Time To Share

20 July 2026

Deep breath, it’s time to open up and share my media habits. Why? Sometimes a sample of one can bring a dose of real life to numbers on a page. Most of us aren’t particularly unusual, and it can be revealing to examine one’s own behaviours as an indicator of why a certain type of person does what he or she does.

Every day I read a newspaper. A printed, physical thing that I have delivered. I also read articles and features from my chosen newspaper and others online.

Some items I prefer to read in the physical paper. I don’t know why this is. I just know I do it; it’s a pleasure to read certain content with no online distractions.

I subscribe to two hard-copy UK magazines delivered by mail, several online titles and Substacks, trades and nationals, general interest and specialised, mainly from the UK, Australia and the USA.

I do watch some old-fashioned TV, and also use / subscribe to several streaming services which I buy, cancel, return to, cancel again depending on what’s on offer. I can never remember what’s on what service. I am a frequent user of the BBC sports service on my mobile.

I look at Facebook, largely from between my fingers. My active use of it has declined over the years. Looking back at past posts is interesting but rather embarrassing (who cares about my knee-jerk reaction to some event?), which may be why I have stopped posting. I can’t be bothered with Instagram. I do use WhatsApp.

I share as little data as possible. I never buy off-the-page from a platform, rather I will go to the brand’s website or to a retail site. I guess I have a fear of being harassed for evermore.

I am uninterested in TikTok but can see the attraction. I used to quite like Twitter; I stopped when it became X. Too much rage, too much hate. I find Bluesky interesting but never contribute. I find LinkedIn infuriating, but that doesn’t stop me posting professionally.

I rarely listen to podcasts. To be honest, I struggle to imagine how they fit into my day.

YouTube is OK but the way they insert ads into content is imbecilic and stops me watching the channel more.

I listen to the radio. I subscribe to an audio books service; I buy physical books. I notice posters and whatever I come across that promotes brands in stores. I see direct mail and wonder why I get so many random ‘Dear Sir or Madam’ letters in an age of AI.

I am unsurprisingly impacted by advertising and having been in the business for so long I like to think I’m quite good at deconstructing what influences me and why.

I suppose I am a heavy consumer of media channels, nothing like as thorough as some of my professional contemporaries but far more involved than most of my non-ad-industry friends. Which is hardly surprising.

There are some very basic lessons from my sample of one.

First, I use different channels for different things, and yet far too often the ads I see on these channels are not in any way designed to fit into how the channel is used. Rather, they’re jammed in willy-nilly. The more the merrier. Often the customer experience is truly dire, too many ads, too poorly displayed, too interruptive. This is particularly (and sadly) true of far too many news brands.

Next, I use a variety of media. Most of us do. The suggestion that anyone wanting to brand build can run an effective, successful campaign by handing over their dollars to any single supplier, however big and letting them get on with it is delusional.

I recently bought a high-ticket item within a category in which I am by no means an expert. Thinking back over my ‘journey to purchase’ I knew the name and something of a couple of brands’ values from TV commercials. I saw and read a physical print ad from one of these companies with the detail. I researched the product and a couple of alternatives online. I bought my choice from the company’s website.

Since buying I have been inundated with online ads to buy another similar product from someone else. Why would I want to do that? I have already spent my money. The principle behind retargeting may be sensible, the execution of it is crass.

All of this is so very basic it feels as if it belongs in ‘Janet and John Do Advertising’. Yet the most basic tenets of successful advertising are being routinely ignored every day (follow Nick Manning’s frequent examples of mistargeted slop on his social feed for a laugh turning rapidly into a groan).

Who is advising clients what to do? Where’s the experience, the lessons learned? I don’t mean the data, the souped-up spreadsheets; I mean how to scatter magic over a good idea to make it sparkle with brilliance.

This is what agencies do or did. Today too many of them spend too long obsessing over numbers. Twenty years ago, the great Marilyn Baxter wrote a booklet called Magic and Logic. We’re out of sync.