Print publications had this problem in the early days and so the BPA provided circulation audits. Yes media kits still whipped up the marketing spin, but as a planner you could lay those green sheets and yellow sheets side by side and make some objective baseline judgements.

This is not too much to ask from media companies today.

After BPA came broadcast and Nielson, boxes on sets reported back to the home office. Beyond that Nielson ratings were a bit shaky but overall, they provided a level playing field.

With perhaps the exception of Life Magazine, (and that is a stretch) no print publication ever came close to the monopolistic power of Google and now Facebook. Even Hearst, with all his power was puny by today’s standards.

And Broadcast bloomed and diluted into 200 channels in three short decades. But that was after the FCC came in and regulated local markets carefully limiting cross media ownership of local licenses.

Monopolies are bad for business.

Today we have ventured into far more dangerous waters. Marketers have become cheerleaders for the media monopolies that are frankly, stealing money from our clients — and frankly from all of us too.

Marketers have always tended to self-delusion and selling self delusion to clients. Those  of us truth tellers in this business are truly misfits. But when you work with a mid-sized B-to-B operation. When you are sitting across the table from the guy who is pulling those dollars out of his own wallet, if you want to earn his trust you’d better speak the truth. You and your client are on the frontlines. If you and your clients play in this very large slice of the market, you’ve taken your knocks. You can smell BS from 20 paces.

And here is what we smell:

Social Media is NOT effective in many cases, Facebook has not provided any answers on true activity. Who will benefit? Why we should buy? They have provided so many reasons NOT to trust them, their “auction” pricing is the least of it!

Search is no longer right for many companies — increasing cost is a huge factor. Google could help by making its auction far more transparent. When you buy shares on the NYSE you know the volume, the last tick — that’s the least Google could do. Who is bidding, how much and when? Why should I trust Google?

SEO has always been smoke and mirrors populated by hyperventilating “experts” who jump tag any twitch of the needle as a Google conspiracy. And yet, marketers are fixated by it! I was at a pre-Bing meeting at Microsoft. The guys there were promising a different sort of search engine, far more open. I said, “Really? How long will that really last?” Not long. It ended when we left the room.

When media companies are making what Google, Facebook et al. are they will never succumb to a tepid third-party audit scheme. Say what you want about Hitwise and Alexa they are not delivering what only the horse’s mouth can.

The only way to get what we need is with swift and sharp government regulation — don’t hold your breadth.

In the meantime what do the truth tellers do? They find their client’s True North. Judiciously, with care, testing, analyzing, tweaking programs and never, ever, following the marketing lemmings.