It is both a paradox and an irony that the Internet, the very platform that makes advertising more relevant, more timely and more measurable, is the same platform that longer-term will challenge and ultimately undermine the raison d'etre of advertising: communicating with customers.
How will the demise of traditional advertising play out? A number of factors are emerging that, collectively, erode advertising's traditional value proposition:
The Internet promotes an exponentially expanding population of outlets , all competing for the attention of the individual consumer. Even the most targeted and relevant ads over time will have a harder and harder time rising above the noise
The Internet has fomented the democratization of consumption in that the consumer has assumed the mantel of power in the producer/consumer continuum. The Internet creates powerful options for people in terms of how they become aware of new products and services and how they obtain information about the products and services that are relevant to them.
The Internet provides the consumer with increasingly powerful tools to filter and block advertisements. Product placement will be a panacea for a while but, as with so many other Web-centric innovations, that space will become too cluttered and people will mentally filter out the products.
With ever richer and more diverse ways to connect with friends and trusted advisors offering key knowledge and first hand experience with products and services, conventional advertising – even with all of the best behavioral targeting algorithms - will become viewed at best as marginal value and at worst as an increasing nuisance. People want to connect with vendors, especially vendors that can address unmet needs, but they will increasingly want to do it on their terms.
Advertisers need to build the expertise to genuinely engage people around their products and services in such a compelling way that people seek them out – and keep coming back because they have received so much value. The end game is collaboration marketing where advertising, meaning paid placements of messages, becomes more and more marginal. The focus shifts to becoming more helpful by creating rich, serendipitous environments that people will actively seek out
If advertising ceases to be a revenue engine, online businesses will be forced to develop other viable sources of revenue to support their businesses long-term or find themselves out of business.
Comments