Common sense the loser as Amazon bans ad campaign

Author Martin Lindstrom was all set to promote his new book on red tape and corporate “bullsh*t” when Amazon pulled the plug.

Author Martin Lindstrom has offended Amazon. Pictures: Supplied

Martin Lindstrom’s new book about bureaucratic red tape is doing well on The Wall St Journal’s bestseller list but that’s no thanks to the behemoth bookseller Amazon, which banned the international management expert from advertising on its site.

In an incident worthy of the best bureaucracies, Amazon’s ­algorithms rejected Lindstrom’s proposed promotional campaign for his book, The Ministry of Common Sense, because “BS” appears in the text. BS, of course is short for ‘”bullshit” and is one of Lindstrom’s key targets as he skewers companies and organisations that get tied up in silly, outdated and unhelpful processes.

He told The Weekend Australian from his home in Switzerland that Amazon had informed him that BS could be offensive to some people — even though BS is not spelt out in the text.

In an ironic twist the book is being sold on Amazon — with the words “corporate bullshit” on the cover, albeit partly obscured. The cover line reads “How to eliminate bureaucratic red tape, bad excuses, and corporate bullsh”.

Lindstrom, who has an international reputation as a branding and marketing consultant and has written several business books, said: “You can actually buy the book on Amazon … but you can’t advertise it. This is a classic example of algorithms running the show and you can’t even argue against it.’’

He said there were many examples of books being banned by Amazon algorithms: “It goes on and on. I’m not the only one. I have now learnt that hundreds of authors really are hit by a lack of common sense, what I call nonsense.”

A spokesman for Amazon said all advertising had to comply with the platform’s published policies. In this case, the proposed ­advertising was in breach of a ­policy that ads must not contain “profanity, including obfuscated or censored profanity”.

Lindstrom, who is Danish, but worked in Australia for many years before returning to Europe, argues corporate bureaucracy has now invaded our homes as people work remotely during COVID. He said a recent study from Gallop ­revealed 85 per cent of staff felt it was painful to go to work now.

“People, not so much in Australia, but certainly in the rest of the world, stop behind their bedroom doors and they have a pipeline of bureaucracy, going straight into their bed,” Lindstrom says.

A study for his book, published by Hachette, estimated about 40 per cent of an average employee’s time in a company with more than 500 employees was spent on dealing with ­bureaucracy and red tape.

“We spend a tremendous amount of time trying to justify our existence,” he said. “We go from one meeting to another.

“People believe now that productivity has gone through the roof (with people working from home) but in my opinion it’s complete, utter BS because here’s what’s happening: we measure productivity based on how many Zoom calls we can sit in on and how many PowerPoint decks we can produce. That’s not productivity.”

Lindstrom suggests creativity is “in free fall” and that this will ­worsen as companies cut costs and travel and remote work increases.

He urged companies and governments to look at their “un-to do lists” as the COVID threat abates because the tendency was for rules to stay in place long after they were needed.

“Today you still take your damn shoes off when you go on a plane through security,’’ he said. “Even though one guy, 15 years ago, had a bomb, it never exploded, and then the rest of the world had to take their shoes off for the rest of life.”