Polarisation in progress

The week in marketing and advertising, taking a look at polarisation - political, musical and more

The world is becoming increasingly polarised.

Brexit exposed huge national divisions we are only just beginning to face. Trump is probably the most polarising person on the planet and he's managed to make himself President.

Complicit – Saturday Night Live’s lampooning of Ivanka Trump showed that many Americans are unfamiliar with the word, as interest in the search term shows since broadcast on 11 March.

Advertising is not immune.

HSBC’s Anatomy of a Consumer research follows consumer sentiment in the run-up to Brexit.

It shows that few are concerned about possible changes, with job security and house prices minority concerns, although almost half worry about inflation – a necessary consequence of a devalued pound.

When Google launched Adwords in October 2000 it started a trickle of interest in turning the internet – still a relatively niche thing – into a credible advertising medium.

The logic was impeccable – if people spend more and more time ‘online’ then we should be able to advertise to them there.

What’s more, Adwords showed how digital could solve one of the biggest problems in advertising: what’s working and what isn’t?

If we know when someone has clicked something, we know what’s working.

This was before some clever people worked out ways to make money from advertising by faking the clicks. If it’s clicks you want, then clicks you will get.

Remember the much-lauded This girl can campaign? Watch the new video by FCB Inferno, with narrative by the late Maya Angelou reading Phenomenal Women:

The internet is now 28. Its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee lists its three biggest threats:

• Loss of control of personal data
• The spread of misinformation
• Lack of transparency in political advertising

Meanwhile Facebook insists it is striving to be ‘transparent and open’ in how it conducts business despite the way it reported the BBC to the police for exposing illegal images that were not removed from the site. A PR behemoth worries about Facebook’s approach and how to hold big business and government to account.

Following women’s day, Dave Buonaguidi says there is plenty of talk but not enough action for women in advertising

This week an ad pitched by the fictional Don Draper in Mad Men, 50 fictional years ago, was picked up by the real client for real ads this week.

The ISBA, the body that represents the brands being advertised, gets on the front foot thanks to added weight from Marc Pritchard's recent comments on digital and its new chief Phil Smith, who wants to change the way clients are represented by their agencies.

If we were to ask you who the king of the underground is, it wouldn’t be Ed Sheeran, whose new album has dominated charts, despite the majority of tracks not being technically 'singles'. More likely it would be Brixton’s hazemaster Actress and he has a new album and video:

And an interview with the man behind the mask, Darren Cunningham.