Volume 19: Babies happen.

1. Forget toilet paper, the world is running out of condoms.

Tl;dr: Two post-COVID-19 baby booms?

When you’re stuck indoors all day without sports to watch, there’s only so much news and streaming video anyone can handle, which means there’s plenty of time left over for…other activities to take your mind off things.

You’d think this would be a boon to the world’s condom manufacturers, but they’re faced with twin problems. First, supply chain disruption has meant manufacturing capacity down by about 50%, while double-digit demand spikes mean there’s a distinct possibility that the world’s supply of condoms might simply run out.

What happens next isn’t so hard to predict, which means there’s a pretty good chance there’ll be a lot of January and February babies. And beyond that, there’ll probably be a second baby boom as soon as we can all leave the house.

I know many are predicting a “new normal” of staying distant from others, only ever ordering in food, talking via video etc. But that just doesn’t fit with human psychology. Much more likely we’re going to go full hedonism as soon as it’s safe to go out and about again, and folks seek to make full use of their regained freedom. Only, unlike the first boom, the second will be between folks who weren’t trapped together for weeks on end…

2. You know that Zoom thing you’ve been using? It’s basically malware.

Tl;dr: Why does Silicon Valley have to be so systemically corrupt?

I’ll start with the only thing you need to know about the dumpster fire that is Zoom. NASA bans its employees from using it due to privacy concerns.

Even cutting Zoom some slack as it goes from 10 million to 200 million users overnight, it’s clear there’s a systemic integrity problem at the heart of this company. First was the news of Zoom secretly sharing user data with Facebook, then we find they can do this because of appalling terms of service that basically says they can do whatever they want (you have no privacy). Now it’s come to light that their Mac installer works exactly like malware, which previously necessitated Apple patching the OS, that their Windows client is vulnerable, that they’ve been leaking people’s email addresses and personal details to random strangers, that they’ve been data mining your LinkedIn profile without your knowledge, that their claim of end to end encryption isn’t actually true, that they allow meeting hosts to surveil meeting attendees, and that it’s pifflingly easy for hackers to take control of your webcam. Not to mention Zoombombers exposing schoolkids to porn during their classes. These have necessitated lawsuits and investigations by the NY State Attorney General, among others.

And what’s their response? Well, they didn’t respond at all until their stock price took a hit and then they pulled the victim card telling us they were all about privacy all along (they weren’t) and that it’s essentially our fault we didn’t understand (it isn’t). All of which leaves it extremely difficult for us to believe them when they claim they’ll be spending the next 90 days working only on security fixes that frankly shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place.

Fortunately, there are plenty of alternatives and it’s pifflingly easy to switch.

Longer term, there’s something fundamentally rotten at the heart of Silicon Valley. I only hope that in the post crisis world we refuse to tolerate it any longer.

3. Half your digital advertising isn’t being wasted, it’s being stolen.

Tl;dr: Wanamaker problem (redux) for the 21st century.

On the topic of integrity, let’s take another look at advertising. Last century John Wanamaker famously said that “half my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half”. After chatting with the folks at Beacon this week, it seems that in this century half your advertising isn’t being wasted it’s being stolen via bots and other forms of ad-fraud.

With thievery on this scale, don’t expect anyone in the industry to do anything to fix this problem anytime soon. They can’t because they’re complicit. If 50% of digital media spend is fraudulent, the entire mar-tech industrial complex and the advertising holding companies have much to lose. None of these companies, which are notorious for their lack of integrity at the best of times, are going to willingly change practices that might knock double digits off their earnings.

Which leaves us in a bind. What to do? Well, there is a precedent. After the stock market crash of 1929, the SEC was formed as a regulatory body requiring independent auditing of the financial statements of publicly traded companies. Why? Because before 1929, just like with modern digital advertising, companies were lying to us.

This doesn’t mean brands should wait though. Who knows if meaningful regulation is even possible in our current political environment. Handily, now is the perfect moment for big brands to put the squeeze on the likes of Google & Facebook to clean up their acts. Revenues are down, small advertisers have dried up, and for a short period bigger brands will have leverage. But it won’t last for long. As soon as the current crisis recedes, the likes of Google and Facebook are going have more power than ever.

4. L a z y logo’s showcase branding in crisis.

Tl;dr: Stupid logo distancing fills me with an incandescent rage.

It never ceases to surprise me how fast bad marketing ideas spread. This was apparent just last week as we entered the COVID-19 reality and social distancing became the mantra. A bandwagon jumping slew of brands all separating various elements of their logos as if this was some kind of noble act of creative solidarity. What a load of bullshit. It was nothing but a nonsensical cheap trick that failed to communicate effectively, representing branding at its worst. It just makes me so damn angry.

First off, it’s lazy thinking. Spend more than thirty seconds thinking about this tactic and you realize the metaphor just doesn’t hold up. Separating the logo from itself is like separating a person from bits of themselves, not separating a person from others. A far more effective and funny way to communicate would’ve been separating logos from each other instead.

Second, where did we see all these separated logo’s? Rarely in the real world, but they were all over the advertising trade and tech press, which means this was more about a press release and possibly an advertising creative award than an actual piece of consumer communication.

And finally, why are brands pissing around with their logo’s when they should be doing meaningful things instead? Even something really small like putting red dots on the floor to encourage social distancing like retailers in Denmark.