Advertising isn't just B2C, it's also B2B. The companies that make everything you buy (from the food you eat to the electrical wires you install in your walls) needs raw materials and machinery to produce anything. While there's trade shows and good ol' fashioned handshakes and whatnot, one of the main ways to sell B2B is just camp the top Google result spots by giving Google a lot of money to be the first result for the names of business inputs (or the names of your competitors, if you want to be cheeky).
When you hire a non-technical purchaser, when production line 13's full-body discombobulator breaks and the maintenance guy says "we need a new full-body discombobulator", the purchaser has no idea what a "full-body discombobulator" is or who makes it but they'll Google "full-body discombobulator" and they'll click [Buy Now] on whatever link shows up so that production line 13 can continue printing half a million bucks an hour.
Many 21st century consumer brands have been built by internet advertising. Seems like you do, based on your comment about your book, but in general I feel like many people who say stuff like the comment above don't actually work in marketing or startups, particularly non-tech physical goods based ones, or have even run their own ads on these platforms.
I don't live in the US. I am familiar with Warby Parker and, to a lesser extent, with Gymshark and Liquid Death, but it needs to be proven that they became well known thanks to online advertising.
I have no idea who/what Casper and Olipop are, to be honest.
How can one "prove" it? I don't have access to their ad account, only what the founders and executives say publicly. Gymshark for example grew with influencer marketing on Instagram and TikTok and then having their own ads and media on said platforms. These companies are all well known case studies and have many sources online with a simple search.
It is trivial to find them online, just search the company name and then "ads". I assume you don't go on TikTok or Instagram or if you do you aren't part of the target market to be served these ads.
The paper says that influencer marketing was new in Gymshark's case. It doesn't claim that this works repeatedly. Was it lightning in a bottle, i.e. Gymshark got lucky because it was early, or is it a consistently smart strategy?
The goal of advertising is to hammer you with the same content again and again until your brain associates something with the product. Like shampoo associated with what you see everyday in the advertisement.
However in order to do this, whether you are selling or buying, you have to have the scale. And the scale of big players is now too big to compete.
And even if you do, your infrastructure will run on any of these big companies who can do anything to your traffic to keep their business and later pay fines for unethical practices that are minor compared to the profits.
the social part was phenomenal back in the day. when facebook took off I reconnected (and stayed connected) with a lot of people. my “feed” was nothing but posts from my friends and family that I cared about. I extensively used DM to talk to my friends privately. everyone got hooked on it purely because it was as social as it gets outside of real life
Perhaps it’s just me. I’m not a very social person, and it seemed like I had to reconnect with people I had gladly forgotten, or ended up having arguments with people I barely knew but had somehow ‘friended’, or with their friends. I first deleted their app from my phone, then I unfollowed almost everyone and eventually I deleted my account some 3-4 years ago, in what was perhaps the best decision of this century for me.
> So, we have a largely moderate-right party in power and a far-left party out of power.
I'd say you -- mind you, I'm writing from the other side of the Atlantic, and even if I have lived in the US, that was a long time ago! -- have lunatic right-wingers in power and lunatic liberals who think they are entitled to running the show as the (weak but noisy) opposition.
Why does this happen? Because close to nobody votes in the primaries, and so it is mostly candidates who have rather extremist views that are chosen by the two parties. How to solve this? By getting more people to vote in the primaries, so that more middle-of-the-road candidates are chosen.
How would this be even possible? Only if expressing one's vote were much simpler. I pretty much subscribe to Bradley Tusk's view (see: Vote with your phone: Why Mobile Voting Is Our Final Shot at Saving Democracy) that allowing people to vote from their phones is the only way to save the US.
Actually, "a long time ago" the GOP was not moderate in the least. But the Democrats were quite centrist in most things, at least up until Obama.
But I agree, poor turnouts in primaries is bad. Even worse in states with open primaries where liberals purposely try to sabotage Republican primaries.
Electronic voting isn't going to help us, not for a good long while. Nothing on the Internet is safe. And as soon as quantum computing hits the scene, things are going to get real cray cray.
Imo, we just need good old fashioned ballots, an enforced chain of custody, and proper ID checking (at some stage), no late mail-in ballots (drop off is fine), and ZERO computers.
And I say this as a very pro-technology person. But we haven't caught up to what the tech can do, not yet.
I'll have to look into that. But I'll tell you, neither major party in the USA would go for it.
The Dems will cry about ballot access, I mean there might be some bum or granny out there without a phone, and we'd have to pass a bill to give away free phones to everyone, oh and along with free healthcare, before they might consider it.
The GOP will cry about who has control of the system, that we're not a democracy, we're a Republic, something about unconstitutional blah blah blah, and "we never needed that before, why do we need it now", sorts of arguments.
My take is that everything is hackable. If Russia hasn't hacked it, maybe they just have bigger fish to fry. Who knows.
But from what I know of quantum computing and AI, even the best encryption is going to be in trouble.
While personally I'm on the side of tech, that eventually we'll get there, I'm also rather cautious in how we proceed.
the elections is America for quite some time now (except for “hope & change” which left us hopeless and unchanged) has basically been choosing the lesser of two bad choices. 81m people did not want for senile grandpa in 2020, they voted against trump. 2016 same-ish and so on…
>> Why? And also: What can be done to change this in the future?
Two corrupt political parties that are owned by monied interests thanks to Citizens United, decades without campaign finance reform, and rampant "gifts" and extortion.
Neither party represents the people or their needs. They take money and make money. Laws are written by monied special interests. Members of both parties have been doing insider trading for decades, but now it is on naked display, bold and unashamed, as if it to say, "what are you going to do about it?"
Drastic systemic changes are needed on the order of a Constitutional Convention, but it is doubtful that it will happen without tremendous public outcry.
tremendeous public outcry is no longer possible as the country is so divided at this point that nothing can unite the public (short of national tragedy like 9/11). that shipped has sailed for america…
yea… on top of it all I think we have reached a point where we no longer have politics but cultism. I have number of friends (smart, educated…) who voted for trump in 2024. I have carefully listened to their arguments in october of 2024 as to why and while I did not agree, I understood their reasoning. the arguments were well thought through and made sense.
fast forward 16 months later and literally every argument that was made (except one), not only did not pan out but the exact opposite has and is been happening.
the sane politics here would end up as “boy oh boy did we fuck this up, so much fucking up, my bad for october of 2024 when you had to listen what we believed in” but we no longer can have that, what we have is blind following of the supreme leader with an “excuse” for every fuckup (all along the “you can see the big picture and long term plan”…)
I wish I was smart enough to answer this… Overturning Citizen United is probably mandatory start, there may actually be some light at the end of that tunnel but I am not holding my breath…
The major parties are following the third-party strategy of only choosing candidates no one sensible would want to vote for. If any of the third partys can change their strategy they might have a chance.
Chances are though, that the third parties will double down on their typical strategy and somehow find even worse candidates.
reply