Categories: Articles

Do We Blame The Algorithms When Advertising Goes Wrong?

When things go wrong in advertising, it looks like brands are throwing the algorithms under the bus.

And you thought it was just the agencies who took the brunt of the damage when mistakes are made? It is not. Look no further than Internet Radio to see how this is unfolding. Internet radio has consistently been an area of high growth in advertising spend (and based on the success of podcasts, connected speakers, voice platforms and the troubles of terrestrial radio, it doesn’t look like it is going to be slowing down any time soon). Still, Internet Radio is not podcasting. In fact, it works almost exactly like terrestrial radio. It has scheduled programming, measurable audience, and time slot ad buys. The big difference (or value for brands) is the simplicity of digital insertions (the publishers can drop ads in and out with ease across multiple shows over date and time). But, there’s one fatal flaw that many brands haven’t considered: it’s largely a wild west on the content front. Without knowing it, many brands are unwittingly sponsoring some fairly unsavory shows including those supporting racism or even terrorist thinking. So, is this a wake up call about the medium or another example of marketer laziness with programmatic buying? How should brands proceed? Is it easier to keep making the same mistake over and over again (while blaming the algorithms) or do we have a deeper problem going on here?

You may want to listen to this: Beancast – Episode #476 – So Very Gassy.

This week, I discussed this topic along with Emily Binder (Beetle Moment Marketing), Kate O’Neill (K.O.Insights) and host Bob Knorpp on the very excellent BeanCast Podcast (which I’ve been fortunate to be a guest on in the past). We didn’t just tackle the current problem of Internet Radio advertising. In this episode, we also discussed brands and their inability to truly be friends in social media, ads.cert and what this means for the digital advertising business, and Facebook‘s new Messenger For Kids apps.

Take a listen and jump into the fray…

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.