A well known former agency leader and blogger has expressed concern at the lack of scrutiny in advertising, particularly in the online media space and by advertising agencies.
The Ad Contrarian Bob Hoffman, who recently sat down with AdNews for a podcast, believes the industry has lost its ability to critically challenge claims and assumptions that he repeatedly describes as baloney by online platforms.
For example, just over the weekend Twitter revealed that it had miscalculated the number of users on its platform by millions while Hoffman says the Facebook reach figure inflation, first revealed by AdNews, should shock nobody.
Extra reading: Facebook's VP of global marketing solutions Carolyn Everson's responds to metrics issue
“The thing that bothers me the most is that we've had so many scandals broken about lies and bullshit in the online advertising world and none of them have come out of agencies, and agencies are the people closest to the speakers. How come they're not hearing the music? I don't understand this,” he says.
“I think what's going on is that the agencies are playing a double game. I think the agencies know what's going on but they just aren't saying anything. They can't be that stupid to be subjected to this for so many years and so many scandals and not know anything about it. It just doesn't pass the smell test.”
In Australia, few media buyers will publicly question the online media ecosystem in trade publications like AdNews or at industry events for fear of damaging relations with major digital media partners.
Hoffman says marketers turn a blind eye to digital media metrics issues provided they meet the main KPIs they are measured against, which often includes lowering CPMs.
“A lot of them I don't blame,” he adds. “They have to do this to survive, but what they are buying is junk. If you're getting very low CPMs, the reason you're probably getting them is you're buying bots, you're not buying human beings.
“The race to the bottom is in fact creating a system that is dangerous and is not healthy for brands.”
Hoffman is a well known critic of online media and believes it is shrouded in fraud, poor transparency and click through rates of banner ads near 6 in 10,000.
“We have clients who are unhappy, they have launched investigations into agencies. We have a duopoly that make their own rules, that won't abide by standard standards of measurement and auditing.
School girls and handsome cowboys
Hoffman continues: “How we got into the situation is that the advertising business, which used to be one of the most sceptical businesses in the world, has become like school girls who have seen the handsome cowboy come riding into town.
“And we got enamoured with them and we believed a whole lot of pseudo-technical baloney and we became enamoured of it. We lost our scepticism about this stuff.”
In this special 30-minute podcast, Hoffman also shares his views on whether he believes advertising can thrive in the future, the agency business model and how market consolidation is killing effectiveness and his favourite ad of all time.
He warns: “Advertising agencies may go away if they don't wake up and start protecting their clients”.
This is a podcast not to miss.
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