I want to read a book a week, that was my promise at the beginning of the year. It seemed doable; we’re in a lockdown. I have finished NetFlix and Amazon, and sitting outside at this time of the year smashing through G&T’s as we did in lockdown one isn’t that appealing. Last year, I invested in myself and took myself over to Mark Ritson and his mini MBA. It is as good as he says it is. Do it. Continuing to invest in me, I decided to up my reading. I have always being a big reader, but I wanted to set a challenge, and so this is where my book a week came in. 

So, we’re in week ten, and I have only chalked up 6 x books. I am a failure, but I think I can get this back on track, well, until the weather gets better and the G&T’s offer an enticement. 

I have an unhealthy obsession with reading marketing books, and so to manage this freakishness, I alternate one marketing book and one non-marketing book. My non-marketing books raise the eyebrow of freakishness and ‘why aren’t you normal’ comments from my household, but that is a blog for another day. 

Anyway, last week I ventured for the first time into the world of Bob Hoffman, and his first sentence was a winner for me:

Note 1

I write short books. Publishers don’t like short books. They like big fat books because it implies gravitas. I find the opposite. I find that most business books are about 30% information and 70% bullshit… 

I like Bob, Bob is going to get me back on track for the target of 52 x books in 2021, but that’s not the real reason I like his book: Advertising for Skeptics. I like his book because it scared the hell out of me. The book goes something like this: 

• Social Media is bollocks
• Marketing has lost a decade of credibility as we pander to ‘Digital Marketing’ 
• We no longer allow great creative to shine though 
• Marketing by selfie-stick
• We’re all being fleeced by the adtech industry, who are taking our money and placing ads on sites that don’t get viewed and programing bots to drive engagement. 

Amongst the numerous topics covered, it was the Adtech fraud that got my attention. Someone is getting rich, and it isn’t the brand owners. Those that are getting rich are not nice people, and this is a cancer in our industry, and more people need to know about this. 

So, if you work in marketing, you need to up your game and get into the murky world of adtech fraud, and Bob’s book will scare the life out of you. 

I’ll leave you with this final thought, a thought that, once consumed, should have you reaching for the phone and your media agencies number. 

Kevin Frisch, the former head of performance marketing and CRM at Uber, tells the story of how ad fraud (specifically attribution fraud) was headed toward eating $120 million of Uber’s $150 million on-line ad budget. “We turned off ⅔ of our spend, we turned off 100 million of annual spend out of 150 and basically saw no change…’

Research Adtech fraud now before your FD does.