Tobaccowala Pontificates The Future of Advertising

Starcom IP and SMG Next President Rishad Tobaccowala, speaking at Doubleclick's annual Insight Conference, says consumers are becoming more and more empowered in their control over media and that "humans are gods" because this power allows them to be all powerful in their media selection. Tobaccowala talked up the rise of HDTV, DVRs, video-on-demand, gaming consoles, IM and video iPods and some of the new channels of communication between marketer and consumer.

Tobaccowala also spoke of Starcom-dubbed "TV 2.0" which is made up of broadband, gaming, computers and television all combining into new portals into the home. In a nutshell, the number of channels into the mind of a consumer, or contact points as Starcom likes to call them, is increasing dramatically and the control over those channels is shifting from the hands of marketers into the hands of consumer. It's analogous to Robert De Niro staring into the mirror in "Taxi Driver," saying/asking defiantly, "You talkin to me? You talkin to me?" That's the question marketers will have to answer to the satisfaction of the consumer before passing on their commercial message.