Here, Eric Faulkner, partner and chairman of Madclarity tells us why there are surprising similarities between strata management and the world of adtech.
I was chatting to a friend in the pub over the weekend. He was telling me about a recent ABC TV investigation into strata management. How insurance companies, brokers, strata companies and builders were all tied up in a web of cross-ownership, conflict of interest and hidden fees.
“That sounds like the advertising world that I now work in,” I replied. “TV audience research companies contracted to the networks they’re supposed to be independently measuring. Adverting agencies selling airtime to their clients that they got for free, after using their clients’ funds to negotiate it. Marketers paying for fraudulent bot-driven ads. Walled gardens ..”
“What have plant nurseries got to do with advertising? he interrupted.
“Yes, it’s a crazy term,” I tried to explain. “It refers to the way Google and ‘Faceagram’ refuse to allow independent measurement of advertising on their channels.”
“Gardens??” he sneered. “They sound more like medieval castles, with the toffee-nosed barons inside… and the poor tythe-paying peasants, stuck outside.”
“You have a great understanding of the contemporary advertising world,” I replied. “The strange thing is… the people with the money are the people playing the role of the peasants.”
It’s time for a revolution.
It’s a massive irony, that in an advertising world that claims to have such a focus on data… strategies which are data-led… insights which are data-driven… and yet we have such a tiny understanding about what is really happening.
As Arielle Garcia (of CheckMy Ads) said, on accessing her profile from an adtech vendor: “I was both a man and a woman, I worked in food service, agriculture, was also a defence contractor and was somehow both below the poverty threshold and classified as high income…”
Maybe it’s not so much a revolution that we need, more a personal revelation. Everyone in this business needs to sit down, take a deep breath, switch their phone off and do some deep thinking.
And for those who still read books… pick up a copy of Johann Hari’s excellent Stolen Focus and you’ll realise that our average IQ is actually declining. Yes, we are all becoming more dumb!
Hmmm. On reflection, maybe we do need a revolution.
