02 Jul 2018 Search

Are there parallels between the rise of Worse Is Better in software and the success of the “uncreative counterrevolution” in advertising? (for more on that second one: John Hegarty: Creativity is receding from marketing and data is to blame) The winning strategy in software is to sacrifice consistency and correctness for simplicity. (probably because of network effects, principal-agent problems, and market failures.) And it seems like advertising has similar trade-offs between

  • Signal

  • Measurability (How well can we measure this project’s effect on sales?)

  • Message (Is it persuasive and on brand?)

Just as it’s rational for software decision-makers to choose simplicity, it can be rational for marketing decision-makers to choose measurability over signal and message. (This is probably why there is a brand crisis going on—short-term CMOs are better off when they choose brand-unsafe tactics, sacrificing Message.)

As we’re now figuring out how to use market-based tools to fix market failures in software, where can we use better market design to fix market failures in advertising?