The Future Of Advertising

"Marketing in the future is like sex. Only the losers will have to pay for it." *

That's from a great article in FAST COMPANY entitled, The Future of Advertising

While it was written for the people working at ad agencies, Radio needs to hear this, too, because accountability is increasingly our issue.

And Radio hasn't spent nearly enough resources and brain power on selling marketing solutions -- content to crank out quick spots written by a sales guy and produced on the cheap by an overworked, underpaid staff with no motivation to create good, much less great.

Here's a taste: "Marketing actually needs to be useful -- use-vertising instead of advertising -- which means that you must think more like a product developer than an entertainer. While campaigns once promised glossy anthemic concepts, perfected before being shipped off to the waiting client, digital is incremental, experimental, continually optimized ... and never, ever finished."

And another: "The death of mass marketing means the end of lazy marketing. Think of the 200 Old Spice YouTube videos whipped up by Wieden+Kennedy in 48 hours. 'Creating more work for less money is (the) big paradox.' "

The simple truth is: "I don't think anybody can look you in the eye and say, 'This is what the business will look like in 20 years. If they do, they're lying." **

* Jon Bond
**Rosemarie Ryan