One thing I love about New Zealand is that weâre not mired in an election cycle years before the event. Weâre three weeks or so out from our General Election, and only now am I feeling things are heating up.
Itâs not that we havenât had drama. Weeks ago, Metiria Turei was co-leader of the Greens, Andrew Little led Labour, and Peter Dunne was aiming for another term as MP for ĆhÄriu and leader of United Future. None of these hold true in late August.
What is unusual is that Iâm undecided because of all these late changes, and we’re still learning about policies in some casesâI remember getting my manifesto out six months before an election, and the uncertainty here isn’t helping. The billboards have done nothing to sway me one way or another. Policy-wise, I have some things in common with each of the parties, excepting ACT, though probably like most New Zealanders, I haven’t had a chance to visit all the parties’ websites yet, though I will in the next few weeks. Various websites helping people decide based on stated policy actually give very different answers: On the Fence suggests I am both a National and Labour supporter (I often kid and say the parties are the same, just plus or minus 10 per cent); yet taken earlier, it said United Future and MÄori Party were the top two with the most in common with me. Vote Compass gives Green and Mana. The websites, then, are no help, because they base their answers on selected issues, and apparently Iâm both right- and left-wing.
Twitter is comparatively quiet in 2017, giving fewer clues about how candidates are thinking, and I hardly look at my Facebook (for obvious reasons). I have spied some of the TVCs, where Labour has done an excellent job, and (last I looked) National has uploaded only one to its YouTube channel, so I canât even see the first one that has been on telly. A lack of coordination between online and traditional media worries me.
Itâs an odd mix, none of whom really stand out.
The incumbent National Party currently has an unimaginative TVC that is an adaptation of the rowers of 2014, and it only serves to highlight that, after three terms, they are out of touch. Say what you will about the former PM, the Rt Hon John Key, he had a pretty keen sense of the electorate. Not so this National Party, where the Deputy PM gave this quote:
I see my friend Andy Boreham suggests âMinsterâ is a misspelling of âMonsterâ, but such a point makes a mockery of New Zealandersâ belief (even if it does not hold true with growing inequality) that being Deputy PM is no greater a duty or more important a job than being a union leader. Some might have voted for National before on the premise that John Key is rich (Iâm sure that worked for Trump, too), but, as we know, they arenât going to return the favour of a vote by giving up a share of their wealth with you. PM Bill English, whom I first met while he was Treasurer in 1999, is an intelligent man with a sense of humour that doesnât come across on television, and that wonât hold him in good stead this time out. Pity: there are many National MPs I like (e.g. Paul Foster-Bell, Simon OâConnor). The Natsâ 2002 campaign with Bill as leader was a disaster: I saw no outdoor advertising when I came back from Europe. This time thereâs a lot of outdoor, but none of it says anything to me, other than National has spent some money licensing new fonts. I should note that no one has won an election for a long, long time in this country using a typeface that has a single-storey lowercase a.
Labour has staged a turnaround like no other, one where leader Jacinda Ardern is neck in neck with the PM on one preferred prime minister poll. I had dismissed Labour earlier on as a party with unhealable divisions, but the speed at which Ardern and her party have pulled together an overhauled campaign is to be commended. Iâve never voted Labour before, and Iâm still not convinced that the divisions are gone, but I will say this of Ardern, just as I once did of myself when I stood for office in my 30s: if we screw it up, we have a lot, lot longer to live with the consequences. She will take this seriously. She has had more parliamentary experience at this point than Key when he first got to the PMâs office, and former PM Helen Clark has endorsed her. Rose-coloured glasses about the Clark administration will help, even if I was critical of certain aspects of it back then. Post-Little, Labour could get more Chinese New Zealanders voting for them, too, after an earlier screw-up with a real estate agentâs list that was handled horribly. Chinese NZers have long memories, and some labelled the gaffe racist. Ardern is a departure from Little and the message here is âDonât hinder Jacinda.â
Peter Dunneâs decision not to stand in ĆhÄriu means that the United Future party is at an end. Itâs a shame, because I have always got on with Peter, and he has been generous to me with his time, more so than my own MP. Similarly, the Greensâ James Shaw I count as a friend of over seven years, but the Turei scandal has left the party hurt, even if its policies remain on track. The signage has been appallingly dull, bereft of imagination, even if Jamesâs performance in a recent Nation debate clearly marks him out as the intellectual, aware of global trends. If we want a globalist (or at least a globally aware MP) in Parliament, then we could do far worse than ensuring the Greens get in above the 5 per cent threshold. Strategically, a party that has its origins in the environment (even if that message hasnât been hammered home of late) makes sense, as I believe we need to protect ours desperately. Vote Compass says Iâve most in common with the Greens this time out, and Toby Morris makes a good point with his latest cartoon.
The Opportunities Party has some good pointsâIâm in favour of closing tax loopholes for foreign companies operating on our shoresâand its leader, Gareth Morgan, who normally comes across as lacking the common touch, did well in the debate, at least when he had something to say. Iâve followed Morgan on Twitter for some time, long before this political foray, and often liked what he had to say. However, at either website TOP and I donât have that much in common.
The MÄori Party, as my supposed second choice based on On the Fence (at least the first time out a few weeks ago), could have received my vote after Peter decided not to stand, but Marama Foxâs performance in the above debate didnât impress me, even if she impressed all the talking heads in the studio. It goes to show how different things are in person. Fox has passion and fire, but didnât have the figures to back up her policiesâand I know from having been on the podium with my opponents that you should have them, and your researchers should have at least come up with an estimate. I donât know where Mana sits; I had a far better idea when Kim Dotcom was involved.
New Zealand First, helmed by the Rt Hon Winston Peters, the most establishment of all the politicians who successfully carries on an antiestablishment message, has signage up with Petersâ face and the words âHad enough?â On that note I find accord with New Zealand Firstâs message. I have had enough of Winston Peters, and I answer their advertisement in the affirmative. But I shanât be voting for them.
Facebook sent me a survey as one of our businesses has bought advertising with them. I’ve detailed my responses below, with a few notes. I’ve included Instagram in this, since their own advertising platform allows us to reach that.
What is the most important thing that Facebook can do to improve your advertising experience?
Some years ago, Facebook intentionally wrecked the sharing, so post sharing dropped 90 per cent. We all know why: the profit motive. Allowing a slight return to the higher levels would be useful because we know those shares were genuine. Iâd be happy to supplement those with a buy; right now I dislike having to fork out so much. You made plenty off us, itâs time to give regular customers a bit of a break.
What do you most value about advertising on Facebook relative to advertising with other digital platforms?
Nothing much, actually. You claim to have all these stats on people but I know from my own ad preferences that you are wrong on a lot of things (probably 40 per cent) about me. Even though I have opted out, you continue to collect preferences. How do I know I am advertising to people who want it? Also, I cannot change my location on Instagram (apparently you guys donât know where New York is) through any platform, so all the ads there are irrelevant to me. I see complete disadvantages about your platforms. We only buy with you in the hope that some of the advertising is targeted but we know full well that weâll be annoying part of the group you reach.
What an honour it was to appear as one of the first batch of people in the Human Rightsâ Commissionâs Give Nothing to Racism campaign. Taika Waititi, New Zealander of the Year (and a Lucire feature interviewee from way back) introduced the campaign with a hilarious video, and it was an honour to be considered alongside my old classmate Karl Urban, and other famous people such as Sonny Bill Williams, Sam Neill, Neil Finn, Lucy Lawless, and Hollie Smith. Somewhere along the line the Commission decided it would get some non-celebs like me.
The idea is that racism propagates through each of us. Laughing along with a joke. Letting casual racism in social media comments carry on. Excusing racist behaviour. Or simply accepting it as âthe way it isâ. Thereâs no place for it in 2017, certainly not in this country, and for those who seek to indulge in it (Iâm looking at certain people in politics and the media in particular), youâre simply covering up the fact youâve very little of substance to offer. I #givenothingtoracism.
A week ago, Avon found an inventive way to get its brand noticed in peak-hour traffic.
I could make this about how people don’t know how to drive these days, or about the media fascination with Asian drivers when the reality does not bear this out, but let’s make it all about Avonâsince they are the ones who have actually inspired a full blog post today. To think, it could have just been on my Instagram and Tumblr and I would have let it go, since the following video is over a week old.
To be fair, as well as posting on my own platforms, I thought it would only be fair to alert Avon about it on its Facebook. In this age of transparency, it’s not good to talk behind someone’s back. I would have used the website advertised on the side of this Mazda (avon.co.nz), but the below is all I get. (You can try it yourself here.) I told Avon about this, too. They need to know one of their people is a dangerous, inconsiderate, and selfish driver who is ignorant of basic New Zealand road rules, namely how a give-way sign works and how to change lanes. And if I were in their shoes, I’d want to know that the URL emblazoned in large letters on the side of my fleet of cars is wrong.
It was ignored for a while, now my post is deleted.
Immediately I had these five thoughts.
1. Its brand isn’t that great. When you’re starting from a poor position, the best thing to do is try to work harder. As a network marketer, Avon can’t afford to have an office that doesn’t deal with complaints. I might even be a customer. In any case, I’m part of the audienceâand these days, we can affect a brand as much as the official channels. For instance, this post.
2. In the 2000s and 2010s, social media are seen as channels through which we can communicate with organizations. Going against this affects your brand. (There’s a great piece in the Journal of Digital and Social Media Marketing, vol. 3, no. 1 that I penned. Avon would do well to read this and integrate social media marketing into its operations.)
3. If you’re an Avon rep and you know that the AustraliaâNew Zealand operation ignores people, then what support do you think you can count on? My post will have been seen by many people, and a follow-up one todayâinforming them it’s poor form to delete commentsâwill be seen by more. It discourages more than customersâits distributors surely will think twice. (I’m also looking at you, Kaspersky. Another firm to avoid.)
4. Advertising your website in large letters and have it not work is a major no-noâit contributes to the image I (and no doubt others) have on Avon as, well, a bit amateur.
5. This is a US firm. If you’re an exporter, isn’t now a really good time to show that you care about your overseas operations? Nation brands impact on corporate ones. Now I’m beginning to wonder if Avon might not be that interested in overseas sales any more. Their new president, with his stated views on free trade, has said in his inauguration speech that they need to ‘buy American’ and ‘hire American.’ Let’s delete stuff from foreigners!
The question I have now is: wouldn’t it have been easier to apologize for its representative’s inability to drive safely, and thank me for telling them their website is dead so they can get it fixed? The video contains the registration number, so Avon could have had a word to their rep.
This is all Marketing 101, yet Avon seems to have failed to grasp the basics. I guess the folks who flunked marketing at university found jobs after all.
As of today, Iâve sent off my evidence to the US Better Business Bureau so they can continue their investigation of Facebook. The DAA was too gutless to investigate but the BBB, by contrast, gives a damn.
Let me note here that I have nothing against Facebook making a buck. I just ask that it do so honestly, that it does what it says.
Facebook claims that you can opt out of targeted advertising, and that you can edit your preferences for that targeting, the same was what Google did in 2011. It was revealed then that Google lied, and the Network Advertising Initiative was able to follow up my findings and assured me it would work with them to sort their procedures out.
If you opt out of targeting, Facebook continues to gather information on you. The BBB noted to me in April that if I could show that Facebook was targeting based on personal information I did not provide (e.g. if you fed in a fake location as your home in Facebook and it serves you ads based on your real location), then it could be a violation of their principles. This is pretty easy to prove: just go to any ad in your feed, click on the arrow in the right-hand corner, and click âWhy was I shown this ad?â In most cases, your actual location will have something to do with it.
Secondly, there is a potential link between the preferences Facebook has stored on youâthe ones they say they would not useâand the ads you are shown. Facebook claims you can edit those preferences but as I showed last week, this is not true. Facebook will, in fact, repopulate all deleted preferences (and even add to them), but thanks to the company itself providing me with the smoking gun, I was able to connect those shown preferences with ads displayed between March and December 2016. It casts doubt on whether Facebook is actually targeting me based on freely given information, especially since, for example, I am being served ads for Oh Baby! when I donât have kids. (Oh Baby!, meanwhile, is one of the preferences in its settings.)
My Google investigation took three months; this took between eight and nine.
Weâll see if the BBB will take quite as longâthey might, because they say they tend to be inundated with complaints about Facebook, but find that most cases do not violate their principles. But Iâve shown them not only examples along the lines of what they suggested, but a few that go even further.
Above: The Holden Commodore SS-V, facing its last year of manufacture.
The current wisdom appears to be that when the Holden Commodore VF leaves production in 2017, itâll be replaced by the liftback version of the Opel Insignia B. After all, the only big sedan Ford Australiaâs offering in place of the now-defunct Falcon is the liftback version of the Mondeo, a car thatâs wider, taller, and with a longer wheelbase than the supposedly larger Falcon. I think the crystal ball-gazers are wrong.
I could say that the Australian and New Zealand big car buyer is very traditional and would balk at the idea of the big Holden being a hatch. But thatâs not the only reason. Thereâs a bigger one: China.
Above: GM currently makes the Opel Insignia A-based Buick Regal in China, after initially beginning with German production.
I had expected our car encyclopĂŠdia Autocade would reach 8,000,000 page views this month, just before its eighth anniversary. The difference was that this time, I was there last Monday GMT (the small hours of Tuesday in New Zealand) to witness the numbers tick overâalmost.
Usually, I find out about the milestones ex post facto, but happened to pop by the websiteâs statsâ page when it was within the last hundred before hitting 8,000,000âand took the below screen shot where the viewing numbers had reached 8,000,001 (I also saw 7,999,999; and no, these special admin pages are not counted, so my refreshing didnât contribute to the rise).
The site is on 3,344 individual entries (thereâs one image for each entry, if youâre going by the image excerpt), which is only 86 more than Autocade had when it reached 7,000,000 last October. The rate of viewing is a little greater than it was for the last million: while I’m recording it as five months below, it had only been March for just under two hours in New Zealand. Had Autocade been a venture from anywhere west of Aotearoa, we actually made the milestone on leap day, February 29.
Not bad for a website that has had very little promotion and relies largely on search-engine results. I only set up a Facebook page for it in 2014. Itâs been a labour of love more than anything else.
March 2008: launch
April 2011: 1,000,000 page views (three years for first million)
March 2012: 2,000,000 page views (11 months for second million)
May 2013: 3,000,000 page views (14 months for third million)
January 2014: 4,000,000 page views (eight months for fourth million)
September 2014: 5,000,000 page views (eight months for fifth million)
May 2015: 6,000,000 page views (eight months for sixth million)
October 2015: 7,000,000 page views (five months for seventh million)
March 2016: 8,000,000 page views (five months for eighth million)
I started the site because I was fed up with Wikipedia and its endless errors on its car pagesâIâve written elsewhere about the sheer fictions there. Autocade would not have Wikiality, and everything is checked, where possible, with period sources, and not exclusively online ones. The concept itself came from a car guide written by the late Michael Sedgwick, though our content is all original, and subject to copyright; and thereâs a separate story to tell there, too.
I acknowledge there are still gaps on the site, but as we grow it, weâll plug them. At the same time, some very obscure models are there, and Autocade sometimes proves to be the only online source about them. A good part of the South African motor industry is covered with material not found elsewhere, and Autocade is sometimes one of the better-ranked English-language resources on Chinese cars.
Iâd love to see the viewing rate increase even further: itâd be great to reach 10,000,000 before the end of 2016. It might just happen if the viewing rate increases at present levels, and we get more pages up. Fellow motorheads, please keep popping by.
A few years ago, I discovered that Google was monitoring and gathering user preferences even after one had opted out. Google would initially put an opt-out cookie that went with your browser when you first opt out, which is exactly what every other ad network doesâbut, then, within 24 hours, it would replace it with its standard cookie and begin tracking you again. It counted on people not returning to their ad preferences page, and the ploy may have worked for some two years before I discovered it, and reported it to the Network Advertising Initiative, who confirmed the error.
The NAI says that Google has remedied that, and I trust that it has. It didnât stop Google from hacking Iphone users the following year, circumventing the âDo not trackâ feature on the Safari browser, till they got busted by the Murdoch Press.
It seems these big Silicon Valley firms think they are a law unto themselves, as is evidenced by their approach to taxation, for instance, and it appears Facebook is now doing the same thing as Google when it comes to getting advertising preferences on you. In their world, user preferences are something to be spat on, not observed.
Facebook has often switched things on in its user preferences that you had switched off earlier, but I donât remember them having touched those settings for a few years. But a leopard doesnât change its spots. Recently, I discovered that Facebook had indeed turned on my advertising preference tracking, under âAds based on my use of websites and appsâ. I had it set to âNoâ; a month ago, I discovered this was set to âYesâ.
I promptly switched it off, but had discovered that Facebook had compiled quite the dossier on me on January 20. Had I agreed to it, this would have been fine; and I use Facebookâs targeting myself from time to time marketing to users that I believe have agreed to be tracked and marketed to.
Above: Facebook compiled a big dossier on my preferences for its ad targeting, though when you open it up, there are entries that bear no resemblance to what I like.
However, there are two worrying points here. The obvious one is Facebook disrespecting user preferences and collecting data on usâand there has been plenty of debate on just where those data go thanks to Mr Snowden. Secondly, for marketers, the data that Facebook has gathered are, to some degree, laughable.
As I reviewed and deleted I discovered things in there that I had no interest in whatsoever. In the time that Facebook had gathered data on me, it had supposedly built up a profile on me that was made up of over 1,000 points (above is the summary, though I have expanded this out to have a good read). I found, in my profile, that I was supposedly into search engine marketing, Westpac, dentistry, NASSCOM (not sure what this is), radar, cosmetology, unmanned aerial vehicles, ClickZ, Marabou (chocolate), miniskirts, high-heeled footwear (yes, I can understand that publishing a fashion magazine might have added these), National Basketball Association, the Houston Astres (who?), Leicester City FC, TNA Knockout, the Australia national rugby union team (fortunately, the All Blacks were accurately recorded), World Tag Team Championship (WWE), and the Authority (professional wrestling); I discovered that Facebook thinks Occupy Wall Street is a âReligious Centerâ. Now, some of these will have come from websites I may have browsed at, but that doesnât necessarily equate to my liking these things: what if you had browsed an article about the arrest of a child molester? Donât ask me where the Aussie rugby and wrestling come from, as I donât visit their sites or even news articles about either.
I spent considerable time deleting all of them, doing myself and Facebook a favour. Naturally, I switched off the tracking.
Above: My ad preference tracking is switched off. End of story? Unfortunately, not: Facebook doesn’t care what you’ve put in here.
I do think it is positive that Facebook reveals this, as it could have kept our preferences hidden, as it has done for years. It is only right that consumers are given a choice.
However, where are the ethics to continue doing it after a user has switched it off?
Because thatâs exactly what Facebook does, and, like Google, you canât pretend to me that these are all accidents. These are companies that believe they can do whatever they like, and intentionally have created systems to do so.
Interestingly, when I approached the US DMA about this data-gathering on January 22, I received no response, unlike the NAI, which got back to me after I furnished proof of Googleâs activities. At that point I had not told them who was doing it, I simply asked them what its position was, with its code of conduct, if a member were to gather data on a person even after that person had opted out.
Within two days, Facebook had built up a new profile about me, of just over 100 items. I checked with the DAA, which has a website where you can see if the opt-out cookies are present, and it confirmed that Facebookâs was. It seems, then, that Facebook does not honour its own opt-out cookie, exactly the same as Google. Whether it uses this data or not is immaterial: it shouldn’t be gathering them for the duration of the time I choose to be opted out. I havenât approached the DAA yet, but I will do after I get everything together.
The items, incidentally, were still laughable; even more so, because of the smaller number. By the 24th, I was apparently a fan of Bandcamp and the company Excite (remember them?), but to my recollection I had not visited any site about either. And the next day there were a few dozen data points, where apparently I liked B movies, Berlin (the band), the immune system, the MG ZR, Frank de Boer, Gracia Baur, sandals, Presbyterianism, the Mandarin language, and Trinidad and Tobago. Again, where this all came from, I have little clue.
Top: Within two days, Facebook had a number of points about me, despite my having chosen to have its advertising-preference tracking switched off. It’s Google all over again. Above: The DAA confirms that Facebook’s opt-out cookie is present, although as I’ve discovered, it makes no difference.
And so on. Every few days Iâd go in there, have a peek, and have a laugh, and noted that my tracking preference was still set to âOffâ.
I have accused Facebook of arrogance and this is yet another example. Iâve also accused them of incompetence.
Youâll have got to this point wondering why I still use it if I dislike the tracking. For a start, I shouldnât have to put up with user preferences being ignored, if the setting has been provided, and if Facebook itself has been notified (I have contacted them). And as long as I have an account, which, unfortunately I need to administer business pages and groups, the tracking will continue, even if I do not use any features for my personal Timeline. (In fact, I hardly do any more; to the point where Facebook always has, in my feed, a top post showing me what I did x years ago when I log in; reminding me, âGosh, didnât we have it good together?â liked a jilted lover.) By my own choice, I use Facebookâs messaging a lot (but not its app) and some very close friends contact me exclusively through that, and Iâm going to have to continue there, too, because there is some utility. I also realize the irony of having a “like” button on this blog.
In other words, Iâve minimized my activity with the site where I realistically can, and right now I donât care if I can no longer like, post, share or comment, which was becoming a very, very regular bug with Facebook anyway. (Itâs now getting more commonplace, as other friends begin getting the same symptoms with increasing frequency; it seems I hit the point before they did.)
Like with Google, whose privacy gaffes saw me minimize my contact with them, Iâve de-Facebooked where I can; and I accept I can go further (e.g. regular logging out and cookie-blocking). Iâll see where things go after I contact the DAA.
Some interesting bugs out there on Facebook that my friends are telling me about. One has been removed from all her groups, including one that I run (we never touched her account), another cannot comment any more (an increasingly common bug now), while Felicity Frockaccino, well known on the drag scene locally and in Sydney, saw her account deleted. Unlike LaQuisha St Redfern’s earlier this year, Felicity’s has been out for weeks, and it’s affected her livelihood since her bookings were in there. Facebook has done nothing so far, yet I’ve since uncovered another bot net which they have decided to leave (have a look at this hacked account and the bots that have been added; a lot of dormant accounts in Japan and Korea have suffered this fate, and Facebook has deleted most), despite its members being very obviously fake. Delete the humans, keep the bots.
Felicity didn’t ask but I decided to write to these people again, to see if it would help. There was a missing word, unfortunately, but it doesn’t change the sentiment:
Guys, last year you apologized to drag kings and queens for deleting their accounts. But this year, you have been deleting their accounts. This is the second one that I know of, and I donât know that many drag queens, which suggests to me that you [still] have it in for the drag community.
https://www.facebook.com/DoubleFFs/
Felicity Frockaccino is an international drag performer, and youâve affected her livelihood as her bookings were all in that account. This is the second time you deleted her, despite your public apology and a private one that you sent her directly. What is going on, Facebook? You retain bots and bot nets that I report, but you go around deleting genuine human users who rely on you to make their living. Unlike LaQuisha Redfernâs account, which you restored within days, this has been weeks now.
That’s right, she even received a personal apology after her account was deleted the first time. I had hoped that Facebook would have seen sense, since Felicity has plenty of fans. The first-world lesson is the same here as it is for Blogger: do not ever rely on Facebook for anything, and know that at any moment (either due to the intentional deletion on their end or the increasing number of database-write issues), your account can vanish.
Meanwhile, my 2012 academic piece, now titled âThe impact of digital and social media on brandingâ, is in vol. 3, no. 1, the latest issue of the Journal of Digital and Social Media Marketing. This is available via Ingenta Connect (subscription only). JDSMM is relatively new, but all works are double-blind, peer-reviewed, and it’s from the same publisher as The Journal of Brand Management, to which I have contributed before. It was more cutting-edge in 2012 when I wrote it, and in 2013 when it was accepted for publication and JDSMM promoted its inclusion in vol. 1, no. 1, but I believe it continues to have a lot of merit for practitioners today. An unfortunate, unintentional administrative error saw to its omission, but when they were alerted to it, the publisher and editors went above and beyond to remedy things while I was in the UK and it’s out now.
I was very interested to see this graphic on the Geely Instagram account today:
Spot the issue? I commented (and I wonder if they will delete it): ‘I would be a bit worried if the Geely GC7 found 71·5 mph its “flat out” speed. That would make it only as fast as a CitroĂ«n 2CV!’
That reference to the French 2CV (which I note the Germans called the Ente or, even more humorously, the Döschwo), is intentional. Not only is 71·5 mph the top speed of a CitroĂ«n 2CV, but here’s an advertisement from over 30 years ago (found here):
