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P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

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Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#111

Post by hknd »

elorant wrote: post #66

I have to admit that at a deeper lever I'd love if advertisers get the fuck off of the web. I don't have a problem with advertising per se but the way it's used today hurts the medium in so many ways. Sites are bloated with ads, journalism is riffled with native advertising articles, malware is mainly spread through infected ads and on top of that we have a legion of companies out there which are collecting every kin…

The big companies are working on this and this should soon be tackeled by the betterads standard: https://www.betterads.org/

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#112

Post by sah2ed »

milesvp wrote: post #106
sah2ed wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are tech companies not ad companies. It just happens that Google and Facebook draw most of their revenue from being middlemen in the advertising industry, the same way Uber is a middleman in the transportation industry -- Uber doesn't have the fixed costs that you'd expect a large cab company to have.

All companies are tech companies in this day and age, it's a meaningless classifier. But not all companies recieve most of thier money from advertising and selling personal information, which makes ad company relevant classifier. Google is an ad company. Facebook is an ad company.

I'm sure Warren Buffet will disagree with that generalization of all companies being tech companies, especially since he, the quintessential value investor, doesn't consider Berkshire Hathaway as one.

Neither would Carlos Slim. Not that it means anything but at different times, each was once adjudged the wealthiest in the world.

Calling a company a "tech company" speaks primarily to its competitive advantage in printing money, not the industry it is in.

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#113

Post by jpttsn »

emn13 wrote: post #56
VMG wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14833508 > The growth of “zero-sum” activities may, however, be even more important. Look around the economy, and it’s striking how much high-talent manpower is devoted to activities that cannot possibly increase human welfare, but entail competition for the available economic pie. Advertising seems to be a zero-sum game. I can imagine some industries cartellizing…

It's a pipe dream; but advertising/lobbying deserves regulatory hurdles much like other public health threats (e.g. tobacco). And before anyone shouts "freedom of speech" - we already do that extensively for stuff like fraud, libel, and incitement to violence/terrorism, so this isn't really anything particularly new. It's simply detrimental to the overall ability for us to think .

> And before anyone shouts "freedom of speech" - we already do that extensively for stuff like fraud, libel, and incitement to violence/terrorism, so this isn't really anything particularly new.

So the slippery slope people were right after all.

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#114

Post by briandear »

sah2ed wrote: post #97
saimiam wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they not ad companies? Together, FB and GOOGL receive a massive proportion of online ad spend.

They are tech companies not ad companies. It just happens that Google and Facebook draw most of their revenue from being middlemen in the advertising industry, the same way Uber is a middleman in the transportation industry -- Uber doesn't have the fixed costs that you'd expect a large cab company to have.

Their business is ad delivery. Apple is a consumer electronics company as they make and sell hardware directed primarily at consumers (as well as niche professional markets – kind of like Panasonic.) Google is an advertising company; the tech they produce is nearly universally focused in some way on the delivery of ads. They make and sell ad delivery.

Search: ad delivery. Any innovations around search are all built for the purpose of making essentially a better billboard.

Gmail: data generation tool that feeds information into Google in order to better traffic ads.

Google analytics: a Trojan horse that trades data to web property owners in exchange for being able to use that data themselves – to better target ads.

Google Fiber: more bandwidth, the more people will be able to use their ad products.

AdWords: ad delivery AdSense: ad delivery

Chrome: owning the browser means you protect the ability to serve ads.

Google Apps for Business/Gsuite – an exeception to the above that represents a minuscule amount of revenue.

Play Store: if you make Android more attractive, you protect an ability to use Android user data in order to target people to... (drumroll please) serve ads.

All of these X/Skunkworks projects are just hobbies. Google is an ad company, plain and simple. Their entire business is based around “track and serve.” Even self-driving cars: “we noticed you visit REI a lot, how about we drive you to this for a 30% discount off of whatever you were buying at REI?”

Apple is a hardware company – they make software and services so you want to buy their hardware. They are to a lessor extent, a content distribution company but really even that is to support selling Apple hardware. They haven’t changed much since 1984 – make software exclusive to the Mac, so Mac is differentiated from other computers.

Facebook – not even a debate. Track and Serve.

Microsoft might be considered a “true” tech company in the sense that they are essentially a software version of what IBM used to be.

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#115

Post by dmurray »

raverbashing wrote: post #84

It seems the issue is "overtargeting" of ads P&G ads don't work like that. Their products appeal to a broad range of people, same as their ads. Specialized targeting literally does nothing to improve conversion (and keeping their product in mind)

They sell a broad range of products, but not all of them appeal to a broad range of people. They can surely improve conversion by marketing men's razors to men and women's razors to women, for example.

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#116

Post by sah2ed »

briandear wrote: post #114
sah2ed wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are tech companies not ad companies. It just happens that Google and Facebook draw most of their revenue from being middlemen in the advertising industry, the same way Uber is a middleman in the transportation industry -- Uber doesn't have the fixed costs that you'd expect a large cab company to have.

Their business is ad delivery. Apple is a consumer electronics company as they make and sell hardware directed primarily at consumers (as well as niche professional markets – kind of like Panasonic.) Google is an advertising company; the tech they produce is nearly universally focused in some way on the delivery of ads. They make and sell ad delivery. Search: ad delivery. Any innovations around search are all built f…

> Their business is ad delivery.

Yes, but they do a whole lot of other things, which as you noted, tie back into their main source of revenue.

I don't disagree with what you've written but I think calling them an "ad delivery" business is as accurate as using the tusks as a synecdoche for describing an elephant. Using a well-known part to describe a thing is fine in most cases, except that over time, it blinds people into ignoring the other parts that gives a thing its uniqueness.

> Microsoft might be considered a “true” tech company in the sense that they are essentially a software version of what IBM used to be.

Funny that you use Microsoft.

Among the big 5: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, Microsoft is the most diversified, revenue wise [0].

[0] https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar16/index.html

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#117

Post by majewsky »

kuschku wrote: post #99
riffraff wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is: given how much of the web relies on advertising, how would things fare once ads are gone?

We can ask ourselves what could exist without ads. Most newspapers could make old-style ad deals, like they do for print. A few newspapers also still finance their sites almost entirely through subscriptions, and those would continue to exist (e.g. Süddeutsche, SPIEGEL). As would obviously publicly financed sites (BBC, ARD, ZDF, NPR). Also products financed via paying customers, such as imgur used to be, or possibly…

If Google were to ask for a monthly fee for the search engine (and hopefully cut down on the data collection a not), I'd totally pay them.

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#118

Post by majewsky »

Jach wrote: post #102
saimiam wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they not ad companies? Together, FB and GOOGL receive a massive proportion of online ad spend.

A thought experiment: suppose my company makes and sells shoes. We're a shoe company, right? Then one day some soda company calls us and says they'll give us money (a generous $10 a pair, our pairs sell for $100, cost $90, hello double profit) if we put their logo on the tongues. Sure, we try it out, shoe sales don't seem negatively affected (they're great shoes) so we keep it and keep taking money for the ad. Basica…

What if ad income were so large that the shoe company just gave away your shoes and relied solely on the ad income?

This is where Google and Facebook are, and that makes them ad companies: Their business and design decisions are driven primarily by the objective of increasing ad income.

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#119

Post by soneca »

Jach wrote: post #102
saimiam wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they not ad companies? Together, FB and GOOGL receive a massive proportion of online ad spend.

A thought experiment: suppose my company makes and sells shoes. We're a shoe company, right? Then one day some soda company calls us and says they'll give us money (a generous $10 a pair, our pairs sell for $100, cost $90, hello double profit) if we put their logo on the tongues. Sure, we try it out, shoe sales don't seem negatively affected (they're great shoes) so we keep it and keep taking money for the ad. Basica…

What else FB sells instead of ads?

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#120

Post by stephengillie »

rorykoehler wrote: post #44
tomjen3 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My algorithm for that kind of stuff is what is cheapest in the store I am in? I think that is what a lot of people do.

Often it's a false economy. Dish detergent for example... the more expensive stuff is often far thicker concentrate and lasts many times longer than the cheap stuff.

Buy the cheapest one the first time, and use that experience to judge if you need a better one next time.
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