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Lush Unplugs from the Algorithm. You Should Too

At the end of November, the cosmetics retailer Lush announced that there were pulling out of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. They cited the harmful effects of social media on young users, saying:

“We at Lush don’t want to wait for better worldwide regulations or for the platforms to introduce best practice guidelines, while a generation of young people are growing up experiencing serious and lasting harm.”

One of the big reasons that Lush is becoming anti-social is from the 2021 Facebook whistleblower. An ex-Facebook employee revealed that Facebook has been fully aware of the lasting harm that is caused by their platform for years. Despite this, Facebook has chosen to do nothing about the problem.

Facebook "Had No Idea"

Facebook has even lied to lawmakers about the extent of the problem, going as far as acting as if the company doesn’t know about the issue.

Lawmakers questioned Zuckerberg about his company’s plans to create an Instagram for kids under 13, and he downplayed such a platform’s potential societal harm. Internal documents show that Instagram wreaks havoc on women’s self-image, while contributing to suicidal thoughts.

When Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn asked Zuckerberg to release this internal research, Facebook again played the fool. Facebook instead responded by saying “We are not aware of a consensus among studies or experts about how much screen time is ‘too much’.”

Facebook Knew

This year, Facebook finally published their findings, showing that they knew that “One in five teens say that Instagram makes them feel worse about themselves.”

The strangest thing is that multiple slides that talk about the very real harm that Instagram causes… And those same slides are annotated with language that downplays the issue. The annotation “This research was not intended to (and does not) evaluate causal claims between Instagram and health or well-being,” is found on multiple of these slides.

It’s as if someone released these slides as satire. How can a corporation release this research and be so horribly self-unaware?

Stop Scrolling

It’s no surprise then, why Lush would choose to leave Facebook and other platforms like it. If their target audience is being torn apart mentally and trapped out of fear of missing out, then why keep giving Facebook money?

Rather than stay on the platform out of feigned concern, Lush made the correct decision to just leave. This is a rare moment for corporations on social media.

Surely, they could have spun staying on the platform into a positive thing. They could have stayed and fought the issue by sharing messages of body positivity, but they chose to do what hurts Facebook’s business the most. It is the most real example of putting the customer first.

Lush’s CDO Jack Constantine said it best:

“As an inventor of bath bombs, I pour all my efforts into creating products that help people switch off, relax and pay attention to their wellbeing. Social media platforms have become the antithesis of this aim, with algorithms designed to keep people scrolling and stop them from switching off and relaxing.”

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Study: Most Sites Fail to Meet Google’s Standards

A recent study from Searchmetrics revealed that only 1 in of the top 10 desktop websites meet Google’s criteria for a good user experience. Even more surprising, around half of all websites fail to meet these standards.

How is it that 9 of the top 10 are failing to deliver an experience that Google considers to be good for the user? Here's the data:

Google’s Core Web Vitals

First, what are Google’s standards? They're called the Core Web Vitals. They’re made up of three parts: loading, interactivity, and visual stability. Loading is simply how long it takes for the first piece of content to load. Interactivity is how long it takes for the site to respond to the first action you take. Lastly, visual stability is how much the page jumps around as things load. These metrics are labeled Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) respectively. This version of Core Web Vitals was rolled out back in August, and sites are still adjusting to meet these shifting standards.

Why?

This is Google’s way of challenging how reliant websites have become on bloated scripts. If the site loads a lot of ads, or if it tries to ask you to sign up for a newsletter: that can really slow the page down. It’s part of the reason why people use ad blockers.

This tells us why Wikipedia is so high up: The pages are clean and simple. No complex scripts need to run and move content around to make room for video ads or sign up requests. It’s also why, on average, B2B and Healthcare websites rank very high when compared to the lowest performing types of domains: fashion and travel. Sterile pages that are light on scripts load faster and appear more visually stable when compared to ones that feature image carousels or complex site search filters.

It seems almost unreasonable then, to assume that the most popular pages could meet these requirements, when they’ve become so reliant on these features. But do they need to meet Google’s standards? After all, only one of the sites in the top 10 actually meet them.

The Brand Effect

How do so many of these sites rank so high when they don’t offer what Google considers a good user experience? The answer is: the brand effect. As unfair as it may be, the top sites are all so popular that they don’t need to offer a “good user experience” anymore. People keep coming back to these sites because they are just too well known.

The brand effect makes these sites too big to fail Google’s standards. It doesn’t matter that the page takes slightly longer to load, or if your clicks are delayed, or if the content jumps around. You’ll still go back to YouTube, Amazon, and Twitter. In fact, sites at the bottom of the top 100 meet these standards more often than those at the top.

Come Out Clean on Top

So let this be your sites' chance to be better at something than the top domains! Optimization is a constant battle, and you might not have the brand effect to back you up. The simpler and cleaner your page is, the better you are in Google's eyes. Now, this doesn't mean your site has to be as barren as a healthcare website. If you can deliver a good experience without many scripts bloating your page, you are, in a way, better than 9 out of the top 10 websites on Google. It can be tempting to add more widgets to your Wordpress, Wix, or Shopify site, but are they worth failing to meet Google's new standards?

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Metaverse, the Wild West of Data Harvesting?

The Metaverse is a big breakthrough in VR and AR technology, and it’s not just ambitious. It’s backed by a tech giant with exorbitant funding. Meta created 10,000 jobs and spent $50 million to create a world with “privacy, diversity and user safety guarantees.”

But how much can this be true? It’s potentially a massive step forward for how we use and understand virtual space… But it’s backed by Facebook—sorry, Meta.

Don’t let the name change fool you, they are very much still one of the least trusted tech companies. In fact, Facebook was voted least trustworthy company of 2018. Many are still careful around them, and they should be. A name change isn’t enough to rebrand Meta as a trustworthy company, one who now potentially holds the keys to VR and AR’s future.

Into the Unknown

Who will adopt this technology? Those who aren’t privacy-conscious? Meta will be the wild west when it comes to data harvesting.

Sure, there will be safeguards and agreements that users need to sign before they can enter the Metaverse, but can people really be trusted to know the implications? Attaching Meta to your life, with all your valuable data, doesn’t sound like a responsible idea. One that many aren’t equipped to understand.

There might be rules against certain data harvesting, but this new digital world will be hard to police. In an interview with media and technology lawyers from Reed Smith law firm brought to light that laws might be murkier in the Metaverse:

"Working out which country's laws apply in digital spaces could be challenging, and managing data consents could quickly become unwieldy as users move through complex worlds bringing together multiple organizations."

Even if it’s in writing, people won’t know what they’re risking on the Metaverse. Think of it like how people posted on social media for the first time, back when the internet was in its infancy. There was, and still is, a big problem with people losing their jobs for what they post online.

It could happen all over again, just in a new kind of digital space. The early adopters for this technology will either be very brave or misinformed. It might be best to just wait and watch from afar, marveling at a black mirror episode come to life. Doubtless, data-hungry companies won't be waiting.

[sir-mark-eting]

Why User Generated Content is "Real" Marketing

User generated content is such a refreshing force in marketing. As a consumer, you can discover a brand without really feeling marketed to. UGC, when done right, feels like the most genuine form of marketing. It’s memorable, and most of all, human. People can tell when a message was created for them—and most of the time they’ll turn away. When you hear from a customer, you’re more willing to let your guard down and listen. UGC is something that I feel most companies neglect. StackLa proved through a study that marketers don’t understand just how much more impactful UGC is:

"Consumers are 2.4x more likely to say user-generated content is authentic compared to brand-created content, yet marketers are 2.1x more likely to say brand-created content is authentic compared to UGC."

"67% of marketers say they plan to increase their use of brand-created visuals, but only 15% of consumers say that’s the type of content they most want to see from brands."

UGC is how you can break down the barrier between your brand and the customer. According to this study, there is a massive slice of your potential audience that simply doesn’t see what you’re putting in front of them. They know when they’re being marketed to. To them, “real” marketing is made by another customer.

Ofcourse, not all companies can equally make use of UGC. Not everyone’s product can be as much of a UGC-magnet as Minecraft, where users can create massive marvels like the Uncensored Library.

Some companies just aren’t so applicable to UGC. If you sell insurance or cat food, it becomes harder to create the evangelist customers who will make legendary content. However, the most clever UGC is the simplest. Just seeing a real customer happily using the product can be genuine and even heartwarming.

For instance, one of my favorite pieces of UGC is from Jewelry by Johan’s blogs from their customers. This company makes insane handmade jewelry out of exotic materials like meteorite and dinosaur bone! Some of their customers write short, heartfelt pieces on the inspiration behind their custom items. Wedding photos and pictures of the happy couple all come together around a post actually written by the customer. One of these posts even included the moment of proposal, surrounded by candlelight.

Silence, Brand

Normally, when I read branded material, I can take it apart and compartmentalize it as marketing. The emotions that are supposed to stir in me when I read about a company’s mission just don’t happen. When I read posts like the one written by Dalaki I immediately feel this give way. I feel a sense of trust for the company.

Seeing the customer holding the product isn’t enough. It’s the delivery. When a company produces something: it’s too perfect. All the fat is trimmed. It feels like an alien trying to convince you it's human. It's too filed down.

But UGC is the opposite. When a customer posts about what they received, it’s messy, it’s real. The lighting isn’t always right and the grammar isn’t polished. It’s that genuine humanity that lets the message slip past the your guard. When the brand steps aside, suddenly you start to listen.

[sir-mark-eting]

How A Self-Unaware Industry is Hurting Marketing

Tensions are high amongst marketers in the pandemic. During a crisis, marketing teams are among the first to be blamed and the first to be fired. Doubling down to deliver—more so to their bosses than to customers—many marketers have become disillusioned with the industry. The goal now isn’t to create meaningful content, but rather to just not get fired next. But this disillusionment has gone back quite some time before the pandemic, as you will see in this post.

In self-preservation, many marketers simply add to the clutter, rather than cutting through it. This is reflected in a statistic from a Bain & Company study on the “Delivery Gap”, where they found that 80% of companies believe that they are delivering “superior experiences" versus the mere 8% of customers who agree.

Social pollution has been the nature of the marketing business for years, but the pandemic has brought the economic implications of this to a head. Marketers find themselves squeezed between a brutal economy and their company’s demands.

A company that is disconnected from reality isn’t just affecting consumers by bloating online landscapes—it’s also affecting the marketers themselves. And very soon, their work will only become harder to do.

With the death of the third-party cookie in 2023, tracking on Google will become much harder. Similarly, Apple’s privacy changes have forced agencies to change their strategy for tracking in a world where most people opt out. As company's adapt, they find themselves starved of the data that helped their campaigns find their mark. Fortunately, it seems that this has brought marketers to move towards creating an open dialogue with customers. Now that opting out has become the new default, information must be derived from customers in open daylight. One can imagine how the slow results of this are only worsened by the pandemic economic slump.

A Lack of Self-Awareness

As companies press harder to get results amidst the pandemic, those who are only just now getting into the field are already becoming lost. Seeing the warnings of those who have come before them, they either rethink their career or double down. One fed-up agency strategist spoke about how much they loathe those who post about cliché faux-passion on LinkedIn. They especially railed against the industry's lack of self-awareness from both companies and employees:

“There are only so many brands worthy of advertising. It’s comical how much money pharma spends on advertising. They do so many workshops. You think anyone gives a fuck? They are buying their product because they have to. The best places to work are the realest places. I don’t trust anyone who posts any earnest shit on LinkedIn. Everyone is convincing themselves they love their jobs so they can get the next gig.”

Self-awareness is key when it comes to marketing. Businesses need to know when to speak now more than ever. With regularity, everyone feels the need to always be saying something—to always be front of mind. The right moment to speak isn’t apparent to those who are self-unaware. Those who are entering the field now seem to totally lack self-awareness. Another interview with an exhausted social media strategist took apart the startling divide between new marketers and old.

They cited that those who are taking new classes in social media marketing are too convinced that they understand the medium. The anonymous strategist said “I’m finding that there are so many students and entry-level grads that don’t know enough about business or marketing. Creating cool content does not mean we’re properly marketing.” They leave a clear warning to newcomers, saying that social media marketing is a dangerous bubble. They go on to say that “There’s a huge lack of strategy and insights. There’s a huge canyon between executives and entry-level. That’s why the bubble is going to pop.”

Creative Freedom?

Younger people in the business are struggling to create fulfilling, engaging content. Or rather, they struggle to keep their passion for it alive. I found a Reddit post on r/Advertising where people in the industry lamented the lack of creative freedom. It seems that those who come to the business with hopes of creative expression are struggling to stay passionate. The original poster was asking for people to share their thoughts on feeling lost in “adland.” A few comments really stick out:

"I'm 3 years in as a copywriter, and I've been in agencies known for "good" work/life balance and I still have reached this point of feeling entirely disillusioned." “tbh i think developing a disgust for this industry is the normal, healthy result of working in it for a few years. it's like a moral litmus test...” “Advertising is not a substitute for creativity, nor an outlet for artists. But it is a sort of halfway deal. You can “kind of” be creative and “kind of” express yourself while simultaneously making enough money to support a family.” “It seems a lot of people get into the industry because they are creative and want to express themselves artistically. But I think a lot of people eventually realize, through experience, that this isn't a place to do that. The purpose of creative people in the industry isn't to create things they love, it's to deliver against client requests and objectives. We're there to make money, not art, and I think the result of that is a huge amount of creative frustration.”

All of this could mean that big changes are coming to how companies create value for the customer and have a dialogue with them. It could mean that unhappy marketers still have time to change things and inject meaningful content through the clutter. But for now, it could mean that things will only continue to stagnate as companies follow old methods—fooled by their convincingly passionate marketers who have lost soul.

[sir-mark-eting]

How I Made my English Degree Useful

The biggest question on my mind when I was in my second year in college was “What am I going to do with my life?” I was facing the question that every English student struggled with when they first started secondary education. I knew that I was passionate about writing, but I had no idea how I was going to make it “useful” in the world of business. I wanted to know what direction I could take my writing expertise.

But now, three years later, I have a job as a copywriter at a local business. To all those who are struggling to find out what to do with their professional writing degrees, I have some good advice. Pursue marketing.

The marketing world needs good writers. If you can write engaging content, you are in high demand. Businesses that are trying to get noticed online need writers who can create eye-catching product descriptions, marketing material, and promotional emails.

The Tools of the Trade

There are a few technical skills that I suggest to those who want to mix writing with marketing. You need to familiarize yourself with the tools that your potential employers are using. Small businesses online are using platforms like Wordpress and Shopify. They’re low cost and ever-evolving platforms that online storefronts love. Knowing how to navigate the backend to a site that is running on Wordpress or Shopify will save these companies the time it would take to train you. By figuring out how to create responsive and clean posts on these sites, you can make yourself very desirable to these businesses.

If you’re looking to get hired as a copywriter, I suggest learning about what usually pairs itself with written copy: graphics. Whether your employer wants you to write a product description or an email about an upcoming sale, your text will live alongside some kind of graphic. Familiarize yourself with the tools that you might use to make these graphics! You demonstrate key marketing knowledge when you tell your employer that anything you write is just as important as the imagery that accompanies it. When I put my Photoshop and Illustrator on my resume, I knew that I had a real advantage over those who just knew how to write well.

The marketing world is starving for good writing right now. Some companies don’t even know how badly their site’s written copy needs a makeover. Take pride in your ability to write. When you put it on a resume alongside a marketing degree, you can set yourself apart from the crowd. Knowing the fundamentals of marketing is worthless if you don’t know how to create engaging, memorable content. I wouldn’t have the job that I do now if I didn’t find my passion in writing!

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How To Stop Burning Out While Working From Home

If you’re one of the lucky few who is still permitted to work from home, you might be very familiar with burnout. You’re thankful for getting to skip the commute, but your work life has become stagnant as you sit at home at the same desk that you try to relax at. As a copywriter, I’ve found that my writing has become less expressive and less persuasive. My written product descriptions seem more and more alike as my career starts to feel like something beyond burnout: smoldering remains.

The biggest issue was that my mind was starting to blend together work and home life into some inseparable thing. It wasn’t just dragging down my ability to work, but also my ability to enjoy myself after clocking out. I’ve started to look for ways to reclaim my home office lifestyle and reignite my passion for writing.

Separating Work from Home

If you’re feeling burnt out working from home, maybe you can follow what I’ve done to make it feel a bit less like living in a box. The first thing that I suggest might be obvious, but you should try to go on walks during your breaks. Leaving your house might not be as necessary as it was before, but you should still get fresh air to keep your creativity flowing. You should also try to bring some of the outdoors to you by working next to a window. Natural light can go a long way to improve your mood.

Something less obvious about your workspace is that it might be time to change where you’re sitting for most of the day. If you relax at a desk in your room, try working on a laptop in another room, or out at a coffee shop nearby. Physically separating the space in which you work is a great way to separate work and relaxation in your mind.

This separation is key to reclaiming your home life while still enjoying the perks of working from home. Before, your commute proved to your brain that it was time to work. Then, the drive home helped signal to you that it was time to wind down. If you have a limited space to work with at home, or if you don’t own a laptop, there is another way to get your work life out of your home life.

Dress to Go Nowhere

While working from home you might be sitting in your pajamas. After all, why get dressed if you aren’t going anywhere? But it turns out that this is yet another key signal to your brain. Getting dressed to go to work is something you might have forgotten, but as you sit at your keyboard in your pajamas, your brain is still in home-mode. Likewise, once you finish work, your brain has no idea when it’s time to switch off. Getting dressed, even if you aren’t going anywhere, is proven to be a way to improve your emotional and mental health.

If you’re still working from home, try to split the work from home. Now, I’m motivating myself to enjoy writing for both my company and myself as a hobby. And I’m doing it in two separate rooms. My new commute might not be going anywhere, but it feels like an important morning ritual. Slowly, I feel like my house is mine again.

[sir-mark-eting]

How to Beat Your Imposter Syndrome

What is the Imposter Syndrome?

Ever feel like you don’t deserve what you’ve got? Like your career is built on a foundation that’s bound to crumble, and that nobody around you seems to notice? If you feel like you’re some kind of fraud and that you’ve merely tricked people into thinking that you’re successful.

Congratulations… you hold yourself to a higher standard!

But that unrealistic high standard could affect how you lead, and how willing you are to take risks. It can feel like you’re trying to live up to some kind of impossible false image when you might just attribute your success to sheer luck.

This is called the imposter syndrome. It’s when you turn around, look back at what you’ve accomplished and ask “Was that really me?”

Research links imposter syndrome to issues like depression, generalized anxiety, and low self-confidence — and it’s easy to see how! Your self-doubt makes you feel undeserving of what you’ve earned, and constantly afraid that it’ll disappear any moment.

You owe it to yourself to understand why you've made it this far.

This issue is common in many fields. Whether you’re starting your entrepreneurial career, or if you’re just trying to get by in school, this way of thinking can be detrimental. Just like how you learn from your mistakes, it’s important to learn from your successes. You owe it to your future self to see what you got right.

Understanding your imposter syndrome is key to managing it. First of all, you're not alone. This feeling affects people at any level of their career, no matter their success.

We're All Imposters

It's a more common way of thinking than you might know. How many people think their an imposter?

Albert Einstein, Michelle Obama, Tom Hanks, and Emma Watson, all suffered/are suffering from imposter syndrome. Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO, talked about his imposter syndrome:

“Very few people, whether you’ve been in that job before or not, get into the seat and believe today that they are now qualified to be the CEO. They’re not going to tell you that, but it’s true.”

But how does this help you? You might be so convinced of your supposedly undeserved career that you don’t care what celebrities suffer from this too. But it can help to first realize just how prevalent this issue is. After all, the first step of dealing with imposter syndrome is to see that you have it.

It might even be small, but it can lead to you selling yourself short during your career — namely during job interviews. Taking apart the issue now can help you better evaluate what should come next in your career.

How to Manage Imposter Syndrome

It can be easy to get into a self-fulfilling cycle of self-doubt. When you’re deep in that self-doubt, you can forget just how much you’ve done. It starts to put a warped lens over your past. One that can easily change how you approach risks.

Taking a risk is doubtless why you've gotten this far. Doubting yourself could stop you from taking a similar risk in the future!

One way that I try to manage my Imposter Syndrome is by keeping mementos of what I’ve accomplished. Congratulatory emails are an easy thing to keep at the top of your inbox. They’re a small trophy that you could easily pin in your inbox so that you see them every day.

If you’ve ever written a paper or turned in a project that got good comments from your professor, keep those with you. Keeping meaningful mini-trophies like these can help establish your sense of worth in reality.

Another thing to do is notice when you’re dismissing your success. Whenever you do something well, don’t forget what you did to accomplish it. Similarly, when things don’t work out, try to take a fair evaluation of why something happened.

It can be extremely convincing to your imposter syndrome when you fail and tell yourself that this is the day your fraudulent foundation crumbles. Take a step back and try to see what really happened. The justification should go beyond what you think you deserve.

When dealing with imposter syndrome, it’s important to treasure and understand every success — while also not allowing any mistake to unravel into self-doubt.

Lastly, try to talk to others about it. Ask someone you know if they ever feel like they don’t deserve their success. You might be surprised to know that someone successful in your life feels the same way that you do. It’ll help you see just how blind this way of thinking can make you.

How Do Entrepreneurs Deal with Imposter Syndrome?

Since this issue is so common among those who are trying to launch or maintain an entrepreneurial career, some business experts are trying to face the issue head on.

Marketing expert Phillip Stutts met with mindset and behavior analyst John Assaraf to discuss the imposter syndrome in the latest episode of The Undefeated Marketing Podcast. They talked about how the it affects leadership skills and what you can do to manage it. It's only an hour long, and you can listen to it while you work!

Overcoming your imposter syndrome isn’t easy, but it’ll help you feel comfortable taking risks if you understand how much you’ve accomplished to get where you are today.

[sir-mark-eting]

Google’s New Manifest

2022 could be the last year that your ad blocker works. In January 2023, Google will require all Chrome extensions to follow Manifest V3. This is a new set of rules that change what extensions can do. It mainly addresses how extensions can request and change data on a webpage. Many are worried that it could adversely affect ad blockers.

Manifest V3 could make it easier for marketers to get ahead in the ads vs ad blockers arms race. Raymond Hill, the developer of one of the most popular ad blockers, uBlock Origin, explained his concerns in July of this year. On a GitHub Issues post for uBlock Origin, he explained that Manifest V3 would prevent users from modifying their own filter lists. Instead, they would need to use what the extension has written. This means that if a marketer found a way around the current filter list, the entire extension would need to be republished in order to block the ad again. This significantly slows the response time that ad blockers have in their digital arms race.

Today, users can create their own filter lists and tailor their online experience. If Manifest V3 is applied how it is currently written, it would take this control away from the user. This concerns those who have lived by ad blockers like uBlock Origin and AdBlock. To them, Manifest V3 seems outright anti-consumer.

For Our Own Good?

Google isn’t unaware of this reception. In a Chromium blog post, they claim that the weakening of ad blockers “is absolutely not the goal. In fact, this change is meant to give developers a way to create safer and more performant ad blockers.” In that same post, they argued that Manifest V3 would protect users from extensions that harvest data.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation fought back against the claim that Manifest V3 is to protect user data.

“As both security experts and the developers of extensions that will be greatly harmed by Manifest V3, we’re here to tell you: Google’s statement just isn’t true. Manifest V3 is a blunt instrument that will do little to improve security while severely limiting future innovation.”

The EFF further stated that “extensions that are designed to run on every website will still be able to access and leak data.” Their concern is that control will be taken away from the user and extension developers, while also doing nothing to combat data harvesting applications. Going further, they demand that Google enforces the existing policies for Chrome extensions instead of trying to change how things work.

The End of an Era?

Manifest V3 is approaching fast. And many users might be caught off guard if their extensions stop working. To some, an internet without ads always seemed too good to be true. Pages load faster, data is protected, and content isn’t hidden in a sea of clutter. However, it comes at the cost of marketers and the sites they display on.

For instance, ad blockers can skew the numbers on a company's SEO (Search Engine Optimization) campaign. When an ad blocker user blocks Google Analytics, they obscure the information that web marketers depend on. Information like how a user found the website, how long they spent on a particular page, what links are they clicking on -- all of it can be blocked.

Another, more immediate issue, is that some sites and content creators depend on ad revenue. By blocking ads, users might be inadvertently harming the sites they love and the content creators they want to support.

According to Hootsuite’s “The Global State of Digital 2021” report, 42.7% of internet users worldwide are using ad blockers. And it’s expected to continue growing. If marketers and websites depend on ad revenue, they will surely continue trying to find a way around ad blockers. As more users continue to block ads, the digital marketing landscape demands change.

Will they find that change in Manifest V3? It could be the beginning of the end for the uncluttered, ad-free online life. 2023 could either be the year that people find another way around ads on Chrome, or it could be the year that many finally decide to switch to another browser entirely.

[sir-mark-eting]

“Just Write Better” is Really Just that Easy

Okay, just writing better is easier said than done, but it all starts at just writing. To write better, you need to get comfortable writing to begin with. And that comes from practice of course, but when I say this people usually imagine the impossible task of writing a good final draft. As someone who is studying professional writing and marketing communications, I’ve learned the career-crossing value in a polished final draft. However, the obsession with a good final draft is where the problem lies.

The final draft is what the audience reads, and in our formative years it is what gets graded. In the fledgling writer's mind, this creates an obsession with that final draft. To those who think their career has nothing to do with writing, the final draft is all that exists. There is no process, no method, there is only a final draft born from some last minute miracle. Miraculous conception.

Whenever I give advice to people who are learning how to write, I ask them what their writing process is. Even in a writing workshop for a 400 level course, I find writers who “get by” with having a final draft be identical to a first draft. Insanity. Even with classes requiring that a first draft be submitted and edited, a significant number of the writers I’ve spoken to disregard that first draft.

Write Poorly First. Every time.

Thinking of how my writing projects usually start, the reason for the first draft’s abandonment becomes clear. People are writing their final draft first because they are afraid of the lost mess that is a first draft. When writing a messy first draft, one cannot help but think that they must look insane. But a good first draft should be terrible. Nobody has said this better than Anne Lamott.

In novelist Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, she spoke about how a “Shitty first draft” is the foundation of a good second or third draft:

“...the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts. The whole thing would be so long and incoherent and hideous that for the rest of the day I'd obsess about getting creamed by a car before I could write a decent second draft. I'd worry that people would read what I'd written and believe that the accident had really been a suicide, that I had panicked because my talent was waning and my mind was shot.”

Lamott speaks at length about how dreadful that first draft can be, and how that’s okay. Stop worrying about how the next draft is going to sound when you aren’t comfortable writing an incomplete mess to begin with. No matter what the writing is for, this is true. Whether it’s for an English class or a marketing proposal, this is true. In Lamott’s words:

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.”

To write better, you need to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Write a first draft, know that nobody but you will see it, and keep going. Stop obsessing over the final draft’s miraculous conception.

[sir-mark-eting]

How Burgers and Beauty Have Nothing to Hide

This week, two big brands have decided to take marketing risks and go against the conventions set by the industry. While they are each very different products, both Burger King and Olay have chosen healthy public reception over perfect images on billboards. Each company has realized that today, every product is shown in perfect, almost plastic-like perfection. Burger King, in response to calls for the removal of artificial preservatives, has begun posting videos and images of a moldy Whopper, trying to say that the natural product is the best even if it has flaws.

The tagline “The Beauty of Artificial Preservatives” appears beside a Whopper that has been sitting for over 30 days, white fluff sprouting from the meat. The image is shocking, and stands out from the long standing rule of making the product look fresh off of the grill. This move coincides with Burger King removing artificial preservatives and colors from their products. This choice demonstrates a healthier and more honest approach to marketing and product design, as opposed to the one that their larger competitors are following.

In a world where Burger King loses to McDonalds in a typical PR battle, Burger King has chosen a more ethics-focused approach. Fernando Machado, Burger King’s global CMO, announced that in preliminary readings, 95% of people on social media have reacted either positive or neutral to the campaign. So far this unprecedented risk of embracing imperfection has been welcomed by an understanding public.

But can the same approach work for a person? Olay has vowed to stop re-touching their photos in all media by the end of the year. While a burger is far removed from a living breathing human, the conventional rules of marketing have always held true to showing the best possible image to the customer. While for the food industry, the product must be dressed to unattainable and artificial perfection, the beauty industry has shown the people who use their products as unattainably flawless people. 

How can a consumer trust a beauty product if videos and billboards all show edited beauty? Two days ago, images of talk show host Busy Phillips were across Time Square in unedited ads for Olay. As stated by Phillips, her contract with Olay says that she cannot use Botox or fillers. For the “My Olay” campaign, natural beauty is championed in the face of an industry that has historically obscured and denied what a person really looks like, to the detriment of women worldwide.

An image of a person wearing beauty products is worlds removed from a picture of fast food, but the strategy for marketing each has remained the same for ages. Spores sprouting from a bun are not to be compared to the wrinkles on someone’s smile, but today’s media has treated them with the same disdain in avoiding them. Burger King’s campaign shows mold as a symbol for a cleaner product in its intended form. Meanwhile, Olay shows models wearing their product with each wrinkle untouched, praising beauty without Photoshop. 

In each of these campaigns, different as they may be, they embrace a core value: honesty. Consumers today are smart and they know that when they look at a product, or a picture of a product being used, it is hidden beneath layers of lies. These lies are all in the interest of showing perfection -- computer generated perfection. But what use are these lies any more if the consumer knows now? These new campaigns could be the beginning of dispelling that unreal perfection, and it could be one that wins back the respect of consumers. In the near future we could see a wave of companies running healthier and more honest marketing campaigns over the tried and true ones that have earned the distrust of the consumer. An age of coming clean could begin with burgers and beauty products.

[sir-mark-eting]

Get Out of My Face

Yesterday I looked over my friend’s shoulder as he showed me a youtube video about a guy cooking lasagna. Before the video began there was a pre-roll ad for Wendy’s. Beside the video player was a matching Wendy’s ad. As the video played there was yet another ad across the bottom for a local business. After I pointed this out, they told me how annoying it was to have the page so cluttered. They said that they just learned to live with it. I told them to pause the video so that I could help them install an ad blocker. Since then, their pages loaded faster and they could watch videos in peace.

The situation reminded me about how this is what the general public has to live with. Articles besieged by poorly optimized banners. Loud videos playing in the corners of webpages, sliding as the page is scrolled - demanding to be the center of attention. Images trying not so subtly to beg the user to get whatever thing it is that they don’t want or need. 

Having ad blockers on my own browsers, I lived in a world where I only saw what I wanted to see. Unsurprisingly, some companies try to stop users such as me from browsing in peace. Pages might suddenly fade out and a desperate plea to turn off the blocker will appear. When this happens, is my first response to do as they say? No, most of the time I can find another page with what I need and leave. If the content is held hostage from me I don’t feel respected anymore, so I leave. It is not hard to get around these blocks either, since most blockers have user-friendly systems that allow you to remove individual elements of the page, the desperate pleas included.

The side bar might remind me that the ads pay for the page, and ask that I turn off the blocker. This is a much more respectable approach, since it allows me to continue scrolling without the page being obscured. Often times in these cases I will even unblock a page, especially if I like the content being shown to me and want the site’s owner to be paid for my visit.

Ads before a video, on the sides of the screen, and in my face don’t make me buy things, as far as I’m aware. Most of the time they only increase load times, clutter the page, and make sites look cheap. When I block an ad, the only thing lost is the valuable impression that is logged by the provider. I don’t buy things from these ads, so blocking them is only a form of honesty. I wasn’t going to buy whatever it was selling anyways, so why what is truly lost when I block it?

Some companies don’t seem to understand this relationship with the customer. They find ways around the blocker, thinking that an ad-blocking user would want to buy something if they see an unblocked ad. If I saw an unblocked ad that I didn’t consent to appearing on the page, I either ignore it or block it. I certainly don’t click on it or consider the ad to have had a valuable impression upon me.

As more people install ad blockers, companies are growing desperate to be paid for unwanted impressions. According to the GlobalWebIndex, 47% of all people on the internet use an ad blocker. 

Axel Springer, a digital publishing company in Germany tried to sue the people behind AdBlock Plus, saying that the ability for companies to pay to be on an “Acceptable Ad” whitelist was “anti-competitive behavior.” This lawsuit was dismissed in 2018 by Germany’s Supreme Court. Now companies are trying to say that ad-blocking to manipulating the intended product, and by extension is “alteration of copyrighted content.”

Who argues that an ad-blocked page is “pirated” content? Or better yet, that a victory would be worth it? If companies somehow get rid of ad-blocking, which I doubt will happen, will people’s attitudes about ads suddenly change? Will they suddenly be okay with seeing the ads that they consciously chose to block?

Who looks at the infographic from GlobalWebIndex and says that the heart of the issue is the ad-blocker? When I look at that information, it is clear to me that the issue is that people don’t want to see the ads in the first place.

[sir-mark-eting]

Is Evolution Worth it?

In December of 2018, Thomas Reardon, the CEO of CTRL-labs, showed himself typing without a keyboard and manipulating virtual blocks with his thoughts in front of an awe-struck crowd. He demonstrated CTRL-kit, a wristband that could turn neural signals into controls. He compared the kit to having a “sixth finger” or “eight arms” while claiming that current technology has caused the human race to “regress as a species.” 

He showed that the wristband could detect what the user intends to do, such as pressing the spacebar, and it could complete that action without the user needing to touch the keyboard. At Slush 2018, one of the largest tech expos in the world, Reardon called the device empowering.

However, in September 2019 the tone of the message changed when CTRL-labs was bought by Facebook for over $500 million. After Facebook’s scandals involving private user data, it’s difficult for the public to take the company’s acquisition of the CTRL-kit lightly. “Intention capture” quickly becomes “mind reading” to the general public. When the news of the acquisition broke, social media stood in horror of a future where Facebook could receive information straight from a user’s mind.

Many people think of Facebook as a creepy, untrustable data-harvester. How could the company reposition itself in the mind of the user? When the CTRL-kit was first unveiled, Reardon said that it could empower us as a species. When the company was bought, Andrew Bosworth, the head of AR and VR at Facebook, celebrated the concept as a way to “change the way we connect.” These grand ideas sound more like the words of a 19th century sci-fi villain when put into the context of Facebook as a data-harvesting company.

How will the message be shown to the public in 2020? How many people will try out neural-interfacing technology if it’s attached to Facebook’s name? Even if the product is “non-invasive” and only looks at how one intends to move their fingers, the message will be dirtied by Facebook’s previous data blunders. The simple suggestion that Facebook is seeing your thoughts is enough to turn people away from neural-interfacing. This acquisition could potentially set back neural-interfacing several years if the public chooses not to let Facebook see their brainwaves. Real or imagined, the threat of Facebook reading minds could keep us from turning science fiction into science fact.

If such technology is the next step in our evolution, then what will happen if it is led by a morally muddy company like Facebook? Significant brand repositioning will have to occur beyond the “we’ve updated our privacy policy” attempt before the public accepts sci-fi from Facebook. Are we to gamble our evolution on a company that couldn’t even keep our email passwords safe?

[sir-mark-eting]

Reducing the Night Sky to a Billboard

How far away are we from a true dystopian future? One where the average person is bombarded by advertisements? In April of 2019, PepsiCo considered launching an advertisement into space with the help of the Russian start-up StarRocket. The sign was meant to be visible from earth, like an artificial constellation. The backlash was so severe that the plans were quickly canceled. However, the mere consideration of defiling the night sky is enough to demonstrate to consumers just how careless a powerful company can be.

Imagine for a moment what would have happened if consumers had not rallied against the idea of spitting on the night? Would we see the beginning of a future like in Bladerunner, where loud flashing signs dominate the cluttered horizon? The mere idea of a constellation billboard seems like satire for a bleak capitalist future. The average person would not look up, see the glowing smear upon the night sky, and think “I want a Pepsi!”

No, they would immediately know that something has gone horribly wrong for such vandalism to exist. An ever-present advertisement is a sign of a lack of consideration for the customer’s privacy. As more people try to escape advertising with Ad blockers on PC and DVR on TV, what is the reasonable response? Surely it is not to turn nature into glorified McDonald’s arches. For PepsiCo to encroach on the night sky is to say that nothing is beneath their influence and that nothing is sacred to them. The universe is to be their billboard, and we are to be their empty-headed lackeys.

The average person must keep fighting these absurd ideas, and keep laughing at companies who attempt to overstep their boundaries. While a large company like Pepsi could consider such bad publicity as a net positive to the bottom line, it is still within the duty of the consumer to hold companies responsible for their practices. Whether it is by inflammatory articles or memes, the buyer must prevent anything like the StarRocket sign from being attempted again. If not for the sake of atmospheric pollution, then let it be to keep companies from lodging themselves any deeper into our personal lives.

It is also within the consumer's power to hold onto these grudges. We cannot let a company get away with trying to overstep their boundaries. To stop a corrupt idea is not enough. In time, the fact that PepsiCo tried to make the night sky theirs will be forgotten. People will forget about how Pepsi nearly ignored the fact that a big glowing sign would get in the way of telescopes and camping trips. This blemish on Pepsi’s record will slink into history and we will continue to buy their drinks as if nothing happened. To those who might say that ultimately nothing did happen, and that there was no sign launched, I say that it should never have been a possibility. A company that assures media outlets that such a sign is a good idea should be ridiculed beyond the day that such a product is cancelled - or else all parties are at risk of forgetting.