Bob Hoffman

Opinion

Bob Hoffman

We don’t understand how dangerous we are

02 May 2019 • The May issue of Admap puts the spotlight on data ethics. In this exclusive op ed for WARC, Bob Hoffman, best-selling author, and creator of influential advertising blog The Ad Contrarian, explains how today’s data-obsessed adtech industry is based on tracking and surveillance. This has led to unintended and unfortunate consequences for the online advertising industry, and society.

Opinion

Bob Hoffman

A pox on the house of ad tech

04 May 2017 • Bob Hoffman, the author of "The Ad Contrarian” blog, was part of a four-person "debate” at the 2017 World Federation of Advertisers annual conference in Toronto. The motion: "The rush to invest in programmatic and ad-tech has served to further ostracize the potential customers we seek to connect with.”

About Bob Hoffman

Bob Hoffman spent 41 years in the advertising-agency business, staring as a copywriter in New York and continuing as a copywriter in San Francisco even as he became a creative director and agency principal. He served as ceo of Mojo USA and president/creative director of San Francisco agency Allen & Dorward and as ceo of Mojo USA. Hoffman also founded and was chairman/ceo of Hoffman/Lewis advertising, one of the West's largest independent advertising agencies. In 2012, he was selected "Ad Person of the Year" by the San Francisco Advertising Club and retired from Hoffman/Lewis the following year.

His portfolio of creative work includes advertising he's created for AT&T, Bank of America, Blue Cross, Chevrolet, McDonald's, Nestle, PepsiCo, Shell, and Toyota.

In his spare time, Hoffman has served on the boards of the Advertising and Marketing International Network, the Foundation for Osteoporosis Research and Education, and spent one year as Special Assistant to the Executive Director of the California Academy of Sciences.