
How the Math Men Overthrew the Mad Men - sonabinu
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/how-the-math-men-overthrew-the-mad-men
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jackgolding
After working in two jobs where my job was using quantitative analysis to try
figure out what marketing channels to invest in I have to say this is
incredibly hard to get any answers - to the point where you might ask why
bother? The current solutions in the marketplace AFAIK are either extremely
expensive vendors (think $50k pa starting price) or startups which are most
focused on direct response (an example I was shown was web traffic from a TV
commercial which let you "win a jeep".)

The best steps you can do for your business are have a very firm commercial
idea of what success looks like (i.e. measure LTV, churn etc by channel) and
have a robust framework for market research. I personally like the idea of
splitting spending marketing spend between branding (where your aim is to
promote unprompted brand awareness) and acquisition (where you want CPA <
LTV.) Also remember there are A LOT of businesses which spend money in things
that an expert can identify as not commercially sound - so audits by external
agencys can be useful (i.e. not using negative keywords in AdWords and
spending many thousands on direct response campaigns that don't work.)

I'll add the cavaet that rhe worst thing about "attribution" I've found is it
puts an unfair amount of pressure in the bottom of the funnel. Brand focused
marketers aren't really held to scrutiny at all (lots of marketing teams in
businesses I know don't even do total spend / total sales) - I think this can
cause some resentment between teams.

Good articles on this are few and far between but this one I don't mind
[https://www.cmo.com.au/article/641243/iag-marketers-must-
end...](https://www.cmo.com.au/article/641243/iag-marketers-must-end-blind-
faith-martech-adtech/) as well as Willem's talk on what they did to bring
programmatic in-house at Foxtel.

Happy to connect with anyone interested in this space.

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SmallBets
Thanks for the links and comment, I'm on the adtech side and largely agree -
true measurement of effectiveness is unsolved, and we conflate measuring lift
with causing lift.

IMO anyone paying attention in the industry knows the answer is probably less
ad spend, aka most inventory is overpriced...but then the incentives take over
and the firehose stays on full blast. Publishers, agencies adtech/martech, are
not incentivized to right-size ad spend at all, and even for advertisers orgs,
the slightest bit of silo/politics incentivizes CMOs to spend & protect their
budgets.

It is a select handful of orgs with serious CEO level buy in that are willing
to honestly tackle this and spend less, more efficiently. That tends to be a
competitive advantage in a sea of waste.

~~~
jackgolding
Yep also I think there are incentives to look like you are investing in this
space ... and for the vendors who are selling these tools, not many marketing
managers are going to be happy if you make their placements or creative
choices look stupid

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arebop
(in the very small digital segment of the much larger advertising market).
Astoundingly, the vast majority of ad spend is still done with the traditional
level (close to none) of quantitative rigor.

~~~
mewfree
"very small digital segment"? You might want to re-think that according to
this article: [https://www.recode.net/2017/12/4/16733460/2017-digital-ad-
sp...](https://www.recode.net/2017/12/4/16733460/2017-digital-ad-spend-
advertising-beat-tv)

~~~
technotony
That chart is interesting. Realistically how likely is it that digital spend
is going to double in the next five years? Is the consumer economy big enough
to justify that without taking share from other media (presumably there are
other advertising media)? If (when?) it does stop that's going to have a
pretty big impact on google/facebook's valuations and growth rates.

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Spooky23
As a consumer, not an ad tech guy, I don’t get digital advertising at all. It
rarely if ever drives behavior on my part, and I just don’t see effective use
of it. The most useful ads I see are the circulars in the newspaper that I
seek out.

I still remember brands and jingles from my childhood on radio and TV, but
today, I can’t think of anything digital advertising that stands out as other
than clumsy and dumb or useless retargeting. I’ve been a Gmail user for 12-13
years, and the best they can do is some phoney “Win an Aldi Gift Card (very
enticing) for taking surveys” and “Milfs are looking for you”, seemingly
triggered by some spam I receive.

I’m also getting bombarded with air conditioner ads from Amazon because I
bought an air conditioner, from Amazon, a few weeks ago. For all of this big
data and machine learning investments, they are trying to sell a man sitting
in a 60 degree room another AC — which given the price and free shipping they
probably lost money on.

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soared
People always say that on HN because they think they are unique or immune to
advertising somehow. Its not like advertisers toss out some ads and then you
automagically go buy a new roof for your house. All advertisers do is see you
own a house and send you some new roof ads. Your reaction is not "Oh I better
go get a new roof from Steve's Roofs". Your reaction is 18 months from now
you're searching for a new roof after a hailstorm, you see "Steve's Roofs" in
a google search and click on it because you've seen the logo/tagline before.
(Or maybe their is some latent brand awareness, you might associate Steve with
trustworthy due to an ad but not realize it, etc).

With the AC.. that is due to a lack of data. They can't always match all of
your devices to you, maybe you cleared your cookies etc. They missed that you
bought it, and so as they see it you're still a very valuable prospect. IF
there was more/better data that annoyance would be solved.

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erikb
The idea is ridiculous. The math men didn't overthrow the Mad Men. The Mad Men
found that math is awesome, because it's a topic that your customers don't
know. So they also have no way to figure out that the Mad Men don't know math
either. They call the mathematicians "quants". Does that sound like respect to
you? Is that how one speaks in public about one's overlord?

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rsimmonds
Love this in theory.

But...

There's still way more money being invested in the traditional world of
advertising than what's being invested in the analytics and data side.
Creative agencies haven't gone away. Agencies of Record are still the
traditional shops (DDB, Ogilvy, etc.)

~~~
soared
The data side is still very new (<20 years old). I’m expecting that once the
old agency guys and old client side guys die off you’ll see bigger changes.

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ian0
They overthrew the medium not the ad agencies. Its just those agencies that
didn't adopt the new medium struggled.

Most large companies I have worked with still use an agency to manage ad spend
for a cut. And though the pitching has an analytics bent I cant imagine its
that far off how they used to pitch TV & Billboards. And they are still run by
sales people not machine learning grads.

~~~
soared
Yeah, the sales pitch nowadays its “with our new technology we can do this”
where I’d imagine previously it was “with our partnerships we can do this” or
something similar.

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soared
The article doesn't really align with the title. I was hoping for some history
on how math men came up or how their value compares to traditional mad men.
Unfortunate just another hot topic hit piece on google/fb.

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skybrian
And what about math women? This isn't the 50's anymore.

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danmg
It's an allusion to both the show "Mad Men" and to the phrase which spawned it
from the 60s. Also, the alliteration.

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s-shellfish
Honestly, I like the phrase 'math people' or 'computer people' a bit better.

Not always necessary to follow the formal rules of story telling, to tell a
story. Reading the same patterns over and over, sounds kind of boring...

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whatshisface
The sentence, "math people and mad men" isn't a play on words, and "math
people and mad people" doesn't make sense at all. Nobody uses "math men" in
speech, this was done for a unique reason.

~~~
s-shellfish
Is there an algorithm to humor and/or journalism?

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jonnybgood
Yes, authors have their own particular algorithms in the employment of
literary devices. Easy example is great speakers like MLK.

~~~
s-shellfish
I don't think MLK would be opposed to a more inclusive statement, and I don't
think MLK would have downvoted someone for wanting women to be included in a
population that is often presented to the world as largely male, even though
it's really not.

~~~
danmg
We really don't know what his position on a play on words in a feature article
in The New Yorker written in 2018 would be. He's been dead for 50 years, and
I'd venture to say he'd be more concerned about poverty and criminal justice
reform.

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s-shellfish
Yea, the whole discrimination thing he was on about is so 50 years ago.

~~~
danmg
Maybe black and underclass social problems are not the same thing as making
sure writing is bland yet as inclusive as possible in a publication that
mostly rich left-leaning white people are going to read on their $1000 itoy?

~~~
s-shellfish
I'm female, I work at a university that is considered in 'the ghetto' as a
software developer. There are a lot of issues in my city that range from
everything from homelessness, to gentrification, mental illness, addiction,
etc.

I've seen the consequences of discrimination from everything from skin color
(I'm white, many of my siblings are black or mixed), to gender, to socio-
economic status, etc.

I've also spoken on the internet for a long time, and I know what it feels
like to feel silenced with the push of a button. A downvote. It's annoying.
It's annoying to know people studying machine learning are only doing it to
control how people think, to control behavior, to control wealth, or whatever
the fuck else they want.

So, how many times does this have to wrap around itself for people to
understand, downvoting people on the internet for complaining about how the
world of math and logic seems largely presented as a male world, is part of
the problem?

Even more ironically, MLK gets quoted.

All men are created equal. Are you focusing on the word men in that rhetoric,
or are you understanding the message?

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danmg
> Are you focusing on the word men in that rhetoric, or are you understanding
> the message?

No. But, it seems you are.

I worked in worse places and I've come from worse places. You aren't going to
win the oppression Olympics with me.

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s-shellfish
Yup, you are right! You win the Oppression Olympics against me.

~~~
danmg
Cool.

