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My Anguish at the State of Advertising

I stand somewhat disappointed after working in Internet Advertising for 16 years. Today, I needed a service, say, X. Instead of searching for X on Google or Bing or Yelp, I subconsciously decided to reach out to my friends for their recommendations. My reason: I did not want to be chased by advertisers and lead generators across the Internet (and on every other communication platform) for everything related to X. I had not thought of the above reason a priori. That I was afraid to use search engines became apparent only after calling my friends. Fear works in the subconscious mind!

About a decade ago, marketers destroyed e-mail as a valuable consumer product. Marketers and advertisers are now demolishing the Internet as an information publishing medium. My decision not to use Google or any other search engine to find the product that I needed demonstrates it. The irony is that Google, Bing, Yelp, and phone/media companies are willing participants in a game that has gone out of control. Or, they are themselves victims of that game.

My first foray into Internet advertising was motivated by the noble goal of delivering the maximum amount of marketing Information to the users while causing them minimum disturbance. In today’s setup, that appears to be a worthless goal: the user -each of us- is the chosen target for exploitation; our time is of limited value, and our sensibilities are worthy of hurt. This story should not end here. Bringing elegance to advertising is necessary so people can consume media as effectively today as they used it three or four decades earlier.