7 ms·

Good. I hope they all go out of business. Their predatory practices are the reason why social media is so toxic. I'm honestly amazed that companies haven't figu

Good. I hope they all go out of business. Their predatory practices are the reason why social media is so toxic. I'm honestly amazed that companies haven't figured out that advertisements are far less effective than they claim to be and they are probably over spending on them [1]. [1] https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/research/researchdetail?guid=ea2451f1-08f0-11e7-9872-0050569b3e41 https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/research/resear...

the-dude 5y ago
I know half of my advertisement budget is wasted, I just don't know which half. Plus your source is about TV ads only.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
TechBro8615 5y ago
The largest media companies are loss-leaders for telecom conglomerates. They don't actually need to be profitable.
- the-dude 5y ago
  Could you expand on this? I don't get it.
  - TechBro8615 5y ago
    I mean that Comcast, ATT and Verizon collectively own a large portion of US media corporations – including CNN and MSNBC. You can quibble about the semantics of ownership, but the control of media is concentrated in a small cluster of last century's monopolies. There is an infographic here: https://techstartups.com/2020/09/18/6-corporations-control-90-media-america-illusion-choice-objectivity-2020/ https://techstartups.com/2020/09/18/6-corporations-control-9...
    - the-dude 5y ago
      Are you basically saying the large media companies are kept alive to keep people on cable?
      - username90 5y ago
        I don't think it has to serve a purpose other than power projection for the rich owners. I'd say that owning all media is the best bang for your buck if you want to to convert money to power.
        shadilay 5y ago
        Big media exists to define the overton window for the plebs.
    - dehrmann 5y ago
      > You can quibble about the semantics of ownership AT&T spun out Time Warner and merged it with Discovery because it had no idea what to do with it or how to run a media company. Comcast only bought NBC Universal in 2011. Only one major media company (and not even the biggest one) could arguably be a loss leader for a telco. The rest are doing their own thing.
  - pwg 5y ago
    I believe the OP is referencing the fact that over the years, the cable tv/telephone groups have been buying up production houses (i.e., Time-Warner owned by AT&T, NBCUniversal owned by Comcast, etc.) and is implying that the owner (AT&T, Comcast) owns the production house (Time-Warner, NBCUniversal) not to directly profit from the production house output per. se., but to provide content with which to use to incentivize people into paying for their other media distribution products.
citizenpaul 5y ago
> amazed that companies haven't figured out that advertisements are far less effective than they claim to be I was once asked to do some stats on the marketing effectiveness of a company I was at. Not my job but I really hated a couple of the people in the marketing dept so I went at the task anyway. I had long had suspicious that the advertising was mostly smoke and mirrors so I was glad to find out that I was right. There was basically no correlation to sales and marketing spending, campaigns or anything they were doing. Except for a couple of basic common sense ad placements. They were wasting millions a year. What do you think happened? Surprise happy ending. At the end of the year they shut down the marketing dept and outsourced the basic ad placements for a fixed fee.
- grawprog 5y ago
  At my old shop we had a 'marketing' person for a bit. She was supposed to run the social media profiles, keep the website updated, post ads and stuff. Pretty sure she did literally actually nothing the entire time she was there until they started having her double up on reception duties on Saturdays. She ended up leaving because she moved away somewhere. Needless to say, they did not hire another marketing person.
- hogFeast 5y ago
  This depends very heavily on the product. With some products, for example food, you have to win your customer back every month. Additionally, it is often very difficult to correlate certain kinds of ads to sales...but if you look at the marketing investment over decades in some industries, it is probably the only source of competitive advantage. That being said, given that most people here work for tech companies, I do suspect there is huge overinvestment into marketing by tech companies. Some companies just don't do any of this, don't have a sales team, don't have a marketing team...and they do fine. But that isn't universal (for example, sales clearly has an important implementation role in some industries, in some industries sales has an organizational role, etc.).
  - kelnos 5y ago
    I think sales is essential if you have a B2B product and want to sell to larger enterprises. Most of them will not seek you out, and you need someone who can do a deal tailored to each enterprise's needs and wants, and maintain the relationship going forward. But otherwise I agree.
dillondoyle 5y ago
I feel this way about traditional broadcast/cable. BUT I think the side effect of dwindling audiences is far worse in toxicity. Look at NewsMax and Fox. They cater to more extreme more engaged viewers, at the expense of reality and the health of the rest of us.
- andrew_ 5y ago
  A highly subjective view that could be expanded to any number of mainstream and fringe media outlets.
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    Can definitely be expanded beyond the right but there is scientific backup on media affects on extreme and dangerous views https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=coronovirus+media+news&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=coro... https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=extreme+news+media+fox&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=extr...
paulpauper 5y ago
People were predicting this a decade ago, such as after Facebook ipo. Many huge companies do not care about roi in the same way small biz does. They just want to spend as much as possible to get the word out about a new product.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Put another way, I think after a certain amount of money, the owners (or executives, really) of these sorts of companies are more interested in power projection and influence than they are in immense profitability for the companies they run.
- l33t2328 5y ago
  Why would they care about getting the word out if it wasn’t ultimately for ROI?
decodebytes 5y ago
It really is. The stuff facebook serves to me is just so badly wrong it's hilarious that they are taken someone's money to show me an add which if anything is going to result in me even less likely to buy the product
- jjeaff 5y ago
  And yet, you are likely an outlier because many people advertise on Facebook and can specifically track sales per impression or click. They can turn off their ads, and sales stop. They can increase their ad spend and sales increase (to a point). This is why they keep using online ads. The results can be pretty instantaneous and trackable.
beezischillin 5y ago
Every time this subject prop up I can’t help but remember the book called ‘Generation Pi’ (sometimes translated to just Generation P) by Russian cyberpunk author Victor Pelevin. There’s even a movie that’s pretty well-made, if you can watch it despite it being Russian.

the-dude 5y ago

I know half of my advertisement budget is wasted, I just don't know which half. Plus your source is about TV ads only.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

TechBro8615 5y ago

The largest media companies are loss-leaders for telecom conglomerates. They don't actually need to be profitable.

the-dude 5y ago
Could you expand on this? I don't get it.
- TechBro8615 5y ago
  I mean that Comcast, ATT and Verizon collectively own a large portion of US media corporations – including CNN and MSNBC. You can quibble about the semantics of ownership, but the control of media is concentrated in a small cluster of last century's monopolies. There is an infographic here: https://techstartups.com/2020/09/18/6-corporations-control-90-media-america-illusion-choice-objectivity-2020/ https://techstartups.com/2020/09/18/6-corporations-control-9...
  - the-dude 5y ago
    Are you basically saying the large media companies are kept alive to keep people on cable?
    - username90 5y ago
      I don't think it has to serve a purpose other than power projection for the rich owners. I'd say that owning all media is the best bang for your buck if you want to to convert money to power.
      - shadilay 5y ago
        Big media exists to define the overton window for the plebs.
  - dehrmann 5y ago
    > You can quibble about the semantics of ownership AT&T spun out Time Warner and merged it with Discovery because it had no idea what to do with it or how to run a media company. Comcast only bought NBC Universal in 2011. Only one major media company (and not even the biggest one) could arguably be a loss leader for a telco. The rest are doing their own thing.
- pwg 5y ago
  I believe the OP is referencing the fact that over the years, the cable tv/telephone groups have been buying up production houses (i.e., Time-Warner owned by AT&T, NBCUniversal owned by Comcast, etc.) and is implying that the owner (AT&T, Comcast) owns the production house (Time-Warner, NBCUniversal) not to directly profit from the production house output per. se., but to provide content with which to use to incentivize people into paying for their other media distribution products.

citizenpaul 5y ago

> amazed that companies haven't figured out that advertisements are far less effective than they claim to be I was once asked to do some stats on the marketing effectiveness of a company I was at. Not my job but I really hated a couple of the people in the marketing dept so I went at the task anyway. I had long had suspicious that the advertising was mostly smoke and mirrors so I was glad to find out that I was right. There was basically no correlation to sales and marketing spending, campaigns or anything they were doing. Except for a couple of basic common sense ad placements. They were wasting millions a year. What do you think happened? Surprise happy ending. At the end of the year they shut down the marketing dept and outsourced the basic ad placements for a fixed fee.

grawprog 5y ago
At my old shop we had a 'marketing' person for a bit. She was supposed to run the social media profiles, keep the website updated, post ads and stuff. Pretty sure she did literally actually nothing the entire time she was there until they started having her double up on reception duties on Saturdays. She ended up leaving because she moved away somewhere. Needless to say, they did not hire another marketing person.
hogFeast 5y ago
This depends very heavily on the product. With some products, for example food, you have to win your customer back every month. Additionally, it is often very difficult to correlate certain kinds of ads to sales...but if you look at the marketing investment over decades in some industries, it is probably the only source of competitive advantage. That being said, given that most people here work for tech companies, I do suspect there is huge overinvestment into marketing by tech companies. Some companies just don't do any of this, don't have a sales team, don't have a marketing team...and they do fine. But that isn't universal (for example, sales clearly has an important implementation role in some industries, in some industries sales has an organizational role, etc.).
- kelnos 5y ago
  I think sales is essential if you have a B2B product and want to sell to larger enterprises. Most of them will not seek you out, and you need someone who can do a deal tailored to each enterprise's needs and wants, and maintain the relationship going forward. But otherwise I agree.

dillondoyle 5y ago

I feel this way about traditional broadcast/cable. BUT I think the side effect of dwindling audiences is far worse in toxicity. Look at NewsMax and Fox. They cater to more extreme more engaged viewers, at the expense of reality and the health of the rest of us.

andrew_ 5y ago
A highly subjective view that could be expanded to any number of mainstream and fringe media outlets.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  Can definitely be expanded beyond the right but there is scientific backup on media affects on extreme and dangerous views https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=coronovirus+media+news&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=coro... https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=extreme+news+media+fox&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=extr...

paulpauper 5y ago

People were predicting this a decade ago, such as after Facebook ipo. Many huge companies do not care about roi in the same way small biz does. They just want to spend as much as possible to get the word out about a new product.

kelnos 5y ago
Put another way, I think after a certain amount of money, the owners (or executives, really) of these sorts of companies are more interested in power projection and influence than they are in immense profitability for the companies they run.
l33t2328 5y ago
Why would they care about getting the word out if it wasn’t ultimately for ROI?

decodebytes 5y ago

It really is. The stuff facebook serves to me is just so badly wrong it's hilarious that they are taken someone's money to show me an add which if anything is going to result in me even less likely to buy the product

jjeaff 5y ago
And yet, you are likely an outlier because many people advertise on Facebook and can specifically track sales per impression or click. They can turn off their ads, and sales stop. They can increase their ad spend and sales increase (to a point). This is why they keep using online ads. The results can be pretty instantaneous and trackable.

beezischillin 5y ago

Every time this subject prop up I can’t help but remember the book called ‘Generation Pi’ (sometimes translated to just Generation P) by Russian cyberpunk author Victor Pelevin. There’s even a movie that’s pretty well-made, if you can watch it despite it being Russian.