Toe-To-Toe With Ad Contrarian Bob Hoffman

At each of our Explore events, I schedule a Fireside Chat, interview-style session with a notable figure from the marketing industry. In Minneapolis last month, I had the honor of welcoming Bob Hoffman, CEO of Hoffman-Lewis and The Ad Contrarian. He’s been mightily critical of social media marketing and even digital marketing overall in the past and I thought it might be fun to bring an outside-the-echo chamber perspective to the table.

While I thought we’d spar a bit more than we did, my Q&A with him was far too interesting to not share, so we recorded the session, captured here in its entirety, for your enjoyment.

My sincere thanks to Bob for being willing to come to a room full of social media enthusiasts and call bullshit on some of our stuff. It takes balls. And that’s why I love Bob and read everything he writes at Ad Contrarian. He’s raw, he’s honest and most of the time — as much as it pisses me off — he’s right.

Our next Explore — Orange County, Calif. — is Oct. 18-19. My Fireside Chat interview will be with Kred CEO Andrew Grill. I plan on throwing down on influencer identification and marketing, pressing Andrew on how it’s done, why it’s done and whether or not the tools are even useful at all in doing so. You can see that in person, along with R/GA’s Peter Kim, Edelman Digital’s Michael Brito and Tim Hayden, former Facebook executive Joseph Heinl, Expion’s Zena Weist, Edison Research’s Tom Webster and many more, including both me and Nichole Kelly from Social Media Explorer, by registering and coming to Explore Orange County.

(By the way – Use Promotional Code ILOVESME and save $200 on the registration fee!)

So, what did you think about Bob’s points? Is he right? Wrong? Nuts? The comments are yours.