Shenanigans Round Up

Bullshit on the Beach: Cannes 2013

Thankfully Cannes is over.  I had to block Ogily's twitter feed because it was overloaded with self-congratulatory and delusional drivel—David Ogilvy would have BBQed their still-attached testicles over an open fire in the lobby if he were in charge.  Of note throughout that thing was when George Lois and Lee Clow showed up.  They didn't rave about the freak show, they didn't praise the accomplishments of today's ad men.  Nope.  Here's just one of the things Lois said:

"The name of the game isn't technology. The name of the game is creativity," he said. "Guys come to me and say, 'It must have been great back then, when clients would accept good work.' And I say, 'What the fuck are you talking about?' Do great work, and have the courage to sell it. Force it to be sold."

What could go wrong?

Facebook reveals that a programming bug accidentally exposed private information of 6 million+ Facebookers.  The information, email addresses and telephone numbers, was never given to Facebook but was captured secretly and without users' consent, to create "Shadow Profiles."  The full story is here

In lesser news, Facebook's chief security officer, the guy who was responsible for protecting privacy for Facebookers joined the NSA in 2010.  There, don't you feel better now?  

Double, double, toil and trouble

Seems that some advertisers want their online ads to actually be seen.  With the news that over 50% are not seen—because they don't even show up—they want online publishers to guarantee visibility. But the guys who are supposed to be the experts in getting ads online say they can't and won't guarantee that.  And one of the big players expressed shock when they started losing business because of it. One can only hope the crooks behind this bullshit share a cell with Mr. Tossed Salad man.

BREAKING NEWS!

According to adweek, Unilever's mobile display ads for its Wish-Bone Italian salad dressing drew an 87 percent purchase intent lift for a spring campaign that recently wrapped, according to the company, which cited a total of 757 consumers surveyed by comScore.  Wow, so let me get this straight.  Of 757 people, 87% said they might buy it?  Regardless of how many tens of millions of bottles of the stuff they have to sell just to break even, how many of us said little white lies at those critical times to get what we wanted?