The internet is becoming harder to trust

There was a video this week worth watching from Lulu Cheng Meservey which talks about how people are getting very good at spotting fake engagement, fake launches, paid posts, and the general "fugazi" spammers and a certain type of marketer engages in online.

The consequence of this is larger than simply “I don't believe this post.” What people start thinking is closer to: "I don't believe this company." This is the behavior of grifter companies, penny stock scammers, and hypemen looking to make a quick buck. The behavior of get rich quick schemers is bleeding into real marketing, and that's a shame, because it certainly can kill a promising startup.

All this digital fakery is another reason out of home (OOH) is becoming increasingly important. You can manufacture a lot of things online: views, engagement, comments, retweets, and increasingly even the creative itself.

But it's actually impossible to fake a billboard on a highway, a spectacular takeover in Times Square, or a campaign that thousands of actual people see every day on their commute.

OOH helps you have launches that aren't fake. Because it puts your brand into the real world, where actual people encounter it. The signaling is that you are a real company, with real products, who doesn't take shortcuts to screw over users (that's what online fakery communicates you'll probably do).

After many years of this, I'd much rather have 250,000 real people see my launch in the physical world than manufacture 1,000,000 bot impressions from accounts nobody believes are real.

The more the internet fills up with synthetic attention, the more valuable real-world attention becomes. Let us help you own the space.