• Black Ops Advertising

  • Native Ads, Content Marketing, and the Covert World of the Digital Sell
  • By: Mara Einstein
  • Narrated by: Tamara Marston
  • Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (16 ratings)

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Black Ops Advertising

By: Mara Einstein
Narrated by: Tamara Marston
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Publisher's summary

From Facebook to Talking Points Memo to the New York Times, often what looks like fact-based journalism is not. It's advertising. Not only are ads indistinguishable from reporting, the Internet we rely on for news, opinions, and even impartial sales content is now the ultimate corporate tool. Listener beware: content without a corporate sponsor lurking behind it is rare indeed.

Black Ops Advertising dissects this rapid rise of "sponsored content", a strategy whereby advertisers have become publishers and publishers create advertising - all under the guise of unbiased information. Covert selling, mostly in the form of native advertising and content marketing, has so blurred the lines between editorial content and marketing message that it is next to impossible to tell real news from paid endorsements. In the 21st century, instead of telling us to buy, buy, BUY, marketers "engage" with us so that we share, share, SHARE - the ultimate subtle sell.

Why should this concern us? Because personal data, personal relationships, and our very identities are being repackaged in pursuit of corporate profits. Because tracking and manipulation of data make "likes" and tweets and followers the currency of importance, rather than scientific achievement or artistic talent or information the electorate needs to fully function in a democracy. And because we are being manipulated to spend time with technology, to interact with "friends," to always be on, even when it is to our physical and mental detriment.

©2016 Mara Einstein (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

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Stealthy Title Is as Tricky as the Tactics it Attacks

Started off with excellent information about how digital ads workin a number of different contexts.

Then it morphed into a strong editorial opinion, poorly documented, generalizing unethical practices as something every publisher does with joy.

It finishes with one of the most self complementary autobiographical diatribes, proclaiming everyone should be stuck in the past like the author, and suggesting all of the public is too dumb to know the difference between an ad and a story.

Simply not worth reading another word after the halfway point.

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2 people found this helpful

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Disturbing

This was a very disturbing book to listen to, but everyone should.
The author breaks down and shows what's going on: how we are being manipulated at every turn.

If you liked the documentaries "The Merchants of Cool" and "The Century of the Self" this is the book for you.
Highly recommended.

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It's too late if you ask me....

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