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My working hypothesis is that major media companies are basically selling dashboards to marketers. The more complicated their work, the more steps they have to
by cblconfederate 6y ago
My working hypothesis is that major media companies are basically selling dashboards to marketers. The more complicated their work, the more steps they have to do, the more it looks like they are busy, the happer they are , and their bosses as well. The ROI from advertising seems to be following a sigmoid pattern but nobody knows how wide or tall it is.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoI don't want to sound too dismissive, but middle management does love their dashboards. I mean, I can definitely see the allure ( I am currently learning how to prepare them in R -- fun times ). So as long as they can blame.. sorry.. as long as they can point to something that informed their decision, it counts as a win. Whether it is some variation of the current buzzwords 'natural impression timeline increased holistically' or shiny dashboard that shows they are doing something, it seems to do that job. And good god do they need it; I can tell my boss's boss is not the same since Covid since he can't walk around and badger us about the recent sports team event.
- iamacyborg 6y agoRight, and it doesn't matter whether that data is accurate or anything. They just need the number to point to if anyone questions them about what they're doing or why they're doing it.
- xorcist 6y ago"Number goes up" can be useful on its own.
- mdifrgechd 6y agoWhat you're describing is true for most "business intelligence"
- lumost 6y agoAdvertising in a competitive market has all participants locked in a prisoners dilemma. Cokes ROI is probably pretty bad, if they cut ad spend then Pepsi's ROI would go up.
- Ericson2314 6y agoExactly. The "rat race of bullshit" is not incidental but intrinsic to the relationship between the megacorps and the advertising industry.
- willcipriano 6y agoEveryone says that but does anyone actually try it? At 30 years old I already have my beverage preferences, if I never saw a Pepsi ad again Coke would still be too sweet for me. Who are these people who are swayed by this? Who hasn't tried both and determined a preference already?
- tgb 6y agoMy pet conspiracy theory is that the tobacco industry tried this in the US by getting the government to ban advertising of tobacco.
- daniel-cussen 6y agoThis is a form of collusion with which I have no problem.
- disgruntledphd2 6y agoIts not true though, as if it was then they wouldn't spend loads of money where they can still advertise. But they do (and they sponsored F1 for a long time after most advertising was banned) so advertising must have some impact on their sales.
- tgb 6y ago
- dehrmann 6y agoEven when the underlying product works as advertised, dashboards and consoles absolutely sell the product, especially when that's what a lot of decision makers will look at.