{"id":1750,"date":"2023-07-06T09:36:02","date_gmt":"2023-07-06T08:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/?p=1750"},"modified":"2023-07-06T09:36:02","modified_gmt":"2023-07-06T08:36:02","slug":"keeping-on-keeping-on-an-announcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/keeping-on-keeping-on-an-announcement\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping On Keeping On: An Announcement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last Sunday, 2nd<\/sup> July was a propitious day. First, and of paramount importance it was our grandson Francis\u2019 2nd<\/sup> Birthday. Cue cake, toys, family, a few of his friends and much happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less significant is that the day also marked the tenth anniversary of the Cog Blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The first post was on 2nd<\/sup> July 2013. You can see it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back then, I was rather airily aiming at a post a week. In fact, in that first week, I posted three, leading Derek Jones then at Mediatel to suggest I spread it out a bit. How right he was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t managed to keep to the one a week target \u2013 my estimate is that over 10 years I\u2019ve posted about 450 times. Missed target or not, the cogs have been whirring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading some of the old posts (they\u2019re all easily found, archived by year at www.bjanda.com\/blog) I\u2019m struck by how optimistic they are, and how short. Over time, like my waistline they\u2019ve expanded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019ve also got angrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I started my career in the late 1960\u2019s I was very proud to work in advertising. I was, indeed still am, fascinated by how we mix creativity and numbers \u2013 to hark back to last week\u2019s post, by magic and logic.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today I\u2019m more disappointed and frustrated than proud. The majority of people inhabiting what they refer to as the ad business are nothing to do with advertising. Instead, they\u2019re technocrats and sales people more interested in numbers on a spreadsheet than in the ads themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make it worse these people don\u2019t understand, nor do they care about audiences and how they behave. All they care about is maximising the numbers in the measured audience \u2013 even if the numbers are meaningless. Make them bigger, regardless. That\u2019s ignorance masquerading as a policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How we got to this state is a long, long story involving technology understood by the few, vested interests, holding companies driving their media arms to deliver ever increasing profits to make up for under-deliveries elsewhere, advertisers who don\u2019t want to admit they\u2019ve been focussed on the wrong thing, a trade press concerned with not upsetting the platforms and an agency sector that shies away from controversy to focus on far more easily supportable, societal arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are of course many good guys \u2013 the strategic planners and thinkers, the fraud researchers, those in the attention measurement game doing all they can to move the industry forward, the indie agencies placing transparency ahead of easy money, advertisers who place creativity ahead of convenience, those always seeking to learn, to do better, and those from my generation raging against the dying of the light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we\u2019re not the industry, however much we may think we should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasingly the debate is less about advertising and more about technology; less about meeting client needs and business objectives and more about selling snake oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I must admit I\u2019m finding it increasingly difficult to write a regular weekly post (even if it\u2019s less than weekly in reality) about things I care little about. And which to be honest I don\u2019t always fully understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frankly, there are quite enough people pontificating about things they don\u2019t understand. The world doesn\u2019t need another one. And so I\u2019m going to stop doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t stop the Cog Blog altogether. I still care a lot about the ad industry, and I like to think I still have something to say. It\u2019s just that I won\u2019t be saying it quite as often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shall, in the words of one of my favourite authors, Alan Bennett be \u201ckeeping on keeping on.\u201d You will still be able to find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and on my site. If you subscribe (for free) I\u2019ll still let you know when I post anything of earth-shattering importance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll still consult, appear on platforms, chair events and work with those who\u2019ll have me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My hope for the industry has never been that we go back to some golden age (that never really existed) but that we come to our senses and realise we are here to do great work that works for our clients, even, maybe especially if they\u2019re heading in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re here to advise, objectively. Whatever the short-term consequences might be for our own bottom-line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am hopeful. Things go around, principles survive and reappear. We realise this more as we get older. In the words of the great Alan Bennett: \u201cAt eighty things do not occur, they recur.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for reading and au revoir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Sunday, 2nd July was a propitious day. First, and of paramount importance it was our grandson Francis\u2019 2nd Birthday. Cue cake, toys, family, a few of his friends and much happiness. Less significant is that the day also marked the tenth anniversary of the Cog Blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1751,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions\/1751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}