Over on Madison Avenue Journal, Levenson and Hill New Media and Marketing Strategist Paul McEnany has written an article that discusses the rise of social media and the increase in consumer control over media which, when combined, has had a tremendous effect of the pillar of traditional advertising. While highlighting ad:tech San Francisco sessions that cover aspects of this discussion, Paul urges us to stop thinking about what we do as advertising and he’s right. Advertising is shouting a message at people. Clearly, the power of that model as quickly losing its luster.
With people’s increased connectivity and control over what they consume, marketers are finding it very difficult to “herd” demographic groups together to advertise to as easily as they once could. It started with media fragmentation. Remember when we thought 100 cable channels was a lot? And it continued with the growth of the Internet and the most recent explosion of social media which has absolutely changed the advertising equation. It’s far from the one way street it used to be.
While it’s unclear whether the current notion of conversations and conversational marketing will ever be fully adopted, it’s very clear people are communicating and consuming media in a far different manner than they were as little as ten years ago. It is the challenge of marketers to dive deep into this muck, get dirty and rise to the surface with new means of communication. We don’t have all the answers. We never will. But we can admit the old ways are gone forever and work together towards a new model whatever that may be.
