Searching for the soul of media

Media went programmatic and, in doing so, it lost its soul. It sacrificed quality for quantity, experience for scale, creativity for reach, meaning for volume. Brands have been encouraged by content aggregators, from walled-garden behemoths to open web SSPs, to skim the surface of content, bouncing off a layer of user data direct to users’ eyeballs. This…

Adblocking is driving a wedge between Advertising and Marketing

A cold freeze is settling in. Not just around my toes on the platform in the morning but between the advertising industry and the digital community. The US Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) has given the cold-shoulder to Adblock Plus, an app that allows users to block ads on their mobile phones, which has been uninvited…

Six of the best from 2015

2015 has been a busy year for me as the worlds of MadTech and FinTech have exploded almost at the same rate. I have tried to keep in touch with both while attempting to diversify to some degree and below are my stand-out articles of 2015 collated for posterity and your reading pleasure. I should…

Book Review – Who Owns The Future? by Jaron Lanier

This book is a sobering account of the systematic destruction of value caused by the networked economy under whose spell we have fallen so deeply. It is a powerfully argued, complex and, at times, over-elaborate description of how we first invented and then released a genie that is disrupting its way through the fabric of…

6 of the best from 2013

Here, for you to enjoy with a cup of tea in the afternoon of the first Friday of 2014, is a compilation of excerpts from and links to the best blog posts I came across last year. Among a wealth of other nuggets I sifted through, these are the ones I found most thought-provoking and…

Nothing beats good customer service

As memories of a carefree summer fade and the coming winter revs up its engines, so the storms of complaints about businesses seem to have become deafening. From bitter disputes on trains about autumnal service glitches and painful season ticket price rises, to the furore over 10% fuel bill hikes, it seems that everyone has something to moan…

The New Boy

It has been 7 years since I started a new job and 3 months since I last worked full-time so I guess it was no surprise that finally starting in my new role at Havas Media on Monday was slightly disorientating. The countdown had begun weeks before with the desperate attempt to keep ‘up to…