up and hard-headed existence. Such types are not saying that it wouldn’t be delightful if we could display compassion and tenderness towards one another if we could be sensitive to the sufferings of strangers and quick to forgive and understand the failings of our colleagues and lovers; they just don’t think that this has much relevance in the real world. The School of Life |
7. (Productivity) Why are we so obsessed with being productive? The business and productivity app market is worth billions of dollars. Every day, there is a new productivity tool popping up, a book about productivity being published, and millions of people reading and sharing content related to personal productivity. It started as a measure of efficiency for the production of goods and services. Somehow, along the way, many of us have become addicted to productivity. Why are we so obsessed with being productive? Ness Lab |
Fun things to click on:
The power of breath – how deep breathing boosts your immune system. 10 Google Docs hacks to unleash the writer within you. ‘Small Kindnesses’: A collaborative poem by teenagers from around the world.
Thanks for reading! If you have any learnings you’d like to share with me, or disagree with any of the ones above then do drop me a message.
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Speak soon,
Tom