Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else)

by Ken Auletta Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross

Overview

An intimate and profound reckoning with the changes buffeting the $2 trillion global advertising and marketing business from the perspective of its most powerful players, by the bestselling author of Googled

Advertising and marketing touches on every corner of our lives, and is the invisible fuel powering almost all media. Complain about it though we might, without it the world would be a darker place. And of all the industries wracked by change in the digital age, few have been turned on its head as dramatically as this one has. We are a long way from the days of Don Draper; as Mad Men is turned into Math Men (and women--though too few), as an instinctual art is transformed into a science, the old lions and their kingdoms are feeling real fear, however bravely they might roar.

Frenemies is Ken Auletta's reckoning with an industry under existential assault. He enters the rooms of the ad world's most important players, some of them business partners, some adversaries, many "frenemies," a term whose ubiquitous use in this industry reveals the level of anxiety, as former allies become competitors, and accusations of kickbacks and corruption swirl. We meet the old guard, including Sir Martin Sorrell, the legendary former head of WPP, the world's largest ad agency holding company; while others play nice with Facebook and Google, he rants, some say Lear-like, out on the heath. There is Irwin Gotlieb, maestro of the media agency GroupM, the most powerful media agency, but like all media agencies it is staring into the headlights as ad buying is more and more done by machine in the age of Oracle and IBM. We see the world from the vantage of its new powers, like Carolyn Everson, Facebook's head of Sales, and other brash and scrappy creatives who are driving change, as millennials and others who disdain ads as an interruption employ technology to zap them. We also peer into the future, looking at what is replacing traditional advertising. And throughout we follow the industry's peerless matchmaker, Michael Kassan, whose company, MediaLink, connects all these players together, serving as the industry's foremost power broker, a position which feasts on times of fear and change.

Frenemies is essential reading, not simply because of what it says about this world, but because of the potential consequences: the survival of media as we know it depends on the money generated by advertising and marketing--revenue that is in peril in the face of technological changes and the fraying trust between the industry's key players.

Editorial Reviews

JULY 2018 - AudioFile

Longtime NEW YORKER contributor Ken Auletta intelligently discusses the changes in global advertising, emphasizing the perspectives of the most powerful players and influencers. A great deal of our economy is directly tied to media used for advertising and marketing. Both are fraying around the edges, resulting in those who desire to promote products, those who broker advertising agencies, and those who are Internet powerbrokers becoming simultaneously friends and enemies: “frenemies.” Jonathan Todd Ross’s warm, friendly baritone effectively enlightens listeners on MediaLink’s founder and CEO, Michael Kassan, who is portrayed as the ultimate representative of the sea changes in global marketing. There is much to learn here, and it is presented in a most entertaining manner. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

04/16/2018
New Yorker media critic Auletta (Googled) masterfully maps the rapidly evolving topography of the advertising industry. Once a freewheeling, three-martini-lunch, money-flowing industry, advertising has undergone drastic changes in the decades since the Mad Men era, particularly since the advent of the Internet, and Auletta ably traces the dramatic shifts. He profiles executives at established powerhouses, such as MediaLink’s Michael Kassan and Wenda Millard, WPP’s Martin Sorrell, and GroupM’s Irwin Gotlieb, as well as newer power players, such as Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s v-p of global marketing. Perhaps most prescient is Auletta’s spot-on analysis of the interplay between traditional and social media, including traditional-media executives’ concerns over the tremendous amount of data available to Facebook and Twitter and the competitive edge it brings to those platforms over long-standing outlets like TV and magazines (not to mention the related privacy concerns.) Other fascinating topics include how efforts such as Citibank’s Citi Bike bike-sharing program in New York City and YouTube Red represent new forms of advertising; how Facebook fell prey to Russian attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election; and how smartphones have revolutionized advertising. Intelligent and well researched, Auletta’s lively survey serves as an excellent primer to a brave new world. (June)

From the Publisher

A brightly readable, cinematic tour through the seismic changes currently altering the face and the very nature of the marketing and advertising professions. . . . the most vivid account to date of what may be the most crucial moment in advertising history – the moment when data went from servant to master.” — Christian Science Monitor
 
“[A] timely dive into an industry in tumult. . . . Auletta, a veteran New York writer who has covered both Wall Street and the media for decades, does a remarkable job of digging into the personalities and the covert deals.”—Financial Times

“Auletta masterfully maps the rapidly evolving topography of the advertising industry. . . . Perhaps most prescient is Auletta’s spot-on analysis of the interplay between traditional and social media. . . . Other fascinating topics include how efforts such as Citibank’s Citi Bike bike-sharing program in New York City and YouTube Red represent new forms of advertising; how Facebook fell prey to Russian attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election; and how smartphones have revolutionized advertising. Intelligent and well researched, Auletta’s lively survey serves as an excellent primer to a brave new world.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Auletta delves into how disruptions are impacting the most powerful agencies and personalities in the business and changing the way advertising is bought, sold, and created. With journalistic precision, the author profiles the executives and companies that have dominated the advertising, marketing, and media industries over the past decade before pivoting to describe how relatively new influencers such as Facebook and Google have overturned conventional thinking.”—Library Journal
 
“However distant, even repugnant, the advertising and marketing business might seem to the average consumer, it is the fuel that drives a First World economy, Auletta argues. . . . Astute, colorful, fully informed. . . . an important if utterly disquieting book.”—Booklist, starred review

“In this well-researched, personality-packed account, [Ken Auletta] examines the baffling choices facing advertisers (hundreds of media channels, billions of smartphones, etc.) and the technological threats to agencies, from ad blockers to targeted, computerized ad-buying. . . .  [A] lively narrative, which delves into the major agencies and most corners of the business. . . . A bright, informative take on an industry in turmoil.”—Kirkus, starred review

“Now more than ever, advertising is the lifeblood that sustains most journalism, television, and entertainment. But with the advent of Google, Facebook, and other digital players, the advertising industry is being fundamentally disrupted. Ken Auletta brilliantly chronicles this drama with his usual combination of behind-the-scenes reporting filled with colorful characters, surprising revelations, and judicious insights. This riveting book shows again why Auletta is the premier reporter of our era on the fascinating and ever-changing worlds of communications and media.” — Walter Isaacson
 
“Ken Auletta is a wizard at deconstructing the advertising business of yesterday today and tomorrow.  If you’re in or interested in media, toss this book at your peril…” —Barry Diller
 
“Frenemies really goes deep in examining the complexities of our industry from multiple points of view. You feel like you have a ringside seat in an industry that is going through enormous disruption. Well done!” — Bill Koenigsberg, chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies
 
"For any Madmen fan who wants to know what happened next, Ken Auletta's book is an entertaining, insightful and occasionally terrifying dive into the heart of 21st century advertising.  Auletta is the Bob Woodward of the media industries; his access to the inside story is unparalleled, and his story-telling is a treat." — Tim Wu

JULY 2018 - AudioFile

Longtime NEW YORKER contributor Ken Auletta intelligently discusses the changes in global advertising, emphasizing the perspectives of the most powerful players and influencers. A great deal of our economy is directly tied to media used for advertising and marketing. Both are fraying around the edges, resulting in those who desire to promote products, those who broker advertising agencies, and those who are Internet powerbrokers becoming simultaneously friends and enemies: “frenemies.” Jonathan Todd Ross’s warm, friendly baritone effectively enlightens listeners on MediaLink’s founder and CEO, Michael Kassan, who is portrayed as the ultimate representative of the sea changes in global marketing. There is much to learn here, and it is presented in a most entertaining manner. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2018-04-03
How technological change has "convulsed" the advertising industry.Mad Men's Don Draper would not recognize today's ad business, writes New Yorker media critic Auletta (Googled: The End of the World As We Know It, 2009, etc.). Once dominated by creatives and clients producing ads for print, radio, and TV, the modern industry relies on "machines, algorithms, pureed data, artificial intelligence—and on the skills of engineers." The $2 trillion global business is "struggling…to figure out how to sell products on mobile devices without harassing consumers, how to reach a younger generation accustomed to dodging ads, how to capture consumer attention in an age where choices proliferate and a mass audience is rare." In this well-researched, personality-packed account, the author examines the baffling choices facing advertisers (hundreds of media channels, billions of smartphones, etc.) and the technological threats to agencies, from ad blockers to targeted, computerized ad-buying. With trust eroding between clients and agencies, many clients find "neutral" guidance from MediaLink, a firm that orchestrates most relationships in the business. Auletta uses Michael Kassan—ad "power broker," MediaLink founder, and Brooklyn-born son of a Catskills comic—as the thread for his lively narrative, which delves into the major agencies and most corners of the business. There are deft portraits of agency heads, including the Cambridge- and Harvard-educated Martin Sorrell, founder of WPP, the world's largest agency (he popularized the term "frenemies" for firms that both compete and cooperate, notably Google and Facebook, which take ad money but refuse to share data with advertisers), and the stylish Irwin Gotlieb, chair of GroupM media company, part of WPP, who "looks as if he just slid out of a barber's chair" and "speaks slowly, as if inspecting each word." Auletta also covers privacy, kickbacks to agencies, the growing importance of data scientists and engineers, and how media clients are building in-house ad agencies.A bright, informative take on an industry in turmoil.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171996161
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	06/05/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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