SuperHero For The Week of November 18 – Bob Hoffman

Bob Hoffman is the owner of the the Type A Group, a San Francisco marketing company. And like most people that I have encountered in advertising, he’s a bit of a skeptic, a bit of a smart-ass and a big chuck of what he calls a contrarian.

A contrarian is the guy who usually zigs when everyone else is zagging or doing the obvious or being victimized by the latest trend or having impotent brain farts. And, as a bit of a contrarian myself, I know this to be a sad truism.

Over the past few years that I know of, Bob has been crusading against the digital advertising mafia, pointing out a good portion of the bullshit that is being put forth by that industry in order to separate ad dollars from clients is in return for, quite literally, next to nothing in the majority of cases.

Our shared belief in the fraudulent nature of the digital advertising industry caused me to stumble across him one day and sign up for his newsletter, which he sends out almost every Sunday. It covers more than just digital advertising, although, it certainly is, from Bob’s point of view, the gift that keeps on giving. However, he also digs around and uncovers other bigs of the kind of abject idiocy and hypocrisy that fills the advertising industry these days.

Bob also has some sort of podcast that he does, has written several really popular books, and spends a good deal of time traveling around and presenting advertising people with the evidence of just how useless digital advertising has become for most advertisers.

Bob and I are around the same age and so came up through the same eras in advertising and we have both held on to the fundamental belief that while the bullshit levels have risen dramatically in advertising, the fundamentals of ad persuasiveness and creativity are still, more or less, the same.

The only trouble is that most of the people who are really good at this aren’t, for one reason or another, doing it much anymore. And don’t get us started on ageism….LOL.

You can find out more about Bob here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobhoffman3/

You can read his blog and find out about his books, which I highly recommend for anyone interested in communication, here: http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/

You can sign up to have Bob’s newsletter arrive in your inbox every Sunday morning at: https://www.bobhoffmanswebsite.com/newsletters

Jim Murray is an experienced advertising and marketing professional and amateur photographer. He has run his own strategic and creative consulting business (Onwords & Upwords), since 1989 after a 20 year career in Toronto as a senior creative person in major Canadian & international advertising agencies. He is a communication strategist, writer, art director, broadcast producer, prolific marketing & op/ed blogger & beBee Brand Ambassador.

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