THE AMAZING SHRINKING TV AD:  If you’re a broadcast old timer like me you might remember back to 2004 when ClearChannel (now iHeart) launched something called Less Is More, which promoted the purchase of :30s over :60s on radio stations.  The rationale was to sell :30s for about 60% of the cost of :60s – so they could get more ads in and revenue out of the same length stopsets.  Now TV appears to be getting into the shorter-length game.  According to Axios in the attached link, and in the graphic below, Network and Cable TV ad lengths are steadily shifting from :30s to :15s.  The decreasing length is probably a result of shortening attention spans of viewers who are responding just as well (if not better) to :15s – so why buy the whole :30, right?  You’re even starting to see :06 micro units created for OLV being repurposed on TV.  If this trend keeps up could you imagine a day when :06 is the new :60?!?

HOW “SITE SPOOFING” IS TAINTING PROGRAMMATIC:  Just as surely as the sun will rise, there’s yet another way to scam programmatic buyers of digital inventory from ad networks.  Today’s example of fraud is something called Site Spoofing.  The attached AdExchanger link meticulously describes a real-life example which was uncovered by Business Insider.  Here’s how it works . . . a bad actor buyer prepurchases a small amount of inventory from a legitimate site like Business Insider.  Then they set up a faux network of their own and sell their BI inventory to a well-intentioned buyer.  But then they package a ton of less valuable crap inventory into their network bundle.  So a buyer who thinks they’re getting pure BI inventory only ends up with 1-2% of their impressions running on BI (just enough to prove performance on the premium site), with the rest of the impressions running on junk sights.  And the nefarious arbitrager pockets the CPM difference between the list price they sold the BI impressions for and what they paid for the junk impressions.  In this example everyone ends up losing except for the Site Spoofer who carried out the scam.  Pretty slimy stuff, to be sure.

THE IRONY OF “FEARLESS GIRL”:  By now you’ve seen or at least heard of the Fearless Girl statue in the picture below.  While it depicts a young girl standing up to a charging bull, it’s real symbolism is of a woman challenging the male-dominated world of business.  But in a very ironic life-not-imitating-art situation the investment firm State Street Corporation, the parent company of Universal Worldgroup  (which is the agency that created the Fearless Girl campaign), announced last week that it had reached a $5M settlement with 300 women and 15 minorities in an equal pay lawsuit.  The problem with this situation is the principles of what Fearless Girl supposedly represent isn’t even being lived up to by its creators.  It’s the ultimate example of marketing being about the “theater of the mind”, since in this case the talk isn’t being backed up by the walk.  In a weird way this situation could be a wake up call for Madison Avenue to start paying real attention to equality in the workplace.  Hopefully that happens because something needs to change here.

Have a great Monday guys!