> Finally, on the dark arts of advertising, moving from the 'gut' to being data driven - sadly I'd say that's what has made it more effective as a tool.
Part of the reason metrics work so well in marketing is because a lot of accepted industry practices are inherently malicious acts towards other human beings. So unlike other optimization processes, you don't care all that much about side effects of optimizing to metrics. For instance - do customers hate your guts for your advertising spam? Doesn't matter - the product becomes associated with a strong emotion, making it more likely some of them will buy it few months from now. Mission accomplished.
> do customers hate your guts for your advertising spam?
> Doesn't matter - the product becomes associated with a strong emotion, making it more likely some of them will buy it few months from now.
Interesting, does that really work? Got data you can point to, to back that one up?
I take your broader point of them not really caring - we are seeing that in data driven politics in the UK right now.
Obviously this host/parasite interaction will evolve - but at the moment it seems the population doesn't have many effective defenses. It's a bit like the opioid epidemic or obesity epidemic - currently people are being given the politics they apparently want.
It's the basis of the concept of "brand awareness", on which many billions of dollars are spent every year.
I'll give you a single data point as an example, and I'm sure you'll be able to relate. There's a certain on-line currency exchange operating in Poland that has a tendency to run really cringy, annoying ads in cinemas, and those ads somehow get played 3 or 4 times in a row in the span of 5 minutes. After sitting through them a couple times I got really, really sick of them, and had pretty negative feelings associated with the brand. Fast-forward three years, I have my own business now and foreign customers, so I find myself needing an on-line currency exchange. Guess which service I checked out first?
I understand brand awareness - just was skeptical that companies went out and out to be annoying to stick in the memory - but I think you are right some do.
Part of the reason metrics work so well in marketing is because a lot of accepted industry practices are inherently malicious acts towards other human beings. So unlike other optimization processes, you don't care all that much about side effects of optimizing to metrics. For instance - do customers hate your guts for your advertising spam? Doesn't matter - the product becomes associated with a strong emotion, making it more likely some of them will buy it few months from now. Mission accomplished.