A bet that'll never pay off.
Teeing off on digital marketing tactics in desperate need of a strategy.
I am not a gambler. Never have been. In my early 20s, I went to the casino with friends a few times, but mostly just for the experience and the free drinks. I felt a certain sting the first time I sat at a blackjack table and traded $40 for a small pile of plastic chips…and I just never really forgot that.
Nothing against folks who like to gamble, of course. Many of my friends do. It’s just not something I ever personally connected with.
…So why, the hell, am I getting blasted non-stop by ads for online casinos?
It’s a constant onslaught. I listen to a podcast…and there are two minutes of ads for online gambling. I browse Reddit…and every other sponsored post is an ad for an online casino. Same with Instagram.
Now, of course, I do know why I’m being served these ads: I’m a 30 year old man, and I’m sure whatever data these companies have says that 30 year old men are in their target audience. And that’s all well and good…kind of. Because there’s still something quite strange going on here.
You know what else a lot of 30 year old men love? Professional sports. But I don’t really watch a lot of sports, and the algorithm has had no problem figuring that out. I don’t get ads for anything sports related.
And yet. Despite having having never googled anything about online gabling, or participating in it in any way, I am constantly under assault by a barrage of mind-meltingly colorful ads, encouraging me to PLAY DOLPHIN WATCH AND WIN BIG or whatever.
What gives? I don’t really know, so instead, I’m going to explore something a little deeper and more compelling.
Some advertisers really are capable of wearing you down. They actually can convert you into becoming a customer by simply hammering you nonstop with ads. You’ve maybe even had that kind of experience before, I know I certainly have. Suddenly, you see That Thing You Googled That One Time everywhere, again and again, over and over and over and over, and eventually, you do actually go, “You know, maybe I should get that.”
Know why that works? Because there’s something in those ads that connected with something inside of you. It’s a cheap, nasty, quick-and-dirty version of Values-Driven Storytelling; an advertiser starts signaling a value at you, hoping that it’ll connect with a value that you have.
Maybe you really want a new paid of comfy slippers…and you keep getting hit with ads showcasing just how comfy those $60 shearling-lined bad boys are. You start off skeptical, but over time, the ads wins you over, and you spend the money. Why? Because the advertiser told you a very brief, very simple story that connected with what you value, which, in this theoretical case, is comfort.
The online gambling ads that I keep getting served not only fail to move the needle with me—they actively piss me off. Why? Because they’re not even remotely trying to connect with my vales. Again, nothing about my browsing history or personal behavior suggests that I’m the right target for these ads…but if they were to combine their utter ubiquity with a message that actually tried to speak to me about what I care about, maybe there’s a chance that they’d be effective with me. It’s hard to imagine, but it’s possible.
I have many values they could theoretically exploit. I care about my independence. I care about having a good time with my friends and blowing off steam. I like to believe that I’m someone who’s living an interesting, unusual, and open-minded life. A good advertiser would do something, anything, to try to connect with those values, because that’s how you get people to take action: you tell a values-driven story that connects with them on a fundamental, human level and invites them into a community with you.
Instead, I get digital ads whose color pallets make them look as if they’re designed for children. Scroll past one, scroll past another…eventually, it genuinely starts to get to you. No one loves ads interrupting their browsing, but at least if they connected with me in any way, I wouldn’t find them irritating. Maybe I’d even read them. Instead, it just feels like a big, colorful, intelligence-insulting interruption.
Marketing is tactics…but storytelling is strategy. That’s the key thing that these advertisers misunderstand. They’ve gone all in on their tactic—target men of a certain age with ads for our online casinos—and completely neglected to tell an even remotely convincing or engaging story. I have no reason to click on the ad. I see one ad, I see ten ads, I see three hundred ads, the likelihood that I click on it doesn’t change. It’s still 0%, because nothing they’ve shown me connects with my values at all. It’s just raw, random tactics, in desperate search of an overarching strategy.
Do this to get ahead.
Each week, I share actionable insights inspired by the ideas in this newsletter. Here’s a key takeaway to help you get better at doing what you do:
Worry less about marketing tactics, and more about the story you’re telling. Marketing is one of those things that can drive entrepreneurs and small businesses crazy. For so many of us, marketing feels like navigating a labyrinth. When to post? How often? Where? What? Why? Should we do a podcast? A newsletter? Are we on TikTok? Instagram? We end up button-mashing, and not getting the results we want from it anyway. It’s because the emphasis is one the wrong thing. Again: marketing is tactics, storytelling is strategy. You’ll need both…but if you don’t have a strategy, you’ll just be deploying random tactics, and getting random results. Simon Sinek said “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it,” and he was right. Your story is your why. Figure out your story and the audience you’re telling it to, and the right marketing tactics will likely become clear.
Love this, Dylan. Even as an experienced marketer, I find myself getting mired in tactics sometimes and losing sight of the big picture. I love this reminder that the story is the thing. Always. Thank you!