Bob Hoffman on ‘The Golden Age of Bullshit’
At Advertising Week Europe, held in London earlier this month, Bob Hoffman, author of the adcontrarian blog, opens a fascinating debate on the failed predictions of advertising experts over the past decade, with particular focus on the social media marketing of brands.
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Bob Hoffman is The Ad Contrarian. Bob is an author, speaker, and partner in Type A Group, a consultancy to agencies and marketers.Bob is author of “101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising” which is the #1 selling advertising book on Amazon.Bob is also author of the book “The Ad Contrarian” and “The Ad Contrarian” blog, which was named one of the world’s most influential advertising and marketing blogs by Business Insider.
In 2012, Bob was selected Ad Person of the Year by the S.F. Advertising Club.Bob was previously chairman/ceo of Hoffman/Lewis advertising, one of the West’s largest independent advertising agencies. He was formerly ceo of MOJO USA and president and creative director of Allen & Dorward.Bob has created advertising for McDonald’s, Toyota, Shell, Nestle, Chevrolet, Pepsico, Bank of America, AT&T, and more companies than he cares to remember.He has served on the board of the Advertising and Marketing International Network. Bob has also been a middle school science teacher and served as Special Ass’t to the Executive Director of the California Academy of Sciences.
5 Comments
So glad this out there. Sick of the so called ‘social specialists’ in the agency talking shit the entire time and actually believing and preaching it like some kind of social cult. Most of the time I feel they’re just trying to justify their jobs.
Bob’s Pepsi example is great. No one in their right mind wants to engage in a brand as much as the Social cult want us to believe they do.
Found this talk really encouraging to hear. For ages I’ve been seeing case studies of social media campaigns and 99% of the time “what happened to sales?” is the only question I’ve got that doesn’t get answered.
For anyone wanting to dig deeper on FB’s bait and switch and what it means for a brand’s FB page this dude (another science guy oddly enough) does a fantastic presentation/analysis of what happened when he advertised his business on FB:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag
Likes, clicks, shares, etc ain’t the same as sales.
Social media isn’t the same as a media for social marketing.
Only insecure and shallow clients buy into the bullshit.
Bravo Bob for speaking the truth!
Likes, click & shares are the only currency of the social media ecosystem.
And its as bogus as banana money.
The brutal truth is that 80% of them are generated by click-farms in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa .
The myth is that social activity in digital space makes it perfect for social marketing and somehow this leads to sales in the real world.
That’s why I set very strict objectives and KPIs for my digital budget. And you can bet it isn’t measured in likes, clicks & shares.
Found this talk really encouraging to hear. For ages I’ve been seeing case studies of social media campaigns and 99% of the time “what happened to sales?” is the only question I’ve got that doesn’t get answered.
For anyone wanting to dig deeper on FB’s bait and switch and what it means for a brand’s FB page this dude (another science guy oddly enough) does a fantastic presentation/analysis of what happened when he advertised his business on FB:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag