Back to another old favourite for an example of tech folk doing marketing jobs.
The old favourite is a website not recognising my password, then when I follow the prompt to change it I enter the same password and it tells me it already exists. Grrrr.
But that's not the main reason for this post - take a look at the message I've high-lighted at the bottom of the image.
Back in the day, a mentor of mine told me:
If you’re writing something that matters, take your time in
getting it right.
if you’re writing something that doesn’t matter, don't waste
your time – just don’t bother writing it at all.
Now he might say:
If you’re writing something that matters, don’t write it
with ai.
Apparently Netflix deliberately dumbs down dialogue because viewers simply don’t follow the plot. According to Matt Damon, talking on a Joe Rogan podcast, Netflix explicitly asks writers to repeat key plot points multiple times in dialogue, so viewers who are glued to their phones can at least understand what’s happening on screen. Watching while scrolling has become the norm — and content is adjusted to fit that habit.
I got this email offer from Travelodge ...
Let's ignore the fact that I have to book today and that I have to travel in the next couple of months ... but it's for a 5% saving. Yes, a £100 room would be slashed to an absolute bargain price of £95! Pass me my diary.
Within minutes I also received this offer ...
January 2026 saw the UK government confirm that Digital Unlimited Group, Havas UK and M&C Saachi have been appointed as it’s ad agencies of record. At the same time WPP Media has been hired “to lead government media strategy and support vital public sector campaigns”. Together the accounts are worth £1.95 billion [yes … billion].
And why is this story included here? Well, it goes on to say
that these appointments are meant to “streamline [government] work to more
effectively reach target audiences across the platforms. It engages with, such
as TikTok, Instagram and Reddit … “
Although it also includes other media such as TV, that's a LOT
of money going towards three social media platforms.
Source: Private Eye #1666
There a bloke with the same name as me who - mistakenly - often gives out my email address as his own, so I get emails addressed to him. One included his home address, so I wrote to him explaining the situation - he ignored it so I delete anything that comes in on my email that is or him.
Anyhoo, one arrived today from a business email and before I deleted it I looked at the footer, which began with ...
This email and the information contained in it and in any attachments, are confidential and may be privileged. If you have received this email in error, please notify us immediately. If you are not the intended recipient, you are not authorised to, and must not use, disclose, copy, distribute, retain or rely on this email or any part of it.
Note how - according to them - it becomes my responsibility to meet their requirements even though they sent the email to my address. This is a commonly used email footer.
My thanks to Private Eye edition #1666 which reported on 'click bait' articles in UK newspapers. Within the article was a revelation that one headline gained 1.6 million views. Whilst this might be impressive, not so is the income gained for those views: £133. That's 0.008 pence per click. OK, I suppose if you're running hundreds, thousands even, of these headlines on web pages that get a lot of visitors you'll make a few quid, but if you're not, well, 0.008p per click ...
This is from a list of 'expert' articles, suggesting that there is a split in opinion.
This appeared in my X feed ...
First off; the targeting: 'textbook', 'semester' and 'back to school' combined by the textbook subjects makes it obvious that I'm never going to buy one of these books.
However, it's not just me that's been presented with an ad that is of no interest to me - take a look at the numbers I've highlighted at the bottom.
Yep ... seven and a half thousand people have had this ad presented on their twitter/X timeline. And if the advertiser is paying per impression? Oh dear. The one 'like' might be a buyer I suppose - but just one like suggests that the books' publisher didn't even ask their staff to click on the heart of the ad.
Yet another poorly targeted ad - but what took my eye on this one was that I read it as if it was me who had reviewed the product - which I hadn't because I've not bought any of these boots. And if I had, why advertise them to me?
The issue is, of course, that 'you' can be singular or plural - in this case you meant anyone in the population. Far better would have been 'As reviewed by buyers'. I'm guessing artificially intelligent software thought using you made the ad more targeted. Ho hum.
This one is a bit heavy on text [do we need to know all this? And will anyone read it?] But what confused me was when I arrived on the site and this filled the screen.
OK, so it's not strictly marketing, but the subject of music downloads is part of the digital environment, so it may impact those readers who fancy a career in the music industry – as musician, marketer or otherwise.
In 2025 Welsh band Los Campesinos – who manage their own
affairs – calculated the group’s income for July 2024 to June 2025. In those 12
months their music was streamed 9.3 million times on music apps, earning them just
£31,940. Spotify was the most common with 75% of plays at 0.29 per stream.
Amazon chipped in at 0.75p per stream. Effectively; the bands do the work, Spotify et al make the [excessive?] profit.
This information is available on the group’s website [loscampesinos.com]
– though I became aware of it in Private Eye’s December 2025 edition.
Following on-screen instructions that come to an abrupt end are so annoying - and so easily addressed. To me it's a tech vs usability [marketing?] thing, with the tech folk assuming that every user has their level of tech ability. Here's a clear example - the instruction says 'access the More menu' with an image showing 'more' as being at the right end of five options ...
... but on my page there were only four. D'oh.
... how does it manage to let this happen?
' ... reviewing to prevent future issues'. Effectively, grok is saying that it has been programmed NOT to ignore prompts which resulted in these images being produced.
On a similar subject ... Woman felt 'dehumanised' after Musk's Grok AI used to digitally remove her clothes.
Not so many New Year greetings as Christmas [unless the 'Season's Greetings' were meant to include Christmas and New year?] but I liked this one ...
