9 ms·

How the Math Men Overthrew the Mad Men

146 points by sonabinu 8y ago

skybrian 8y ago
And what about math women? This isn't the 50's anymore.
- danmg 8y ago
  It's an allusion to both the show "Mad Men" and to the phrase which spawned it from the 60s. Also, the alliteration.
  - s-shellfish 8y ago
    Honestly, I like the phrase 'math people' or 'computer people' a bit better. Not always necessary to follow the formal rules of story telling, to tell a story. Reading the same patterns over and over, sounds kind of boring...
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      The sentence, "math people and mad men" isn't a play on words, and "math people and mad people" doesn't make sense at all. Nobody uses "math men" in speech, this was done for a unique reason.
      - s-shellfish 8y ago
        Is there an algorithm to humor and/or journalism?
        jonnybgood 8y ago
        Yes, authors have their own particular algorithms in the employment of literary devices. Easy example is great speakers like MLK.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        s-shellfish 8y ago
        I don't think MLK would be opposed to a more inclusive statement, and I don't think MLK would have downvoted someone for wanting women to be included in a population that is often presented to the world as largely male, even though it's really not.
        danmg 8y ago
        We really don't know what his position on a play on words in a feature article in The New Yorker written in 2018 would be. He's been dead for 50 years, and I'd venture to say he'd be more concerned about poverty and criminal justice reform.
        s-shellfish 8y ago
        Yea, the whole discrimination thing he was on about is so 50 years ago.
        danmg 8y ago
        Maybe black and underclass social problems are not the same thing as making sure writing is bland yet as inclusive as possible in a publication that mostly rich left-leaning white people are going to read on their $1000 itoy?
        s-shellfish 8y ago
        I'm female, I work at a university that is considered in 'the ghetto' as a software developer. There are a lot of issues in my city that range from everything from homelessness, to gentrification, mental illness, addiction, etc. I've seen the consequences of discrimination from everything from skin color (I'm white, many of my siblings are black or mixed), to gender, to socio-economic status, etc. I've also spoken on the internet for a long time, and I know what it feels like to feel silenced with the push of a button. A downvote. It's annoying. It's annoying to know people studying machine learning are only doing it to control how people think, to control behavior, to control wealth, or whatever the fuck else they want. So, how many times does this have to wrap around itself for people to understand, downvoting people on the internet for complaining about how the world of math and logic seems largely presented as a male world, is part of the problem? Even more ironically, MLK gets quoted. All men are created equal. Are you focusing on the word men in that rhetoric, or are you understanding the message?
arebop 8y ago
(in the very small digital segment of the much larger advertising market). Astoundingly, the vast majority of ad spend is still done with the traditional level (close to none) of quantitative rigor.
- mewfree 8y ago
  "very small digital segment"? You might want to re-think that according to this article: https://www.recode.net/2017/12/4/16733460/2017-digital-ad-spend-advertising-beat-tv https://www.recode.net/2017/12/4/16733460/2017-digital-ad-sp...
  - technotony 8y ago
    That chart is interesting. Realistically how likely is it that digital spend is going to double in the next five years? Is the consumer economy big enough to justify that without taking share from other media (presumably there are other advertising media)? If (when?) it does stop that's going to have a pretty big impact on google/facebook's valuations and growth rates.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      >without taking share from other media Why, from the mass market perspective (mp3, not vinyl), does traditional media need to go on at all? In the absolute limit of global ultra-draconian GDPR-style laws the capabilities of internet advertisements will at best be reduced to those of TV spots. If TV advertisements haven't already merged with TV over IP and the data market (and thereby become indistinguishable from online video advertisements), they'll just be replaced as ATT, Comcast, Amazon, Netflix, and the rest shift more and more to online platforms. As far as I can see, unless advertisement gets regulated back in to the stone ages (not that I'd be personally opposed to that...), it's going to be down to Google, Google competitors, and highway billboards before long.
      - harry8 8y ago
        Paying for a tv spot with an audited and reliable audience estimate seems to be less fraudulent than any digital ad spend I've heard of with all those phantom bot clicks and impressions. Also you have the advantage of knowing the context of your ad rather than being surprised to be displayed on "John Doe's Racist Blog (tm)"
rsimmonds 8y ago
Love this in theory. But... There's still way more money being invested in the traditional world of advertising than what's being invested in the analytics and data side. Creative agencies haven't gone away. Agencies of Record are still the traditional shops (DDB, Ogilvy, etc.)
- soared 8y ago
  The data side is still very new (<20 years old). I’m expecting that once the old agency guys and old client side guys die off you’ll see bigger changes.
ian0 8y ago
They overthrew the medium not the ad agencies. Its just those agencies that didn't adopt the new medium struggled. Most large companies I have worked with still use an agency to manage ad spend for a cut. And though the pitching has an analytics bent I cant imagine its that far off how they used to pitch TV & Billboards. And they are still run by sales people not machine learning grads.
- soared 8y ago
  Yeah, the sales pitch nowadays its “with our new technology we can do this” where I’d imagine previously it was “with our partnerships we can do this” or something similar.
jackgolding 8y ago
After working in two jobs where my job was using quantitative analysis to try figure out what marketing channels to invest in I have to say this is incredibly hard to get any answers - to the point where you might ask why bother? The current solutions in the marketplace AFAIK are either extremely expensive vendors (think $50k pa starting price) or startups which are most focused on direct response (an example I was shown was web traffic from a TV commercial which let you "win a jeep".) The best steps you can do for your business are have a very firm commercial idea of what success looks like (i.e. measure LTV, churn etc by channel) and have a robust framework for market research. I personally like the idea of splitting spending marketing spend between branding (where your aim is to promote unprompted brand awareness) and acquisition (where you want CPA < LTV.) Also remember there are A LOT of businesses which spend money in things that an expert can identify as not commercially sound - so audits by external agencys can be useful (i.e. not using negative keywords in AdWords and spending many thousands on direct response campaigns that don't work.) I'll add the cavaet that rhe worst thing about "attribution" I've found is it puts an unfair amount of pressure in the bottom of the funnel. Brand focused marketers aren't really held to scrutiny at all (lots of marketing teams in businesses I know don't even do total spend / total sales) - I think this can cause some resentment between teams. Good articles on this are few and far between but this one I don't mind https://www.cmo.com.au/article/641243/iag-marketers-must-end-blind-faith-martech-adtech/ https://www.cmo.com.au/article/641243/iag-marketers-must-end... as well as Willem's talk on what they did to bring programmatic in-house at Foxtel. Happy to connect with anyone interested in this space.
- soared 8y ago
  All good points. I think brand marketers aren’t held to standards often because it’s incredibly difficult and expensive to do so. It’s not like you can’t just calculate a quick roas from your tv spot. I’d love for an easier way to measure branding. All I know of are brand lift studies (expensive), PSAs (waste of money at low spend levels), and attempting to segment other ways which is difficult long term with view through conversions.
  - jackgolding 8y ago
    My first job out of uni was quantitative market research (read: surveys) and at the time I thought it was a waste of time - studying UX you learn that for a lot of questions customers will give you incorrect or unhelpful answers (depending on the wording.) Compared to the more advance marketing technology it is probably better ROI though - I read something recently which I haven't been able to find again that most marketing leaders DO NOT trust their DMP (data management platform). One of the biggest problems I think of with making brand lift studies more cheaper is you encourage the supplier to recruit people who answer surveys as side-income to answer questions. Places like usertesting.com are now full of "professional website testers" rather than your average customer who may be adverse to tech. The thing about view through conversions and cross device tracking is maybe only a handful of marketing analytics professionals I know can actually measure the uplift they get from installing the required tracking from these. The first question I think people NEED to ask when investing in analytics is "will I get ROI on this or am I just making more work for myself"?
soared 8y ago
The article doesn't really align with the title. I was hoping for some history on how math men came up or how their value compares to traditional mad men. Unfortunate just another hot topic hit piece on google/fb.
erikb 8y ago
The idea is ridiculous. The math men didn't overthrow the Mad Men. The Mad Men found that math is awesome, because it's a topic that your customers don't know. So they also have no way to figure out that the Mad Men don't know math either. They call the mathematicians "quants". Does that sound like respect to you? Is that how one speaks in public about one's overlord?

146 points by sonabinu 8y ago

skybrian 8y ago

And what about math women? This isn't the 50's anymore.

danmg 8y ago
It's an allusion to both the show "Mad Men" and to the phrase which spawned it from the 60s. Also, the alliteration.
- s-shellfish 8y ago
  Honestly, I like the phrase 'math people' or 'computer people' a bit better. Not always necessary to follow the formal rules of story telling, to tell a story. Reading the same patterns over and over, sounds kind of boring...
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    The sentence, "math people and mad men" isn't a play on words, and "math people and mad people" doesn't make sense at all. Nobody uses "math men" in speech, this was done for a unique reason.
    - s-shellfish 8y ago
      Is there an algorithm to humor and/or journalism?
      - jonnybgood 8y ago
        Yes, authors have their own particular algorithms in the employment of literary devices. Easy example is great speakers like MLK.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        s-shellfish 8y ago
        I don't think MLK would be opposed to a more inclusive statement, and I don't think MLK would have downvoted someone for wanting women to be included in a population that is often presented to the world as largely male, even though it's really not.
        danmg 8y ago
        We really don't know what his position on a play on words in a feature article in The New Yorker written in 2018 would be. He's been dead for 50 years, and I'd venture to say he'd be more concerned about poverty and criminal justice reform.
        s-shellfish 8y ago
        Yea, the whole discrimination thing he was on about is so 50 years ago.
        danmg 8y ago
        Maybe black and underclass social problems are not the same thing as making sure writing is bland yet as inclusive as possible in a publication that mostly rich left-leaning white people are going to read on their $1000 itoy?
        s-shellfish 8y ago
        I'm female, I work at a university that is considered in 'the ghetto' as a software developer. There are a lot of issues in my city that range from everything from homelessness, to gentrification, mental illness, addiction, etc. I've seen the consequences of discrimination from everything from skin color (I'm white, many of my siblings are black or mixed), to gender, to socio-economic status, etc. I've also spoken on the internet for a long time, and I know what it feels like to feel silenced with the push of a button. A downvote. It's annoying. It's annoying to know people studying machine learning are only doing it to control how people think, to control behavior, to control wealth, or whatever the fuck else they want. So, how many times does this have to wrap around itself for people to understand, downvoting people on the internet for complaining about how the world of math and logic seems largely presented as a male world, is part of the problem? Even more ironically, MLK gets quoted. All men are created equal. Are you focusing on the word men in that rhetoric, or are you understanding the message?

arebop 8y ago

(in the very small digital segment of the much larger advertising market). Astoundingly, the vast majority of ad spend is still done with the traditional level (close to none) of quantitative rigor.

mewfree 8y ago
"very small digital segment"? You might want to re-think that according to this article: https://www.recode.net/2017/12/4/16733460/2017-digital-ad-spend-advertising-beat-tv https://www.recode.net/2017/12/4/16733460/2017-digital-ad-sp...
- technotony 8y ago
  That chart is interesting. Realistically how likely is it that digital spend is going to double in the next five years? Is the consumer economy big enough to justify that without taking share from other media (presumably there are other advertising media)? If (when?) it does stop that's going to have a pretty big impact on google/facebook's valuations and growth rates.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    >without taking share from other media Why, from the mass market perspective (mp3, not vinyl), does traditional media need to go on at all? In the absolute limit of global ultra-draconian GDPR-style laws the capabilities of internet advertisements will at best be reduced to those of TV spots. If TV advertisements haven't already merged with TV over IP and the data market (and thereby become indistinguishable from online video advertisements), they'll just be replaced as ATT, Comcast, Amazon, Netflix, and the rest shift more and more to online platforms. As far as I can see, unless advertisement gets regulated back in to the stone ages (not that I'd be personally opposed to that...), it's going to be down to Google, Google competitors, and highway billboards before long.
    - harry8 8y ago
      Paying for a tv spot with an audited and reliable audience estimate seems to be less fraudulent than any digital ad spend I've heard of with all those phantom bot clicks and impressions. Also you have the advantage of knowing the context of your ad rather than being surprised to be displayed on "John Doe's Racist Blog (tm)"

rsimmonds 8y ago

Love this in theory. But... There's still way more money being invested in the traditional world of advertising than what's being invested in the analytics and data side. Creative agencies haven't gone away. Agencies of Record are still the traditional shops (DDB, Ogilvy, etc.)

soared 8y ago
The data side is still very new (<20 years old). I’m expecting that once the old agency guys and old client side guys die off you’ll see bigger changes.

ian0 8y ago

They overthrew the medium not the ad agencies. Its just those agencies that didn't adopt the new medium struggled. Most large companies I have worked with still use an agency to manage ad spend for a cut. And though the pitching has an analytics bent I cant imagine its that far off how they used to pitch TV & Billboards. And they are still run by sales people not machine learning grads.

soared 8y ago
Yeah, the sales pitch nowadays its “with our new technology we can do this” where I’d imagine previously it was “with our partnerships we can do this” or something similar.

jackgolding 8y ago

After working in two jobs where my job was using quantitative analysis to try figure out what marketing channels to invest in I have to say this is incredibly hard to get any answers - to the point where you might ask why bother? The current solutions in the marketplace AFAIK are either extremely expensive vendors (think $50k pa starting price) or startups which are most focused on direct response (an example I was shown was web traffic from a TV commercial which let you "win a jeep".) The best steps you can do for your business are have a very firm commercial idea of what success looks like (i.e. measure LTV, churn etc by channel) and have a robust framework for market research. I personally like the idea of splitting spending marketing spend between branding (where your aim is to promote unprompted brand awareness) and acquisition (where you want CPA < LTV.) Also remember there are A LOT of businesses which spend money in things that an expert can identify as not commercially sound - so audits by external agencys can be useful (i.e. not using negative keywords in AdWords and spending many thousands on direct response campaigns that don't work.) I'll add the cavaet that rhe worst thing about "attribution" I've found is it puts an unfair amount of pressure in the bottom of the funnel. Brand focused marketers aren't really held to scrutiny at all (lots of marketing teams in businesses I know don't even do total spend / total sales) - I think this can cause some resentment between teams. Good articles on this are few and far between but this one I don't mind https://www.cmo.com.au/article/641243/iag-marketers-must-end-blind-faith-martech-adtech/ https://www.cmo.com.au/article/641243/iag-marketers-must-end... as well as Willem's talk on what they did to bring programmatic in-house at Foxtel. Happy to connect with anyone interested in this space.

soared 8y ago
All good points. I think brand marketers aren’t held to standards often because it’s incredibly difficult and expensive to do so. It’s not like you can’t just calculate a quick roas from your tv spot. I’d love for an easier way to measure branding. All I know of are brand lift studies (expensive), PSAs (waste of money at low spend levels), and attempting to segment other ways which is difficult long term with view through conversions.
- jackgolding 8y ago
  My first job out of uni was quantitative market research (read: surveys) and at the time I thought it was a waste of time - studying UX you learn that for a lot of questions customers will give you incorrect or unhelpful answers (depending on the wording.) Compared to the more advance marketing technology it is probably better ROI though - I read something recently which I haven't been able to find again that most marketing leaders DO NOT trust their DMP (data management platform). One of the biggest problems I think of with making brand lift studies more cheaper is you encourage the supplier to recruit people who answer surveys as side-income to answer questions. Places like usertesting.com are now full of "professional website testers" rather than your average customer who may be adverse to tech. The thing about view through conversions and cross device tracking is maybe only a handful of marketing analytics professionals I know can actually measure the uplift they get from installing the required tracking from these. The first question I think people NEED to ask when investing in analytics is "will I get ROI on this or am I just making more work for myself"?

soared 8y ago

The article doesn't really align with the title. I was hoping for some history on how math men came up or how their value compares to traditional mad men. Unfortunate just another hot topic hit piece on google/fb.

erikb 8y ago

The idea is ridiculous. The math men didn't overthrow the Mad Men. The Mad Men found that math is awesome, because it's a topic that your customers don't know. So they also have no way to figure out that the Mad Men don't know math either. They call the mathematicians "quants". Does that sound like respect to you? Is that how one speaks in public about one's overlord?