A chat with a retired media buyer at a diner in Omaha changed how I see ad spend

I was grabbing coffee about three years ago and got talking to an older guy at the counter. He used to buy TV spots in the 90s. He told me, 'We had one Nielsen book for the whole city, and we'd plan a $20,000 buy based on a hunch and a handshake.' Now I'm staring at a dashboard with a thousand data points for a $50 Facebook test. It's wild how much the job has shifted from gut feeling to pure numbers. Has anyone else had a moment that really showed you how different this work is now?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_matthew1mo ago

That dashboard probably has more data points than that guy ever met in his whole career. We traded gut feelings for a million graphs that all say the same thing.

grace5081mo ago

But graphs can't replace real experience.

mia_davis251mo ago

Lol graphs are just organized experience though. They show you what actually happened, not just one person's story.