See And Ignore

It’s not that you can’t reach us, it’s that we don’t CARE!

Even worse, if you overload us, we go on backlash.

Kinda like Mac DeMarco… I knew the name, but there was an exquisite article on him in yesterday’s “Times,” saying how he gave out his address so his fans could stop by, and it made me wonder, who was his publicity agent? Getting into the “Times” is so hard.

It’s Jessica Linker at Pitch Perfect PR. But if you use her beware. Now I HATE MAC DEMARCO!

How did this happen? How did he go from hero to zero so fast in my book?

It was the plethora of stories based around his new release that I immediately saw as I started to Google.

That’s right, marketing is still old school in a new school environment. No one is as bad a spammer as a marketer. Who believes if they keep telling us again and again we’ll care. Or if they try to be hip we’ll embrace them, like Pepsi. Or that they are our friend and will give us money to keep us in business

I recommend the story #VANLIFE in the April 24th edition of the “New Yorker.” You’ve read about this couple, these wankers traveling around in their VW getting rich posting to Instagram.

Only it’s not true. In 2016 they made $18,000, which won’t even pay for a semester at school, and they’re beholden to these sponsors who want it a certain way when they want it.

But it even gets worse…

The audience is only interested in sex.

The more they say it’s different, the more it stays the same.

If they post a pic of Emily half-naked, they get a lot of likes. A sunset? That’s a stiff and the sponsors are pissed.

But you keep reading in today’s world you can go your own way, use the new tools to sustain your dream. Yeah, that’s right, if your dream is driving all night for bupkes on Uber.

But there was an interesting tidbit in that VANLIFE story. Micro-influencers tend to have higher engagement rates, their followers are more active, therefore sponsors who want to sell something very specific to those people are interested. In other words, mass can work against you.

But we keep hearing of the mass with the Kardashians and PewDiePie but this is less about the distraction of an ignorant audience, which believes it too can get rich in our pyramid scheme world, than an indictment of the purveyors, the marketers, who just can’t fathom that the world has changed, never mind adjust to it.

Google wins because it’s all pull. You Google what you want and you find it there and the advertiser pays for that view/real estate.

Then there’s the canard that we must all turn off our ad-blockers so we can be followed around the web by companies we checked out once, as if being reminded over and over again will soften us up. Never worked for me, I just hate these companies, feel proud I use an ad-blocker. Because it’s a scam wherein those with space sell it to those with dollars under the illusion it works. But it doesn’t. So many of the dollars spent on Facebook and YouTube are a complete waste.

So we need a new way.

Then again, if we had that new way we all wouldn’t have spam in our inbox, never mind our mobile phones. But if you follow the spam, you find out an infinitesimal number of people have to respond for the hackers to get rich. And you hate the detritus.

But that’s what’s going on in the aboveboard world too. You’re telling me again and again and again and I’m just not interested. And now, with so many more places to tell me, I’m hearing it to the point of extreme frustration.

How many people read more than the local newspaper in the pre-internet era?

Very few. But now we all see multiple stories online. And they’re all the same. Revealing that most are not news at all, but publicity, and that it’s all about selling, selling, selling.

It just doesn’t work. Marketers have to come up with new techniques to sell their wares. Tech firms must lead the way. Then again, these tech firms, led by lauded Zuck and Sheryl, are lying, cheating, scumbags too. They’re busted every few months for heinous activities. As for Sheryl Sandberg, I’m sorry her husband passed, but who woke up and made her the queen of coping and recovery? Her message has been blasted all through the media for the past two weeks, to the point I abhor her, she’s a national joke, AND SHE DOESN’T REALIZE IT!

Isn’t she making enough money over there at Facebook?

What makes her an expert?

But the old school media believes it’s a feel good story and they’ve got to make somebody a star.

But most of today’s stars last minutes, can you say Milo Whatshisname? If you get bumped up to first class you become ridiculed and ejected. The second decade of the twenty first century is about putting your head down and doing the work. Otherwise, you’re a target, just like Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly and the rest of Fox became, to their detriment. When you’re flying high, you shut up. Be thankful we’re paying attention and listening at all.

We need a giant reset. We’ve got a modern communications system run by old school rules. We’ve amped up to 11 what we used to know and do. Yes, in the days of three networks overloading us with Colgate commercials worked. But in a wired world where we’re bombarded with messages 24/7 it does not. It’d be like saying no to a date and then getting asked twenty times a day for the rest of your life. Do you think you wouldn’t hate that person at this point?

Forget the offense, it’s just not working. No matter how many times you ask I’m still saying no, despite the tropes about being persistent.

If you’ve got something to sell, make it really damn good and let its fans sell it. Isn’t that the point with micro-influencers above? People become passionate and spread the word. Is there anybody passionate about Sheryl Sandberg other than the media hawking her? I’ve never heard anybody anywhere say anything positive about this woman in my presence. They’ve talked about her status and her books, but true believers are nowhere to be found.

We’re looking for true believers. Who resonate and spread the word because of this belief, not because they were paid, but because it makes them feel good, they want others to experience what they have.

We can see all the machinery. This is not the 1970’s. We know how the world works. Everybody knows how the world works. And they hate marketers the same way they hate politicians. Trump’s election was a middle finger to the elites doing business as usual. There’s a middle finger to the marketers too, they just refuse to see it.

But it’s standing tall.

“#VANLIFE, THE BOHEMIAN SOCIAL-MEDIA MOVEMENT, What began as an attempt at a simpler life quickly became a life-style brand”

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