If We Agree Advertising is Broken

To not debate semantics, but is advertising broken or are the people practicing it not doing it in the best way possible? Social media changed the way we communicate, but we still communicate in pretty much the same way we did 1000 years ago. Just faster and to a larger halo of people.

Ultimately advertising is the act of selling your product, brand, idea, whatever. Those who are going to lead it will be those who understand how to use the tools in the best way possible.

Chris,
Thanks for the topic and your insightful comments.
Of course this topic would be brought up by you! Ironically you are one of the out-in-front proponents practicing what will actually work. In short, you epitomize the solution that advertisers and marketers need to adopt.
I've been on Twitter for almost 3 months now, where I connected with you almost immediately thanks to your Tweet about being a Highlights Kid. This was helpful to me as I wrote about how i am a Highlights Kid, and especially how their find the hidden thing puzzles impacted my work as an artist.
As I have followed you almost since day one, I have seen that you interact with others and continue to offer information and opportunities that others can use.
Watching you (and a few others) I quickly came to the understanding that social media is not about me -- it's about US.
Traditional advertising, such as an ad in the NY Times is an all-about-me message. I Grew up reading the Times, am a NYer, but it's struggling because the consistent message of the Times is one way. They present the news. And ads. There is little give and take except in the Opt Ed section, which is usually authored by pros.
Although I am a professional writer, I certainly am not that in the social media, or in the field of advertising, yet on your blog I have the opportunity for a voice.
It becomes about us. I feel of value. I feel valued even when I do not comment, which frankly is most o the time. Not just because you have a comments section, but because I know you read the comments and interact.
Your willingness and ability to successfully interact and make the message one of value to the community -- to us-- made the K-Mart contest so successful.
So, I'm learning that what has authority, what works in this century is all about us. Not them and us, just an all inclusive us.The kind of us you create, Chris!
When advertisers figure that out they will be learning it from you!
Thanks.
Very happy I follow you on Twitter and read your blogs and follow links.

Jud Rey Wasserman
On Twitter: @judyrey

Advertising is in full bloom folks. To say that it's broken is ludicrous; it's changing and that means mistakes, new vs. old, etc. All of this is healthy.

One nit: advertising holding companies are NOT helping speed change in advertising, they're slowing it down. By wanting to own everyone, they impose limits on experimentation and risk, and without these factors, advertising can't evolve as fast as it should.

Just my two cents.

Jeff

Tend to agree more with Len. Advertising isn't "broken" per se, but as an industry, advertising has fallen behind, much like it did when the WWW became all the rage. People say the :30 sec spot is dead, but in reality, it's very much alive. The crappy :30's spot is dead or at least has been rendered ineffective by technology but even Tivo will tell you - people do watch ads -- they just watch the ones that are relevant to their lives or entertain them for some reason.

Agree with you Chris that Content Marketing is going to boom - and if done correctly - will actually work and consumers will invite it into their lives. Because the content has value and the product placement is discreet and not overbearing. Social Media - if practiced properly will be here to stay - because it makes big companies small again and makes consumers felt listened to.

The overarching problem with advertising and the advertising industry is money. For the past couple of decades, the best and brightest minds by-and-large were not going into advertising. They went to Wall St (80's), investment banking (90's), dot-com (late 90's early 2000) and along the way, damn near anything technology oriented or if they weren't a tech geek, they opted for Bain, McKinsey and the like. Advertising became a "creative" endeavor instead of a "commerce" endeavor. So we focused more on awards shows (we have almost as many as Hollywood) instead of developing critical thinking skills and business acumen.

But there are still great thinkers in advertising and there is great thinking being done. Problem is, a good bit of it goes unnoticed because it is done by smaller shops that are far from Madison Avenue. If a few of those big corporation marketing types that complain "advertising is broken" would cast a wider net and truly look for insightful, creative, strategic minds -- I think they'll find that advertising is far from broken.

My .04 cents.

Apparently we do not agree advertising is broken. You cannot extrapolate this from an ugly ad on the NYT site.
Chris, it's not a good sign when your comments display more knowledge and insight than your posts. I hope you'll take this constructively, but your writing is very sloppy. Ending a sentence with "and things like that" is just lazy.

As a businessman and person who's not directly involved in advertising/marketing per se, I see the struggle summed up in the term "social media." What's going on today seems akin to having an endless number of product salesmen stop by my table while I'm out with friends. It's not the right setting, time or place for my "social" interaction to be disturbed by "media".

The resistance to much of online advertising is rooted in the same thinking. People are on Facebook and Twitter to connect with people. They're not there to pick out a new car or toothpaste and they especially don't want to fend off those messages. When they have to, the associated companies just come off as a nuisance - understandably so.

I think we'd all agree, Chris included, that this doesn't mean it's broken as much as not working yet - which I feel is true of much of the net. We can't possibly have feature rich sites like Facebook without revenue streams so in the end we will gladly pay for them out of our pockets or agree to what will likely look a lot like the "traditional marketing" that's supported media for years.

In addition, we'll have the right kinds of businesses interacting with us when two way conversations are truly needed - support, questions, information seeking etc. We're seeing some of that now, of course, and it will grow 'cause it works well.

Broken is a nice way to say as dead as Custer! Most local television is only presenting Info-mercials, you know fix the zipper on your fly with super glue or by the one and only clapper to put out your lights ! It is time for firms to hire the abilities of the Public Relations folks who can create content , most fifteen year olds kids can create a You Tube Video that equals what you might pay a TV Production Firm to do for $50,000.00. In the newspaper care dealers devote more space to pictures of their salesmen and cars than creating content that will attract buyer , they just don't get it ! All cars have lost their design quality and all look like kidney beans so you better sell features ! You have a following on your blog , if I had a product i am sure I could in time sell it at a profit and with words and a few videos create a desire on your Blog and save and make money!

I don't think it's broken - more slightly scuffed.

I think part of the problem is that we, as people, have far less attention spans than we did 5, 10, 20 years ago, and it's getting less all the time.

Micro-blogging has allowed us to get a whole message across in 140 characters; video sharing sites have allowed us to dilute what we want to watch into easy soundbites; blogs have negated the need for print.

Basically, we've changed the way we allow others to communicate with us. That doesn't mean they're broken - it simply means we're already fixed. Now it's up to the others to get our attention. But they better make it short.

Nice post buddy.

One point... you seem to be using "content marketing" in a very narrow sense, and this concerns me. Content marketing is much broader than "paid" (sponsored) content, and I'm uncomfortable with that narrow association lodging in the heads of your massive legion of followers.

Cool? :-)

Broken is too severe. It's just adapting to new ways of reaching consumers. The tone is changing, has changed. More direct. Consumers can filter the messages they expose themselves to so you better make sure yours has something of value for them whether it's info, empathy, or entertainment.

Looks like advertising faces a similar shift it's seen before with the rise of various media formats from newspaper ads to radio program sponsorships to intelligent television commercials. It's always been about influencing ideas. Right now, there have been never been more ways to influence consumers. That seems a good thing for advertisers.

If anything, we're seeing an environment where the quality of content is what matters. That's a positive for both advertisers and consumers. As Tom mentions, more filters mean getting noticed is more complicated now so good content is key.

The advent of inbound marketing where you are speaking directly to your target market via whatever community you are able to tap could make ads even more effective and efficient.

Brian DeKoning said it best. Advertising isn't "broken", it is metamorphisizing as consumers and media change. If you are keeping up on the news, you would see that website advertising is drastically falling. Simply because NYT decided to take revenue from an online ad that is not appealing to you does not mean advertising is broken. Newspapers are hurting, and they are trying to transform to digital w/o ending up broke.
Quality advertising is more about content and placement. My company has been extremely successful with connecting brand with advertising and marketing venues that do not consist of online space or all TV ads. We research and understand our consumers. With that knowledge, we know when and where they will be most receptive to advertising, and what form of advertising.

Not all print or online advertising is as effective as other forms. There are numerous opportunities for brands to market themselves beyond the slice off your sidebar. Those avenues of advertising are extremely effective.

A post like this brings out the kind of thinking I need. Your thoughts are all very useful, so thanks.

Calling anything broken or dead just draws out the best perspectives.

I want to agree with Brian Clark that I used just one narrow definiion of content marketing in this post. As I was only thinking about the part that applies to a parity with ads, I didn't mean to imply that this was the only definition of content marketing.

@Agitationist - I'm going to presume you're new here. The comments are always better than the post. It's intentional. As to the quality of my writing, is it proper to end a sentence with GFY? I'll have to pull out my Strunk & White.

An interesting type of marketing that combines virtual space, branding and visual appeal, with real world locations and mobile technology named "QR Code" marketing has become pretty hot in Japan already.

There's nothing like seeing this kind of application of our present day technologies with real world marketing to get the creative mind working.

Insightful post Chris.

@ Chris - GFY? That's short for "gentleman friend, yes"? ;-)

Ok, maybe I'm way off base here, because I'm new to marketing. However, I've thought of content marketing in terms of sponsorship.

For example, let's say you write a mommy blog, and pampers becomes a sponsor. Now, not all the readers might need pampers, but some might, due to the content of the blog. Am I wrong here?

In regards to the post, I do think "traditional" advertising, at least as it pertains to online isn't working. I would have never clicked on the ad you featured in the NYTimes article, and I think the Times lowered themselves, at least in my mind, by running the ad.

I'm don't think traditional advertising is dead, but it definitely needs to up its game a lot or it won't get my attention.

@Lisa - I'd think of that as advertising to match the content. The other way might be to write content that matches an advertiser's needs. For instance, if American Express wants to show off their leadership and business intellect, they work with Federated Media to build OPEN.

Len... "Ultimately advertising is the act of selling your product, brand, idea, whatever. Those who are going to lead it will be those who understand how to use the tools in the best way possible."

I have to disagree. Marketing isn't about selling, it's about building trust and "likeability" through communication. As a business owner I write articles, blog, and twitter to build trust with my potential clients so they will feel comfortable with me and choose my products/services when they are ready to buy. Does that make sense. Maybe I'm reading too much into what you wrote.

Sorry for the "sloppy writing" @Agitationist. Should have put a question mark instead of a period on the last post, right? Can you proofread my website and blog for me?

Disagreeing with you that advertising is broken, I share with you an article from ReadWriteWeb last fall on semantic advertising wherein the comments I argued advertising continue but on a different track. Instead of conference room managers deciding on the ad structure, what if consumers decided which ads they wanted to see and the advertisers would create them?

Let's face facts: As long as huge gaps remain worldwide (let alone here in Massachusetts) where broadband access is limited, shifting TV, radio, and print advertising to the web is not going to happen any time soon. So, change the focus of ads where the consumer, not company, decides on the content.

I also don't think that advertising is completely 'broken.' It all breaks down to who you're trying to reach. If your product or service is consumed mostly by people who don't live in the online world, you need to reach them offline (remember though, that you should also be in the online world no matter what).

All of these social media networks and services are just tools, and as our attention shifts more online, I think advertising will also shift with us, and there will have to be new ways to get their message across as well. At the end of the day, advertisers want eyeballs...its just that right now, I don't think they have figured out just how many eyeballs there are to be had online and through social networks.

Much like TV, we will tune into ads or sponsored content or offers that ENTERTAIN or provide us with INFORMATION that we value. Period.

@ryancmiller

Ari

Companies already let consumers decide which ads they want to see... it's called concept testing, usually via focus groups. Doesn't work too well because we humans aren't very good at knowing what we will and won't react to... not to mention, as soon as you ask a consumer to become an advertising exec, they are no longer a consumer. Therefore, their opinion on what will and won't work becomes just as suspect as that conference room of execs you mention.

@Bill. I understand where you are coming from and in your case, your thinking does make sense but when your clients are Fortune 500 brands advertising is VERY much about selling. If it came down to building trust with customers they would be (or should be doing that themselves). They spend millions of dollars with agencies because they understand that the investment ties directly back to sales and they hold us accountable for ensuring that expectation comes to life.

@Bill, @chris Quality writing matters. Attention to detail -- even in a blog --matters. It communicates your personal brand. Is your personal brand sloppy, unkempt, a bit disheveled and has little respect for your readers? If so, then typos, badly-formed sentences and snarky, sarcastic comments about grammar are appropriate. If your personal brand includes being taken seriously as an authority by the adults in the room, pay attention to the details. We old dogs care about this stuff and we're here in larger packs than you would want to believe.

@Brian (brandfasttrackers.com) Quality advertising IS about content and placement. The Shamwow commercial is low-rent and tacky for an art gallery lobby, but perfect for a Saturday morning flea market or as 3:00am entertainment. It's also about owning a venue, whether that be the inside of an airport restroom stall or the back seat of a ski lift.

How many people here are buying and reading the New York Times? While I agree that perhaps buying remnant advertising is probably not consistent with their brand image, they still have very real bills to pay. Social media prophets are not doing them any favors by decreeing that print is dead. Print is not dead. Print may be shrinking and will eventually find a level where it stabilizes, but it will not die. Not in the near future. Print works because touch is the most basic of all human needs. I can touch a print ad, a newspaper, a cup of warm coffee with my company's logo. I can't touch a Web site no matter how "social" it purports to be with me.

Technology changes, people do not. The human condition has been around for thousands of years and will plague our children's children long after all of us are gone.

The element of that human condition we are struggling with boredom. We are bored and desensitized by advertising. Doing more of what worked yesterday almost always doesn't. Social media toys are not the answer either because the adults in the room are not really being respected by the kids. And, yes, a resistance to change due to a lack of respect is also part of the human condition. So is the irrational behavior of doing what you know won't work, but is all you know how to do.

I am already bored with Twitter even though I have a bit of a following and like the people I hang with. But if I quit tweeting today forever, nobody would really miss me. On the other hand, if I died today in real life, I would most likely be missed. At the very least, I would affect the grocery bill. In the end, we are all about the analog.

Real advertisers fundamentally understand the human condition. They study people first and quietly and skillfully apply the appropriate technologies, whether that is a Shamwow commercial or a junk ad or a random sticker for Diet Pepsi on the back of a ski lift seat on a breathlessly still Colorado mountainside. They never forget the goal is to covert the unaware into a prospect and the prospect into a customer.

Conversely, most "advertising hacks," including many of the social media experts, try to stuff people into technologies. That approach has always failed.

Good valid points raised. I find "Winning by Sharing" is working for me!

Chris - Point taken. We're talking about two companies at different stages in the life cycle.

As a relatively young adman (is that still a cool term, I secretly want to be Don Drapper so I''m assuming it still sticks) I don't see advertising as broken, but like everything else in the "Age of the Internet" it's in a major upheaval. I think the role of advertising is changing very quickly, much faster than most major agencies are willing to accept it ( I too blame this on the agency networks that are buying up shops all over the land).
The lines between traditional Marketing, Public Relations and Advertising are so blurred now that all three professions have yet to fully adjust and I think us ad people are the farthest behind. Where 30 or 40 years ago advertising might have been all about selling a product, in today's totally fragmented, media overload society I see advertising more as a conversation starter. We know that WOM is the most trusted form of advertising and with the average person seeing hundreds of thousands of ads a year, the best thing we can do as advertisers isn't to get people convinced to buy as much as we can get people talking to other people about possibly buying. (This doesn't mean throwing out the core principle of "show them the benefit" in a good ad, it just means that's not the star all the time.) Think of it as snowball advertising. Not only do we break through the advertising barrier most consumers have built up around them (armed with 1000 cable channels, DVR, Spam filters, pop-up blockers, and do not call lists) by making an interesting ad that makes a brand memorable, but we also generate exponentially growing WOM ads if we do it right. (Remember, "and he tells 2 friends, and they tell 2 friends, and so on"?)
In the even more fragmented future of media I think the days of "Here's our product, this is why it's great" are long gone, it simply won't be enough to make people stop and listen or care. That doesn't mean advertising is dead, it just means we need to find a better way to do it.

Rufus - You're putting words in my mouth. I'm not an advocate of sloppy writing. I just understand that perfect grammar is not expected all the time when people blog. Most of us are bound to miss something at some point in time.

The point that Chris made about being entertaining and informative holds true. And that is a matter of posting solid content. regardless. of. whether. or not, the punctuation or speling is prefect. Rite?

The point of writing this post was to spark a conversation that I wasn't seeing. It turns out I got exactly what I wanted, because you've come and supplied some really great answers and thoughts to the conversation.

I will never claim to be the authority on advertising. I'm not really the authority on much except typing. I can type pretty fast. But that said, I'm a ceaseless tinkerer.

Some look at discourse on blogs as an opportunity to tear down flaws in a scholarly work. That's not this blog. I'm never suggesting that I have the answers, but rather, that I've got thoughts and ideas that could use some new holes in them.

This is a great discussion and I'm grateful for your thoughts.

@Rufus - sloppy writing matters. A habit of it wouldn't do. Would you say the body of my work is sloppy?

@chrisbrogan From time to time, you could use an editor. That is all I am saying. ;-)

@bill The more you comment, the more you make my point for me. Right? :-)

From your comments, I surmise your personal brand is one that values content over the packaging in which it is delivered. Your brand tells me it is more important for you to tell the reader what you want to tell him rather than the reader understand you. From your comments, I assess your brand to be a bit impulsive and not at all worried about being a careful reader. From the way you form your comments, I understand you to pride yourself on being a clever smart-ass. Your personal brand is all about the "quick draw" and the decisive offensive move.

And that is ok, if that is who you are or what you wish me to believe you are. If it works for you and you don't care about us "old dogs" thinking of you as a punk kid, then go for it! Embrace it! Be one with your brand. I'm fairly certain you have already formed some opinion on MY personal brand as well.

I'm fairly sure I am not your target market and any further interaction with me is probably wasted effort. But, if you retort, well, then I can only assume you then CARE what I think about your personal brand.

So, what are you going to do next? Ignore me or engage me? And why? And how does this little exchange contribute to Chris' overall point on advertising?

Measurement is next. Something that scares the crap out of "brand advertising" people. The mass-media-heads have been busy applying "branding" to the Web with the goal of creating "mind states" that cannot be measured in tangible behaviors. They recoil at the thought of advertising accountability or direct response fundamentals.

Chris, "content marketing" quickly becomes "branded entertainment" if you leave it un-attended. In other words, most of what we see out there is designed to produce a relatively weak output. "Engagement." It's comfy for brand marketers as it's so wonderfully difficult to measure. In fact, measurement stops at the word "engagement." My problem with this is that there are no behavioral prompts "built in" to the content stream that create BEHAVIOR-based outputs -- customers DOING things, not just thinking/feeling differently about the brand. Am I making sense?

As we move forward in 2009, I simply see us pulling paychecks LESS for spreading corporate karma and more for creating measurable customer behaviors -- stuff companies like Zappos, eBay, Amazon do completely WITHOUT traditional (uh, outdated? uh, un-accountable?) advertising.

Rufus - I like you, buddy. Relax. Thanks for engaging this morning.

@bill I like you too and am glad you replied back ;-) Thanks for an interesting morning. This probably means I have to get some real work done now. Ah, well... but, you did duck my questions. Wonder what that says about your personal brand.....

@Chrisbrogan Thanks for letting @bill and me pee in your playground for free ;-)

@Rufus - if you volunteer, you can edit allllll you want. : )

@Jeff - I'd argue that a major part of the success of Amazon is the brand they've built over that last several years. They own "Online Retailer" in the minds of millions of consumers worldwide.

And just to stir the pot a little, Direct Mail is totally measurable and yet we're happy with 1-3% response rates in the DM sphere, is that really a huge success?

@Tony - I'd agree with your argument but point out that the EXPERIENCE of being an Amazon customer (not what shoppers think or feel about them based on commercial spots or visuals or promises) is what creates that successful brand you reference.

I'd say we're relatively happy with that 1-3% yes. As compared to the bogus "brand equity" calculations that I've read over the years we're thrilled. CMO's are on the hot seat. CEO's don't buy nebulous "brand equity" math -- never have. CMO Council: 10% of CMO's are regarded as "highly influential" or "strategic" by their CEOs. I'd call that a crisis of confidence driven by mass communications practices being ported over to an interactive realm (the Web).

I'll stir more: You've pointed at a metric that can be measured in tangible actions, behaviors. "Brand advertising" is largely hockus pokus math, IMHO :), that typically results in eye rolling by CEO's.

@Rufus. Very good points. Print and TV is not dead. For example, this week i had meetings decision makers at two of the top 10 largest advertisers. When presenting to them the concept of connecting with consumers in a new way through the largest in-air TV network, with the largest airline. THEY LOVED IT.
Even so, they still said their marketing mix model says that general market TV's pay out is the greatest
For an ad agency and media agency to reco tv is very inexpensive and profitable.
Clients look to the agency for their reco because they are the experts.
If the agency reco tv (which is in their financial best interest) the client will most likely take it.
Around and around it goes. When it comes to new initiatives like social media, blogs,etc to get funded, they are at the bottom of the barrel. If they do get funded...it is with crumbs so that they can throw up a power point slide at a conference showing how "on the cutting edge they are". Forgetting to mention that they spend 10x that amount in a day through general market traditional advertising.

So where is advertising going? It's still with the heart base of society which the majority still reads print and watches TV.

Quote the Joker in The Dark Knight (more of a paraphrase) "If you are good at something, never do it for free." I only do two things for free that I am good at and one of them is writing my own blog. I'll leave you to guess at the other one, but I suspect you probably already have the answer. ;-) Have a happy, "free-filled" weekend.

@Jeff - I don't disagree that most CEOs are number focused. They want something that is measurable, understandably, because they're accountable to their board and in most cases investors. I also think you're dead on with the experience of being a customer has a lot to do with successful branding, you can have the best communications out there but if your actual business stinks the stink will permeate the marketing.
However, I think where we're going to see the real practical application of social media in the world of marketing is that it's going to start letting us measure the otherwise nebulous metric of "brand equity" with considerable more accuracy than we have now. (I'm thinking focus groups and surveys here.) I'm not sure how at this point (that's the million dollar question, isn't it?), but I think it's on it's way.
I agree that companies are ultimately going to ask for more tangible numbers to judge a campaign successful, and I think we're going to see not only traditional advertising shift because consumers are demanding it, but also the statistics we use to track such things evolve to meet that demand. I simply can't believe that Keyword advertising and the like, totally measurable by the old metrics, will rule in the days to come, but then hey I have a lot to loose if they do :-)

@ Tony - Well, since you baited me like that :-)

I simply don't see how "branding" can be measured by search. Here's the root of what I'm driving at here: Google gave us the ability to pair up ads with searchers' intent (a la Battelle)... and the best thing "brand advertisers" can do is get all excited about pairing up impressions of ads? Perhaps you'll agree -- it's much more exciting to take a users' intent, call them to action, provide the opportunity for them to act (download something, fill out a form, buy something, etc.) and then, worst case, place them in a behavior-based sales funnel -- a marketing regimen.

Just "being there" and hoping for the best or inventing crazy science/math around how these ads result in actions is just a waste of the BIGGER opportunity. We're already seeing the results. The display slow-down isn't about lack of budget so much as it's about, IMHO, the realization that "buying eyeballs" is pointless and relatively worthless as compared to direct response -- which is what a 2 way medium is built for.

@Brian Martin I love the airline tray table concept because it is not intrusive. Anyone who has been caught on an airplane sober without anything to read will either read ANYTHING, including the napkins or engage in conversation with whomever is sitting next to them... sometimes not entirely welcome ;-)

Crumbs is more like it. The serious guys pay for print, pay for LCD screens, pay for video editing. Case in point about the social media position in the WSJ today. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123309277668321...

@Jeff - I think if we define a successful brand as one that "a corporate image that leaves a positive impression and spurs conversation that ultimately leads to sales" parts of it can be very measurable via search. We can measure the level of chatter about our brand as a whole, measure positive and negative mentions and follow the network of conversations happening in blogs and on services like twitter, etc. This means companies would have to actually interact with their customers on some level to find out if any of this buzz lead to a sale, something I think a lot of them still aren't doing. I would argue that we just don't care about these numbers for the most part right now, which is why we don't have a more efficient way to tie them to sales.
That being said, I agree with you 100% that we're going to see a shift away from display advertising online to more direct response methods, it just doesn't work. But for a lot of products, esp. those in highly competitive markets (i.e. beer, soda, most consumer goods) where brand is the key selling point I can't see investments in the brand via advertising going anywhere (except maybe away from the top of web pages, that would be awesome) esp. in traditional media, but even online in the form of branded content and personalities.

@ Tony. Precisely. This is why we have divergent opinions. My definition cannot conform to yours. In my world, banding itself is (starting in 2008-9) being re-defined as the real-time aggregation of everything marketers and their customers do together. That’s different than the old school definition focusing on awareness and influencing how customers feel about a marketer.

“a corporate image that leaves a positive impression and spurs conversation that ultimately leads to sales”

I don't want to measure part of branding -- I want to measure all of it. Right? Branding, by my definition, is 100% measurable and fully accountable. Respectfully the definition you offer -- at its core -- "hopes." It's been at the core of mass communications for decades and is what I believe is threatened.

Further, I care less about conversation now... in this recession. I (Mr. advertiser) care about creating customer/prospect behaviors. These behaviors are part of a "chronology of purchase intent." I recognize that nothing is instant -- as you wisely point out. I simply reject the notion that there is strong value in:

"measuring the level of chatter about our brand as a whole, measure positive and negative mentions and follow the network of conversations happening in blogs and on services like twitter, etc."

... as compared to the value in measuring what people DO. Not how they feel or their tone. I can measure that *directly* in monitoring their behavior. Here, there is no guesswork.

This means companies would have to actually interact with their customers on some level to find out if any of this buzz lead to a sale, something I think a lot of them still aren’t doing. I would argue that we just don’t care about these numbers for the most part right now, which is why we don’t have a more efficient way to tie them to sales.

We DON'T care about tracking to the point of SALES??!! You are really baiting me here, Tony. What's up your sleeve? :) I am forced to agree -- we don't care. "We" are "brand advertisers" who believe this is more art and less science. "We" aren't going to get paid as much moving forward for creating intentions, desires or perceived need. We're going to get paid for actions -- that ultimately lead to sales, yes.

You didn't mention it but it relates: I respectfully don't buy this "we're not in control" bunk nor the inherent value of conversation monitoring -- when there is not follow through on engaging AND (here is the big one) ADAPTING to build systems around that engagement -- systems that monitor, facilitate targeted engagement and drive ultimate behavior.

Sure that's a really, really advanced "want" on my part but ultimately I'm breaking with you over the fundamental definition of brand (you: creating consideration and hoping for sales -- me: brand as "pure" experience-based, trackable behavior).

@Jeff - I like your definition, I think it's more concise than the way I put it. "everything marketers and their customers do together" is exactly what I was thinking when I said "a corporate image". I'm definitely remembering that one for later :-)

I think you nailed it when it comes to the tipping point of our differing views. "'We' are 'brand advertisers' who believe this is more art and less science." I have to say that while I respect the numbers, and do believe they paint a very accurate picture of what's going on, I don't think it's a complete picture. I think that people make decisions based on brands and the messages those brands send them (even when they don't make a lot of sense like the weird Bill Gates Seinfeld ads we saw last year). And just because brand equity doesn't easily translate into dollars doesn't mean its immeasurable or that it's not impacting ROI of other marketing tactics. Here I would suggest that spending a portion of an overall advertising budget on brand building will lead to increased response in direct marketing efforts, and I admit that moving forward brand building via advertising will be a smaller piece of the pie, esp as marketing budgets are cut in bad economic times. I am clearly of the "Lovemarks" philosophy :-)
As far as "We are not in control" I think that's a bit of an overstatement (obviously I do buy into the conversation monitoring camp). I think it's more accurate that "We are not in complete control" because with a good internal policy (the air force is the best example I can think of, but I can't find the link, but it's out there) we can steer the chatter on the net in a direction that's closer to where we want it. I agree that monitoring has no real value if you're not willing to engage.

Great conversation, totally making my Friday fly :-)

What's next is scalable intimacy, Chris.

Modern marketing came about in an industrial age, when economic value was realized in economies of scale. If you could make a nickel on a cupie doll, you could make $100,000 on a million identical cupie dolls, as manufacturing technology drove your unit cost of production and distribution downward. The key to realizing this compelling alchemy was to get a million people to want the same thing, and modern advertising was born.

Fifty years on, the world has changed. Economic value is no longer locked in the factors of production, which have been commoditized by globalization and the relentless progress of industrial age technology. Today economic value is locked up in relationships. Share-of-market matters less than share-of-customer, because acquiring customers costs so much more than making just about anything.

While that system is coming apart, we're seeing what really amounts to a return to the one-to-one economies of the past. Individual attention and service. Persistent reputation. Knowing your customers, as people rather than as "Consumers," the quintessential 20th century word.

We need to get intimate again, but now we need to technology to do it at scale. That's where all this social media stuff will lead, I think. Hope we get to see together.

Advertising has always been "broke," with some working and lots not. There is a wonderful story from the 1930'a about an advertising guru announcing to a client that 1/2 of his ... Read Moreadvertising wasn't working. The client was delighted and asked, "can we cut the ineffective ads?" "No," the guru said, "I can't tell which half it is." Today, marketing continues to be as much art as it is science. Many elements contribute to marketing/advertising success. The internet and the growth of Social Networking are adding a new dimension. For the short term, we will do what we did and explore new things to do and new ways to connect. What's interesting is what advertisers are planning for 2009. The market research firm, Datran, has some answers. Go to:http://tinyurl.com/c9nzzk. Key to improved advertising performance, now, as ever, ask the customer.

Dell's Digital Nomads thing was done through the Floor64 Insight Community. Floor64 also runs the Techdirt blog (disclaimer: I'm a contributor), and one of the running themes there is the idea that advertising is content and content is advertising.

We've all seen the by now classic video, "What if modern marketers created the stop sign?" (http://is.gd/htbF -- worth it if you've missed it), which purports to be tongue-in-cheek but probably is dead on. The problem with oversegmenting, overthinking, oversponsoring and overselling our space is that we lose sight of what made the advertising inviting in the first place: its association with content that we find important, trustworthy, or pleasurable. Many people are making fine careers out of predicting where our eyeballs will land, or which messages will make which segment of a population stay or click through -- but ultimately it's about likeability and trust.

I trust the New York Times because I trust their standards; and they do some things better than anyone on the planet. There are some things that Twitter does better, for that matter. I trust Chris Brogan because for him, it's not about the followers -- it's about the thinking. While I agree that we all need to find ways for the Chris Brogans, the New York Timeses, and the Twitters of the world to evolve and thrive financially, is it really content marketing? I won't trust Chris less when he does pay for play; but I will trust his opinion less on whatever he's reviewing... and that's the point. There has to be some middle ground.

I echo Steve (and his parallels with Facebook and its Beacon debacle) -- that advertising and the Internet isn't broken so much as it's not working... yet.

The content you have provided is pretty interesting and useful and I will surely take note of the point you have made in the blog.

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I think it is not broken rather is has growing branches. For example, online advertisement, has many branches now a day. The new one is video ads. So what i think is to use all the branches in a combo style ad campaign to get succeed. What http://www.adwido.com like companies doing. They are doing a great job for internet marketing, they combined all forces into one e.g. video, free link exchange, seo etc package.