Now, what in the world do targeting and food labels have in common?

They both lie.

Have you ever met someone who managed to get healthy thanks to food labels?

The kind of people who count their calories and take notes about what they eat.

Often the same people who eat fatless cheese and drink diet soda.

Neither have I.

Somehow, it doesn’t work for them. It doesn’t work for anybody.

Because, very simply, that’s not the way it works.

It’s either simpler than that, or a lot more complicated.

So complicated, in fact, that the only way to crack it is to keep it simple.

Instead of counting calories, just stop eating fried, salty or sugary processed shit.

And drink nothing but water.

Then it’s likely that not getting some exercise will feel worse than working out.

Not the other way around.

No matter what Michelle Obama or the Coca-Cola Company tell you, if you eat — and drink — garbage food, there’s simply no way you can burn off all that shit by working out.

You’re welcome.

A cover-up

The labels are merely a cover-up.

You know what you’re eating, so if you over eat, it’s your fault.

No, it’s not.

The labels give you information, but not the information that matters.

Why should an average Joe be able to read them and make a sound choice?

Those who are to blame are those who produce, market and push garbage food.

And those in government who allow this scam to go on.

Say, have you ever seen a food label on an apple?

Have you ever met someone who got obese by over-eating salad?

Fine, Doctor

Fine, Doctor, but what the hell does this have to do with advertising?

Say you need to sell the worst advertising format ever, the banner ad.

And people in charge of buying this shit don’t have a fucking clue.

It’s a marriage made in heaven, isn’t it?

You misdirect their attention towards what doesn’t matter and you win.

Hey, look at the food label!

No fat in there.

What could go wrong if I ate a whole bag of cookies?

The more ignorant or desperate people are, the easier it is to screw them.

And few people in the world are as clueless as the average marketing manager.

The format sucks? Nobody ever pays any attention?

One person in five is trying to block these ads altogether?

There’s not one single banner ad that was a smash in 25 years?

Worry not.

Look at the food label.

I mean, at how precisely (or not) we can target consumers for you.

And you’re fucked.

As said, The Internet Is For Porn and Direct Marketing.

And for upstarts.

Internet advertising has been around for a quarter of a century and it has created no discernible brands in any category, as Bob Hoffman rightly pointed out.

That’s hardly surprising. The banner ad is the worst advertising format ever.

Those who like to blame Ad Tech for everything say that, if only banner ads were not targeted, they would carry a signal, and could contribute to the emergence of brands.

Not so.

The format sucks. You can’t tell a story. It’s the same format on The New York Times and on your cousin’s website. Internet users are flooded with way too many banner ads.

There are more problems that need to be solved than some would like to think.

Away

On the other hand, to say that the Internet has created no brands is not true.

Away, Glossier and Warby Parker are huge hits.

I’m sure there a quite a few more mid-level brands that made it.

This is what the Internet is for, apart from porn and direct marketing.

It’s a shitty, distributed, low-cost Kickstarter to help small companies emerge.

Then, if they ever make it, they will start doing real advertising.

Offline

Real advertising means offline.

Like the Big FANG. Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google.

Do the big brand you work for a favour: act like a grown-up.

Like the Big FANG, not like some small company operating in a basement.

Do real advertising, not the tricks the small guys do to get noticed.

Don’t make your brand look dumb just because you want to look cool.

I know, I know…

I know, we were all hoping for better things for this child of ours, the Internet.

Some hoped it would spread knowledge. Not fake news.

Somebody else said it was “unconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for service… to be drowned in advertising chatter”. No, that was not Tim Berners-Lee.*

But porn, direct marketing and helping upstarts get a breakthrough is not too bad.

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* It was Herbert Hoover, then US Secretary of Commerce, speaking about radio, in 1922.