Ted Mcconnell

Articles by Ted All articles by Ted

• Homilies For Innovation in Media Insider on 01/06/2022
  

  For example, "Where you stand depends on where you sit" is critical to understanding who will object to an idea, and who will support it.

• U.S. Tech Companies Dominate The World. So Now What? in Media Insider on 12/02/2021
  

  These companies can shape public opinion ANYWHERE, and have so much power that governments all over regulate against them.

• Attacks on Brand Purpose Are Unwarranted in Media Insider on 11/04/2021
  

  Is brand purpose a king with no clothes? That's what some marketing experts claim.

• These Are Not The Droids You Are Looking For in Media Insider on 10/07/2021
  

  Asking Facebook to provide an accurate reach measure is objectively reasonable. Why then is the company's answer so smarmy?

• The Ratings War in Media Insider on 09/02/2021
  

  This is our big chance to find out whether the marketplace values a common, universal measure over an accurate or a certified measure.

• People V. Ad Platforms in Media Insider on 08/05/2021
  

  With a few exceptions, anyone can use any language to tell any lie to anyone else using the internet. All humans have become unregulated media channels.

• FLoC Blockers in Media Insider on 07/01/2021
  

  Amazon is disrupting Google's new tracking capability, called FLoC. The facts of the story are interesting, but the narrative is even better.

• Some Context On Buying Context Programmatically in Media Insider on 06/03/2021
  

  What will the programmatic world look like as third-party cookies start to decline? Not as different as you might think.

• U.S. Tech Companies Dominate The World. So Now What? in Media Insider on 05/06/2021
  

  FAANG can shape public opinion ANYWHERE, and have so much power that governments all over regulate against them.

• When Retailers Become Media Sellers in Media Insider on 04/01/2021
  

  Retailers are looking beyond optimizing their own operations through data, and moving toward new revenue streams.

Comments by Ted All comments by Ted

• Do We Even Need Brands? by Paul Parton (Planning & Buying Insider on 09/29/2025)
  

  Scott was wrong, and I suspect he took that position partly to scare P&G (etc) into hiring him for consulting work.  But theres nothing wrong with a contrarian POV.  Brands, especially big brands, have several attributes that consumers need than non brands (even store brands are brands right?) do not have. Number 1 is accountability. Big brands have a lot to lose. Number 2 is continuity. Small brands come and go, but if you want the results you like, a big brand will continue to give you those. Small brands pivot. Number 3 is ongoing R&D, particularly in packaging. You can steal an idea at a point in time, but can you keep up with the investment in R&D and manufacturing that big Brands bring every day? I doubt it.  YMMV (Your milage may vary), I know ... and I'm a former Brand Marketing person who drank the cool aid. 

• What Would Happen If We Let AI Vote? by Gord Hotchkiss (Media Insider on 05/07/2024)
  

  If the glue that holds society together is rule of law, then how do you hold AI accountable? Until computers and their networking components become accountable, I would say that they should not participate in democracy. They do anyway, by shaping our opinions, as you say,  that is always(?) at the behest of their human masters who somehow escape accountability completely for the clandestine shaping of opinions to bend populations to their will.  We call it advertising. :). 

• When Is A JIC Not A JIC? When It's A MCCC by Tony Jarvis (MediaDailyNews on 03/29/2023)
  

  Right on. It's beyond me why big advertisers are not fighting for a real JIC. They have been begging for simplicity for years.  Agencies benefit from the complexity because a) it makes customers more dependent on them, and b) it creates a need for more people. It's a perfect stalemate.  The advertisers want simplicity but they want agencies to do the work.  Into the middle run media companies. The industry association could play a role but they are afraid of the legal implications.  The MRC could do something but they make money from complexity.  So, in the end, advertisers, afraid if their own shadow and unwilling to take responsibility are inadvertently letting the fox rule the henhouse.   Who loses ??  Consumers and advertisers.  

• Attacks on Brand Purpose Are Unwarranted by Ted McConnell (Media Insider on 11/04/2021)
  

  Thanks John. Absolutely. Brands in trouble will try a lot of things. Ultimately though, if the product does not perform there is no amount of purpose that can save it. 

• Facebook Friends Do Not Equal Real Friends by Gord Hotchkiss (Media Insider on 04/13/2021)
  

  Thanks Gord ... excellent piece, and free test from your daughter. I can imagine the same principle applies to other Marketing communications. To generlize, if the speaker and listener are not in the same group, bad things happen in both directions. Speakering to a mass audience in a mass way might alienate the few intimates, and speaking to them as intimates might confuse the masses. Good Direct Marketers seem to know this in their gut, and as direct Marketers, they can adapt their copy for the audience. Mass marketers seem never to do this, which makes their existing customers feel not-so-special. A Risk for big brands perhaps, and a new use for targeting?

• The Google Maneuver by Ted McConnell (Media Insider on 02/06/2020)
  

  Thanks Ed. For sure, this is a smoking gun for anti trust action. I edited that out because I am not a lawyer, and I get beaten up when I talk about stuff that touches on law :). This started a chain of thought that ended up with the idea that publishers could break or discriminate against Chrome simply by not serving content to it.(The http header exposes the browser type). I doubt if they would do that ... but even if they caused one of every 20 Chrome page loads to fail, users would probably switch browsers. It simply goes to show that reciprocal power exists. 

• Thank You For The Information by Ted McConnell (Media Insider on 11/07/2019)
  

  Like I said, don't expect free content to be free of bias. Everything you read was paid for by something. Advertising happens to pay for most of what you see on the internet. 

• Now Hear This! by Ted McConnell (Media Insider on 05/02/2019)
  

  Thanks Jonathan. Seems like this message is similar to the key points you are making to adveertisers. In fact,  I worked on the Board of Directors of a Radio Station Group for many years, so going in, I am pretty familiar with the issues. I also ran a recording studio for 15 years, so I know sound.  The question at the center of the piece is about why consumers are consuming more audio suddenly. I was speculating,  but it woud cool to see the audio industry create reasons beyond mine, (or validate mine!)  and even invest in some basic research about why consumers are consuming more. While I was at the ARF we did a significant body of work on Audio (David Marans lead it), so that might be helpful. 

• Advertisers' Access To Justice by Ted McConnell (Media Insider on 12/06/2018)
  

  Thanks for your comment Bill. you will note the ANA comes off the hero in the Article. And the quote you are objecting to was among the few points made as reported in Ad Exchanger, here:https://adexchanger.com/agencies/ana-confirms-fbi-criminal-investigation-on-ad-transparency/ on October 10th. It was a quote from Bob L. I do not know if he was quoting from the Paper you cite. I was shocked when I read it. I believe the ANA would have encouraged cooperation except for a Legal posture, but I did not want to let it pass. It takes a huge effort to catch these criminals, as you know, and the last thing we need is advertisers thinking they don't need to cooperate. I am sorry that the ANA lawyers kept you from stating your true position (if that is indeed why Bob said that), but it is very important to enable, rather than discourage cooperation in this matter. Without enforcement, your outstanding efforts will be significantly blunted. 

• The Editorial Purview Of Algorithms by Ted McConnell (Media Insider on 10/04/2018)
  

  That would be interesting. In MZ's congressional testimony he was very careful to say that FB is not a publisher. One might imagine this is fair because after all, it was a person who said something, not FB. However, the algorithm in effect published it to an audience. So the algo was acting like a publisher. If it quacks like a duck .... It does not seem fair to collect $Billions based on content created by "consumers", and bear no responsibility for any outcome of anyone seeing it. It also does not seem fair that they should have all my data, and then gift it to criminals by virtue of sloppy security procedures. 

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