Welcome to the 300th issue of this newsletter. I’m not sure if it means anything, but it’s been fun to keep researching and writing this content each week. We’ve got some changes coming soon…but for now we’ll let me thank you for being steady readers and reaching out to say hey when you get a…
Advertising has always been about the search for perfect targeting data, paving the way for the annihilating power of Google and Facebook.
Once, Mad Men ruled advertising. They’ve now been eclipsed by Math Men—the engineers and data scientists whose province is machines, algorithms, pureed data, and artificial intelligence. Yet Math Men are beleaguered, as Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated when he humbled himself before Congress, in April. Math Men’s adoration of data—coupled with their truculence and an arrogant conviction that their…