An Advertising Conundrum

Advertising used to be so simple. You get to tell an audience of a platform about your business or whatever you want (within reason) in exchange for a few bucks. Now it got weird. Terrestrial radio kind of screwed that up, frankly.

They stiffed advertisers simply by chasing the dollar and sold out those dedicated to advertising their wares only to be left holding the bag. Now the internet is sucking up that revenue in all sorts of strange ways. One involves the useless short term gain of social media advertising. In this episode, Ric takes a critical look at what is going on out there in one form of this business and how advertisers are still getting screwed.



NEXT WEEK: If You're Happy And You Know It...

Plasticized

Humanity seems to be choking to death on plastic. We see it in the news all the time. The amount of plastic in the oceans is staggering. So much so it is showing up in the seafood we eat. Kind of scary when you think about that. But there is a fascinating thing going on at the moment.

There is a fairly large group of people in this country who seem to have an issue with the notion of cleaning up the place. Why would this be? In this episode, Ric takes a look what drives some of these ridiculous notions. Also in this episode, Ric takes a look at the apparent shift in podcast consumption. Some interesting things are going on mainly due to Apple.



NEXT WEEK: Advertisers vs Dinosaurs - The Battle of The Century

Too Connected

There are some fantastic technological things at our fingertips. We can do a lot of great things. You can attribute a good chunk of these advancements to computers. More specifically, your phone. The things we get to do with that device come with an interesting trade-off. One such thing is dealing with Facebook's Messenger. Oh, it can be quite the pain in the ass. But is there something more nefarious going on?

Also in this episode, Ric takes a look at kind of a strange scenario that involved pretty much all of the Target stores in the United States. All of their registers stopped working at the same time. Does this point to a serious weakness in our technology? Some scary scenarios are ahead. Listen now.



NEXT WEEK: Paper or Plastic?

Who Wants A Slice of Data Pie?

The thing about the internet is that content used to be king. What really is more valuable is data. Numbers. You. There are those out there who make it their business to keep an eye an where you are going on the internet, what it is you are looking at and what it is you are searching for and buying.

This information is pure gold to advertising agencies. The thing is, that information is not really all that valuable. In this episode, Ric takes a look at Ad Tech and how it doesn't work and how more and more companies are shying away from it, after they have taken it for a test drive. There is a very simple formula for working with advertisers in a broadcast and Ric will explain. Listen now.



NEXT WEEK: The Messenger We All Want To Shoot

Riding Those Coat Tails

In this episode, Ric tells the story of the two years he was asked to be a judge for an Elvis Tribute Artist competition. He wasn't asked to do a third year for reasons that will be made clear. The gist of the story though is about how these performers are riding the coat tails of a dead man.

Even though there may be a market for this sort of thing, the idea that there are those who are actively making a living off of someone else's creativity and hard work is kind of wrong, in Ric's opinion. This sort of thing happens all over the place, not just with a bunch of guys acting like Elvis. Plus, the joys of being a homeowner.



NEXT WEEK: The podcast flotsam.