Tag Archives: advertising

AI – Alternate Identities

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I just watched a video clip of Sir Ken Robinson promoting a product to reduce your blood sugar. I’ve already shared ‘An AI Advertisement’ with a fictitious expert, and broke down the flaws with the ad. But now we have an actual (now deceased) celebrity figure doing the promotional plug. It looks and sounds like him, but he never said anything he says in this video advertisement. I know this, but how many people will recognize him and pay a little more attention to this advertising scam because it is delivered by someone famous?

This is just the beginning. We are moving into a ‘post truth era’, where nothing is inherently believable. A decade from now we’ll have multiple alternate identities to choose from… Was the real Al Gore the one warning us about global warming, or was the real one promoting fracking, or alternative medicine, or socialist communism over capitalism? Every video will seem equally real, every source seemingly legitimate. One real, all the others alternative histories indistinguishable from reality.

Will it only be famous people that will fall victim to these alternate identities or are we all going to be replicated? When I’m in my late 80’s will I be watching a video of 50 year old me oblivious to whether this recording actually happened or if it was invented with a perfect imitation of myself?

The implications for scams are immeasurable. Live video of a seemingly real son or daughter extracting banking data from a senior parent. A meticulously created alternative you moving all assets over to someone else. The scams are limited only by imagination, not by technology or capability.

Alternate identities indistinguishable from reality, all playing out as if real. Sir Ken Robinson plugging health suppliments is only just the beginning… We are in for some reality warping performances from AI alternatives to us, and the people we think we trust… This is only just the beginning!

Almost free

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I remember being a young kid when a door-to-door salesman came to our house and sold my dad a Junior Encyclopedia set. I was amazed at all the information in there. I could just think of any topic and it seemed that there was an entry for it.

In Grade 10 or 11 I took a programming course in high school. I don’t remember much other than having to punch little dots out of cards and handing them in. My teacher would bring them back to us the next class with a printout of the instructions we created with these punch cards.

At the time, I owned a Commodore Vic 20 which had 20k of memory. I remember buying the 16k adapter cartridge so that I could have 36k of memory, but I can’t remember why I wanted the extra data. I think I was writing a book on bass fishing with my buddy on the Commodore and we were using up too much space.

Now our fridges can do more than my Vic 20, and our phones give us access to quite literally any information we desire. Computers have wafer thin chips in them, the size of my finger nail, that can store entire libraries of information. We have no shortage of information or storage… as long as we aren’t trying to store 20,000 photos on our phones.

Information used to be power. Now it seems that information is free. Well, almost free, because we actually pay for information with our attention. The website is free but you’ve got to see the advertising. The podcast is free but you have to listen to commercials. Social media content is free but influencers push products your way, and sell you programs. And you end up not scrolling past an ad because it is designed like the content you normally consume.

We don’t have to buy encyclopedias anymore, information is almost free… The price we pay is our attention.

Generic platitudes

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One of the odd little things about running two schools in my district is that often, when someone has gotten hold of our school mailing list to send out emails, I get two of them… one for each school. So when I see a letter designed to be personalized, but is actually a form letter, I get to see it in duplicate.

Here is the introduction to one of those letters that I got twice:

“Dear David,

I’ve been researching schools in the Vancouver, B.C. area and was truly impressed to learn that your school stands among the very best. Because of that, I’d love the opportunity to speak to your students, teachers, and parents while l’m in Vancouver on my speaking tour from November 4th to 7th, 2025.”

(Cue a sarcastic tone) Isn’t that flattering!

In this day and age you have two choices: Either do research and really move from platitude to sincere compliment, or skip the platitude altogether. It’s not honest, it’s insulting. Even if I don’t get it twice, I’d know this letter was insincere, but it becomes especially insulting when I get to see it repeated in my inbox.

I don’t have the time to waste doing this, but I’d get a kick out of calling this person up, thanking them for the email, and asking them exactly what it is that made them, ‘truly impressed to learn that (my) school stands among the very best’?

Anyway, this is my public service announcement: Don’t send out generic platitudes. It’s neither flattering nor effective. And in fact, it feels a little insulting.

We are the consumed, not not the customer

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There is so much BS on the internet these days. There are posts that either exaggerate or confabulate research data to sell ideas and products that don’t do anything they promise to do. I look up topics like reducing snoring or tinnitus and then for the next month I’m bombarded with ads for ‘cures’ of these annoyances. I’ll get detailed, directly-marketed-to-me advertisements including things like, “We are looking for males over the age of 55 in Coquitlam” to participate in a tinnitus study”.

I won’t just get pop up windows, and still ads, I’ll get videos embedded in my stream. I’ll get long format ads where it takes 5+ minutes to get to the point, because advertisers know that if they can keep people watching long enough they will feel invested in getting answers.

And here’s the thing, my ad algorithm will be completely different to yours. It’s targeted to our individual interests, our searches, our likes, shares, clicks, and even the things we say. We are not the customer we are consumed based on our interactions. We are data points that provide identifying features to be exploited. Targeted not for our benefit but to the benefit of companies that pay to learn that our data points are relevant to their products.

Click on an ad, even accidentally, and you can expect similar products to be fed to you many more times. Is this to serve you what you need or to serve advertisers what they need? The answer is clear. It’s not about us. We are data points consumed by an advertising machine. We are the target, the product, and not the actual consumer. On the internet of things, on social media platforms, we are just nodes of data sold to advertisers, we are products… And advertisers are the ultimate consumers of the data points (our data points) that they pay for.

Fees and services

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Have you noticed how customer convenience is no longer a priority? We are consumers to be targeted for maximum profit. It’s not a world where the customer is always right, but rather the customer is always ripe… for squeezing out a few dollars more.

Example 1: I went to book a flight for my summer visit to see my mom in Toronto. In the airline website the lowest price didn’t even include a carry-on bag, just a personal item. When I looked at the next price option up, with the only added feature being a carryon bag, the cost was over $140 more. That’s before paying even more to pre-select a seat.

Example 2: We used to pay for premium channels on TV, they still had commercials but they also had movies and shows regular cable didn’t have. Along came streaming. Anytime watching and no commercials. You pay a premium and you avoid those annoying interruptions. Now commercials are back unless you pay a premium on top of your premium.

Everything is tiered not to provide you with better service, but to make the tiers such that you never want the cheap deals. No, you are enticed into paying more to get what you used to get for less. You are priced out of the deal that got you to consider the purchase, and put into flashy named premium, executive, and luxury levels that cost more to add features that you used to expect as the basic minimum.

“Bundle and Save!”

This sounds great, if the bundle didn’t actually just give you things you actually needed. If the bundle really added luxury rather than essentials. Who travels from Vancouver to Toronto with just a purse or a small backpack that can fit under the seat in front of you? Is that really an option? 

‘Customer’ used to mean more than a ‘mark’ to be deceived and taken advantage of with added fees for basic necessities. Good service used to be a value added, not an added service charge. It used to be that fees and services added real value, but now they are simple a means to expect the customer to pay more… for less.

almost free

The internet needs a makeover. I remember when I wanted to make a fun certificate or a personalized card, I could just do a Google search and find a free resource. Now when you do it, the top 10+ sites found in the search all require you to register, login, sign up, or sign in with Google or Facebook. Don’t worry, your first 30 days are free, or you’ll need to put your email in to get promotional spam sent to your inbox.

I get it. It costs money to run a website. I know, I pay to keep DavidTruss running and thanks to some affiliate links I’ve made about $35-$40 over the past 15 years. Add another $15 if you include royalties from my ebook, which I give away free everywhere except on Amazon where I couldn’t lower the price. This is my sarcastic way of saying that I don’t make any money off of my blogging and I actually have to pay to keep it running. That’s fine for me, I don’t do this for an income, but most websites need a flow of cash coming in to keep them going.

But no matter how you look at it, things on the internet have gotten a lot less free over the past decade. My blog’s Facebook page doesn’t make it onto most people’s stream because I don’t pay to boost the posts. Twitter, since it became X, has been all about seeing paid-for blue check profiles and my stream feels like it caters to ‘most popular or outlandish tweets’ rather than people I actually enjoy following. Even news sites are riddled with flashy advertising and gimmicky headlines to keep your eyes on those ads.

There needs to be a way to keep things ‘almost free’ on the internet, while not inundating us with attention seeking ads, or making us register and give away our email address to be spammed by promotional messages we don’t want. I think it will come. I think there will be an opportunity to choose between ads or micropayments. Read the kind of news you want or listen to a podcast for a penny. Like what you read/hear? Give a dime, or quarter, or even a dollar if you really like it.  There are already people donating this way on Live events on YouTube and Twitch and other similar sites, it just needs to get to the point where it’s happening on any web page. I’d rather pay a tiny bit than be inundated with ads. It’s coming, but not before it gets worse… we now have ads coming to Netflix and Prime. They want us to pay MORE to avoid them. The model is still about exploitation rather than building a fan base. Subscriptions will dominate for a while and so will models that upsell you to reduce the clutter… but eventually, eventually we will see the return of the ‘almost free’.

High versus low trust societies

I love when someone adds to my perspective on social media. That’s exactly what happened after I posted Basic assumptions a couple days ago. The post reflected that, “people no longer give each other the benefit of the doubt that intentions are good. This used to be a basic assumption we operated on, the premise that we can start with the belief that everyone is acting in good faith.”

I shared the post on Twitter and Chris Kalaboukis and I had the following conversation thread:

Chris: Reading your post: could we be transitioning from a high-trust to a low-trust society?

Dave: Yes, that seems like an appropriate conclusion. Is there an author that speaks of this idea?

Chris: Not that I can recall, however, if you look at the attributes of low-trust societies you see a lot of what is happening now.

Dave: So true! The circle of high trust seems to be shrinking and it really seems like a step backwards… tribalism trumps the collective of a greater community.

Chris: It is. It seems that even our institutions are driving us towards more tribalism and division.

Dave: And how do you suppose we correct this course? I honestly don’t have a clue, and see things getting worse before they get better.

Chris: I think that in reality, most people prefer to live in a high-trust society. We need leaders and media who support that vision.

Dave: I think the biggest problem right now is that most leaders do not want to step into a limelight where both social media and news outlets are only interested in focussing on the dirt. It seems everyone is measured by their worst transgressions, regardless of many positive deeds.

Chris: If it bleeds it leads. we’ve never been able to communicate with more people at the same time but the only communication which seems to get through is negative. It’s all about keeping your attention to sell more ads.

Dave: I sound like quite the pessimist, that’s not usually my stance on things, but I do struggle to see a way forward from here.

—–

The idea Chris shared that we could be ‘transitioning from a high-trust to a low-trust society’ seems insightful and really intrigues me. It isn’t happening at just one level, but many!

• Scam phone calls and emails are perfect examples. We used to operate from a position of trust, but now unknown calls and unsolicited emails are all necessarily met with skepticism.

• Sensationalized news leads with misleading headlines that are more about getting attention and clicks than about providing truthful news. And if the news slant doesn’t match your beliefs, it’s ‘fake news’.

• Sales pitches and advertising promises almost everything under the sun, you aren’t buying a product with a basic function, you are buying a product that is going to change your life or transform how you do ‘X’, or use ‘Y’… your results will surprise you and you’ll be amazed!

• If you are even slightly left wing you are ‘woke’ or ‘Antifa’ in the most derogatory way you can use these words. If you are even slightly right wing you are ‘Alt-right’ and racist. No one gets to sit on a spectrum, you are either viewed as an extreme on one or the other side. And even agreeing on one topic on the other side makes you less trustworthy on your side.

These are but a few ways we’ve become a lower-trust society. Ad hominem and straw man attacks get more attention than sound arguments. A well said lie is easily shared while complex truths are not. Saying a situation is complex and sharing nuance does not make for catchy sound bites, and aren’t going to go viral on TikTok, or Instagram Reels. No, but the snarky personal attack will, as will a one-sided, extreme view that packs a powerful punch.

What’s worse is that moderate voices get shut out. And in general many people feel silenced or would rather not share a view that is even slightly controversial. So the extreme voices get even more airtime and attention.

I feel this often. Writing every day, and sometimes picking controversial topics to discuss, I find myself tiptoeing and treading very carefully. I said in my Twitter conversation with Chris above, “It seems everyone is measured by their worst transgressions, regardless of many positive deeds.” I sometimes wonder what one thing I’m going to say is going to get blown out of proportion? If I write one single inappropriate or strongly biased phrase, will it define me? Will it undermine the 1,500+ posts that I’ve written, and make me out to be something or someone I’m not?

This sounds paranoid, but I wrote one post a few years ago that a friend private messaged me about, then called me and said I’d gone too far with my opinion on a specific point. I totally saw his point, went back and adjusted my post to tone it down… but I feel like that one issue, that one strong and overly biased opinion shared publicly put a rift in our friendship. And that’s someone I respect, not some stranger coming at me, not someone that doesn’t know my true character. My opinion in his eyes is now less trustworthy, and holds less value. That said, I appreciated the feedback, and respect that he took the time to share it privately. That’s rare these days.

The path forward is not easy. We aren’t just swaying slightly towards a less trustworthy society, we are on a full pendulum swing away from a more trustworthy society. Tribalism, nationalism, and extremism are pulling our world apart. Who do you trust? What institutions? Which governments? Who do you consider a neighbour? Who will you break bread with? Who do you believe?

The circles of trust are getting smaller, and the mechanisms to share bias and misinformation are growing. We are devolving into a less trusting society or rather societies, and it’s undermining our sense of community. We need messages of kindness, love, and peace to prevail. We need tolerance, acceptance, and more than anything trustworthy institutions and leaders. We need moderates and centrists to voice compromise and minimize extremist views. We need to rebuild a high trust society… together.

Advice for everyone, and no one

A frustrating if not comical aspect of social media are lists and advice that are so banal they actually hurt to watch or read. I just saw a content creator give her “Top 3 tips for getting back on track with your credit.”

This was to:

1. First create a budget. Stick to it. And update it regularly.

2. Make cutbacks to save at least 3 months worth of monthly income.

3. Only spend what you already have.

The worst part of this ‘great advice’ is that it was sponsored by a bank. This was basically a paid advertisement from a savings bank, spewing trite and wasting our time and attention.

Here’s my advice to quit smoking: Don’t buy cigarettes.

Here’s my advice to lose weight: Eat less, exercise more.

Here’s my advice to get more sleep: Go to bed earlier.

Here is my advice to giving advice: State the obvious and you’ll always be right!

…But the advice won’t be taken, because that’s not really advice. It’s hopes and dreams. It’s laudable, wishful thinking. It’s not actionable for anyone who the advice is directed at. I’m reminded of a Derek Sivers quote, “If information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”

I don’t know too many billionaires with perfect abs, and facts disguised as advice won’t get you there either.

Prices not as shown

Recently I’ve been looking at prices for things like flights, car rentals and hotel rooms. In each case I see prices per seat or per day/night and then I get to the online checkout and I am paying so much more.

On a plane ticket, I am being up-sold for luggage and seats. Hotels and cars add additional taxes, and apps like AirBNB have added cleaning fees and other fees. A hotel that said $389 a night had a final cost of $528 after taxes and fees. That’s 35% more than the advertised nightly cost! In another instance, a $159 flight ended up being over $400 with checked bags, selected seats, and a changeable date (for a small additional fee).

It’s frustrating starting your buying experience feeling like you are getting a deal and ending the same buying experience feeling like you’ve been ripped off. I understand up-selling, but if I see a room cost per night advertised, that’s what I should pay, not 35% more for the same room.

I get that profit margins are competitive and narrow, but I don’t get this false advertising of costs that end up being so much more than shown.

That said, I have no idea how this can change? AirBNB isn’t going to start putting the total cost per night including all fees into their advertised price per night if Expedia and Travelocity don’t do the same, and vice versa. So we are stuck doing the math after we get to the checkout page, and invariably feeling a bit ripped off. That’s not a great customer experience if you ask me.

Realistic targets

Whenever I see people get on diets or start jumping into crazy workout schedules I think about how long they will last? Is this a lifestyle change or a temporary change? And often the ones that are temporary are focused on unrealistic targets that they are very unlikely to get to.

Have a listen to James Smith’s TikTok about ‘Optimal’ targets (oh, and be prepared for some f-bombs and colourful language):

I wrote a post recently about optimization rather than maximization, and it was somewhat similar, but this really hits the nail on the head.

Good habits, optimizing small patterns of behaviour, and living a good life without ridiculous sacrifices or hours upon hours of relentless dedication. Not 3 hour a day workouts, but at least 45 minutes five days a week. Not broccoli and chicken every day, but being thoughtful about junk food and making smart choices.

Not unachievable targets, but realistic goals over long periods of time where you’ve maintained good habits for eating, sleeping, and working out. Fit for life, not looking fit for my holiday bathing suit. Healthy living, not perfect diets and workouts. Because when the bar is set too high, when you believe the fitness magazines that tell you how to get a 6-pack in 6 weeks, you are not seeing thé tremendous sacrifices those abs require. We need to set a realistic destination, then enjoy the journey.