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Three execs from the largest digital publishers sat down yesterday to have a “discussion” about advertising and the future of measurement (video here at around 15:00), and things got a little awkward on stage when Facebook’s Gokul Rajaram and Google’s Neal Mohan got into a very PR-cushioned argument about the future of ad measurement. It’s easy to perceive this as a difference of opinion between two competing companies, but what really underlies this spat is a massive measurement shift underway that will have a huge impact on the future of both companies. I know this because I’ve spent time working directly with attribution modeling that accurately maps consumer influence and behavior across the full purchase cycle. These tools are quickly catching up to reality, which scares the shit out of Google.

Over the last decade, Google has entrenched themselves as the market leader in digital ads because they are able to deliver an interested buyer to the end merchant or businesses. That’s what a good search engine does — help consumers find what they’re already looking for — and Google is the dominant search engine today, therefore delivering the majority of consumers to businesses. But few businesses understand the full spectrum of consumer influence due to limitations in measurement solutions. The measurement model referred to as “Last Click” has been the most prevalent because it’s the easiest for businesses to understand. This model attributes conversions to the last touch point of a consumer - quite often a search engine. This puts a lot of ROI into just one component of the full purchase process, and — since advertisers allocate budgets based on data — a lot of dollars into getting that last click on Google. The measurement community understands that this is unfairly weighting most of the value into Google’s camp, but for the average marketer, the inputs that drive consumers to perform interested searches are still relatively ambiguous.

In the last five years, Facebook has become increasingly dominant in the category of frequency and time spent for consumers. In other words, FB controls a huge market share of inputs for consumers, and it is in their best interest to drive clarity in the market around the value of these inputs. As improving “Multi-touch Attribution” models (which allow for this clarity by measuring influential touch points that drive users to a purchase event) permeate the market, it is inevitable that a significant amount of attribution shifts from Google to Facebook, impacting measurable ROI. Ad dollars will follow this ROI, giving FB a large upside on the future advertising market.

Google will fight tooth and nail to maintain their market position (and you can hear the distress in Mohan’s rhetoric), but if FB can continue to maintain and increase their share of consumer touch points, it is only a matter of time until we see a shift of ad dollars following what has already happened to the consumer purchase cycle over the past five years. 

Fear of failure is what separates the dreamers from the doers

Warning: this post is “thorough” aka very long.

TLDR: We are all conditioned to respond to extrinsic stimulus, but for the most part, “artists” are their own boss. This is a process for understanding how to create the intrinsic stimulus needed to help you create the work than exists within you.

I recently read Stephen Pressfield’s book, The War of Art. “Art,” in the context of this book, is simply the act of creating or performing – an experience to which we all can relate. What I share below is my own interpretation punctuated with several of the most poignant statements in his book. I’ve chunked it into 4 pieces to help convey my thoughts in a digestible fashion. This isn’t meant to replace the experience of reading the book, but it’s extensive enough to grasp the general concepts and start making changes in your own perspective.

1. Performance Under Governance
2. Resistance
3. Personal Governance in the Face of Emotion and Ego
4. Creativity as a Tappable Resource

Performance Under Governance:

If you’ve ever worked in a highly demanding job, you’ve no doubt experienced moments of stress that push you to perform at great heights and deliver on great feats asked of you. Many have this experience in higher education or competitive sports as well. A higher up—usually a boss, teacher, or coach—demands an immense task of you and you remarkably rise to the occasion, perhaps weathered and worn at the finish line, but no long-term damage caused. If anything, a new outward boundary of performance potential has been recognized…. This dynamic—performance under governance—is simply an individual’s reaction the presence of an external stimulus. You can see this play out in social scenarios as well. Very often, our actions are driven by something happening outside of our own control. What’s particularly interesting is that reactions under governance seem to generate performance that is beyond what we might consider possible within the bounds of self-induced action. Why is this the case? It may have something to do with our earliest stages of development. For example, humans spend a larger part of their life in a dependency stage—that is, unable to fend for themselves in the world—than any other animal on earth. Everything we know as a developing human is wrapped around the context of reacting to an external stimulus, whether it be parents, coaches or teachers, so it is reasonable to assume that this behavior of self-motivated performance is something that must be learned over time.

“The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.”

Who in their right mind would want “to find masters to govern over them.”? Just about everyone, actually… People seek this type of governance in their life for comfort, because the Resistance beheld in self mastery is so strong. Under governance, choice is no longer a present lever for Resistance. For some people, choice can be paralyzing. So, is it possible to develop a similarly performant reaction from an internal-only stimulus? This is the concept explored in this book.

Resistance:

In anything you do, there is an theoretical outward boundary of your potential, and then there is where you actually net out. To what do we owe this outcome?

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” 

Pressfield encourages you to view each endeavor as if a quantity of Resistance is being applied against your efforts to accomplish said task. Resistance is a tangible adversary that you compete against every day, in everything you do. Certain undertakings will present you with more Resistance than others. For the most part, the level of Resistance you experience is directly correlated to the importance of accomplishing the task.

“Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”

This seems a little counterintuitive. If something is important to me and my personal evolution, shouldn’t I love doing it? But the truth is that we are more emotionally attached to the outcome, so we feel greater Resistance related to the potential of failure. Many of us are prisoners to the outcome of our most important enterprises. This is a shackle we should all seek to eradicate - but more on that later. 

How many awesome projects have you started only to stall out before completion?

“The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows we’re about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it’s got.”

The term “completion” does funny things to people. Most people think completion of an important project means it is the best possible work they can create. The problem is, we never get there, and that elusive completion is just Resistance scaring you away from exposing your work. In this sense, Resistance is fed by your ego’s attachment to the outcome of your work’s exposure. 

One last note on Resistance – a matter of perspective: We tend to view challenging tasks as things that are just hard to complete. But if you’re able to pit yourself against the tangible concept of Resistance, you’ve given yourself an adversary to compete against and chip away at, and beating an adversary is a lot more fun than just battling something that is difficult. 

Personal Governance in the Face of Emotion and Ego:

If we can deliver peak results in the presence of external influence, can we replicate that output in the absence of external influence? The internal battle is lost w/o a leader, so we must learn to lead ourselves. Pressfield calls this concept “Turning Pro.” Becoming a professional is about having a new relationship with yourself – one where you’re able self-impose the stimulus necessary to react and perform on a level equal to or greater than what you know possible in the presence of external stimulus. Others might call this concept “discipline.”

By comparing the tendencies of a Pro versus that of an Amateur, Pressfield is able to draw us a clearer picture of what holds many of us back in the creation process. It all comes down to the outcome of the work and one’s own emotional attachment to that outcome. Amateurs are slaves to the love they identify in the work most important to their personal evolution. Quite ironic, for those keeping score. So, what does a Pro do, in contrast?

“We do not overidentify with our jobs. We may take pride in our work, we may stay late and come in on weekends, but we recognize that we are not our job descriptions. The amateur, on the other hand, overidentifies with his avocation, his artistic aspiration. He defines himself by it. He is a musician, a painter, a playwright. Resistance loves this. Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and overterrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes him.”

So in the end, the Amateur lays slain to his own love for his art. 

“The professional has learned, however, that too much love can be a bad thing. Too much love can make him choke. The seeming detachment of the professional, the cold-blooded character to his demeanor, is a compensating device to keep him from loving the game so much that he freezes in action. Playing for money, or adopting the attitude of one who plays for money, lowers the fever.”

The best value you can extract from this book is an evolution of your perspective. It is true that we are drawn to professional endeavors that contain or manifest things that we love. That’s something we all strive for and dream passionately about. However, it is that same love that creates the largest Resistance to overcome. In order to truly deliver in these endeavors, we must knowingly alter our perspective to one that views these undertakings as more black and white, or “cold-blooded.” Carry out these tasks for the sake of discipline, to defeat Resistance. Remove the emotional identification with the outcome and give yourself a professional order to create and perform, no matter the conditions.

“When people say an artist has a thick skin, what they mean is not that the person is dense or numb, but that he has seated his professional consciousness in a place other than his personal ego.”

To “seat one’s professional consciousness in a place other than the personal ego” is a profound mode of operation. Ego is a significant influence in any citizen of the Western world, but the best artists have managed to transcend the Ego as the reward center attached to the outcome. They create for the sake of creation. Much easier said than done… but it can be achieved by viewing the creation process as a battle against your own personal Resistance to create again and again.  

“He reminds himself it’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.”

My Dad always tells me, “pressure is a privilege.” Be proud to be a warrior, competitor, or creator. While the outcome can be anywhere from beautiful to ugly, the process is the real gift to be respected. 

“The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality. Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working.”

Take the power away from everyone else. They are not competing on the same field as you. To concern yourself with the critics is to give a little more power to the Resistance you will face each time you sit down to the table or step up to the bat.

Pressfield, an accomplished author himself, explains his own practice for imposing governance over himself to elicit performance.

“I like the idea of being Myself, Inc. That way I can wear two hats. I can hire myself and fire myself. I can even, as Robin Williams once remarked of writer-producers, blow smoke up my own ass. Making yourself a corporation (or just thinking of yourself in that way) reinforces the idea of professionalism because it separates the artist-doing-the-work from the will-and-consciousness-running-the-show. No matter how much abuse is heaped on the head of the former, the latter takes it in stride and keeps on trucking. Conversely with success: You-the-writer may get a swelled head, but you-the-boss remember how to take yourself down a peg. Have you ever worked in an office? Then you know about Monday morning status meetings. The group assembles in the conference room and the boss goes over what assignments each team member is responsible for in the coming week. When the meeting breaks up, an assistant prepares a work sheet and distributes it. When this hits your desk an hour later, you know exactly what you have to do that week. I have one of those meetings with myself every Monday. I sit down and go over my assignments. Then I type it up and distribute it to myself. I have corporate stationery and corporate business cards and a corporate checkbook. I write off corporate expenses and pay corporate taxes. I have different credit cards for myself and my corporation. If we think of ourselves as a corporation, it gives us a healthy distance on ourselves. We’re less subjective. We don’t take blows as personally. We’re more cold-blooded; we can price our wares more realistically. Sometimes, as Joe Blow himself, I’m too mild-mannered to go out and sell. But as Joe Blow, Inc., I can pimp the hell out of myself. I’m not me anymore. I’m Me, Inc.”

Can you really just role play as your own boss? You’re already adept at taking orders from someone else. Many of us are comfortable giving order to others to carry out. But can you give yourself orders and create the same sense of pressure present when an external source hands them down? It’s almost a need to develop split personas, or a controlled case of schizophrenia, to throw a scary word out there… If you can manage to impose this type of governance over yourself, you can focus more of your energy into Creation, which Pressfield identifies as the most important endeavor of all.

Creativity as a Tappable Resource:

“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” - Somerset Maugham”

Somerset is a Pro because he recognizes that waiting for “inspiration” is a folly of the Amateur. To be a Pro is to summon creativity through the natural act of creation.

At this point, Pressfield gets a bit transcendental is his interpretations of the source of creative output. 

“…the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying… Because when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.”

There is an old Wayne Gretzky quote that goes: “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Pressfield takes this concept further to explain that by taking consistent shots as a soldier of your war with Resistance, you will enlist the powers of the universe to manifest what is to come. You are a soldier, a vessel for the Gods. It is your job to create and they will help usher the outcome.

We all stand on the doorway of something (that which we seek to create). Pressfield encourages us to enter with the confidence of the powers of the universe behind our sails, rather than solely the confidence of our personal skills and technique. I have never been particularly religious in my pursuits in life, but I have witnessed the power that religion is able to bestow in individuals who believe they are carrying out acts in the name of a higher power. Even the most secular of men will respect the power of belief itself, which science has proven can have many improbable impacts, such as overcoming a disease or incurable condition.

By now, Pressfield has helped us recognize that the act of creating is everything, and consistent, disciplined creation can carry you to the loftiest of places.

“When we conceive an enterprise and commit to it in the face of our fears, something wonderful happens. A crack appears in the membrane. Like the first craze when a chick pecks at the inside of its shell. Angel midwives congregate around us; they assist as we give birth to ourselves, to that person we were born to be, to the one whose destiny was encoded in our soul, our daimon, our genius.”

You are not alone. The universe is here to help you carry out that which you most desire. It is your life’s job to chase it, or let it be forever imprisoned in Resistance…

The art of the music video is rich with creative displays of visual secondaries for the centerpiece - the audio. Holding the musical track on the highest pedestal is the sensical format. It’s all about the music, so find something else to add to it. As technology for consuming music progresses, music videos are far less relevant due to the cost of watching something vs the precipitously dropping cost of just listening to something specific. Music videos are a tired format. So what is one way to juice up the experience? Defer your music to an impressively superior video of interest. Say, a micro-documentary of young indian children and men competing in a gravity-defying ring known as the ‘Indian Well of Death.’ Make that your primary character of interest for consumers. Now pretend for a moment, at the beginning, that this whole thing is about your song. Then let viewers’ attention become rapt in the visual story, while your song slides underneath, barely noticeable, but enjoying as a background track. 

Is it more effective? I don’t know, but I want to show this video to more people than I would have if it were just another collection of close-up slo-mo cuts of the band playing a song while some weird people on a weird street are doing weird things.

I think there are two basic scenarios that get you to this type of output. Either you’ve outgrown your ego and are thinking strategically about a creative process to subvert the typical consumption patterns, or you’ve reached a point of desperation that you have to cling to superior content to hope for some coat-tail distribution.

Either way, I want to go to here.

This is one of the more clever “Vines” I’ve seen, both for the ‘frame-within-a-frame-etc’ technique, and mostly bc Ogilvy touts Twitter’s Ad API using Twitter’s own product, which can’t hurt their client-platform relationship.

View it here: https://vine.co/v/bwx69TuLtr0

still screenshot: 

For those who value accessible perspective gathering, I recommend this film. I saw Samsara last summer and would have to describe it as an exercise in human experience through film. It’s like the visual sparknotes from an eclectic trip around the world. The film is a sequence of extremely intense, intimate scenes, portrayed for 5-10 minutes each in gorgeous 70mm film.  No words or narration, just beautiful, bizarre and sometimes uncomfortably immersive. A 90-minute injection of societal perspective.

Pro-tip: if you’re bringing someone along, tell them it’s a silent film beforehand. ;)