‘People have to be more aware of bullshitters ’: Why there ’s a push for more realism in advertising now

This week, Digiday+ members received exclusive access to marketing editor Kristina Monllos’s exploration into advertising’s shifting standards around the industry’s “fraud problem.” Additionally, members learned how advertisers are shifting their approach to ads in the coronavirus era and moving away from mentioning the virus as they feel customers are sick of being reminded about it.

Check out a taste of our recent coverage below and subscribe to Digiday+ for access to all member exclusives, original research and charts, live digital events, reports and guides and much more.

‘People have to be more aware of bullshitters’: Why there’s a push for more realism in advertising now

If you spend any time on Twitter or LinkedIn you’ve likely seen viral posts from advertising stars who pitch themselves as experts on anything and everything in the ad world. In advertising, there’s long-been a “fraud problem” in that the industry has a surplus of poseurs or bullshitters, as Shareen Pathak put it in 2017, who get by spouting ideas about how to make the industry better, but often they aren’t doing the real work in the weeds — or even c-suite. That might be changing now as agencies are undergoing massive changes due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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‘Implicitly rather than explicitly’: Advertisers no longer want to discuss the coronavirus

The coronavirus is still around — ravaging entire states, with infection rates rising across the country. But marketers would rather just, well, pretend it isn’t. It’s a change from a few months ago, when coronavirus-response ads from advertisers were all the rage, as everyone sought to tell the audience that we were in this together. But it’s changed, four-odd months into this pandemic.

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