"The End of Advertising As We Know It"

[margie albert]

IBM just published a study entitled “The End of Advertising as We Know It” and the opening sentence is “The next 5 years will hold more change for the advertising industry than the previous 50 did.” Hard to argue that one! Here are some excerpts-

This study, based on 2,400 consumers and 80 advertising “experts”, reveals 4 change drivers shifting control within the industry:

1. Attention – consumers are increasing their control as they adopt ad-skipping, sharing and rating tools. Their survey suggests personal PC time now rivals TV time with 71% using the Internet more than two hours per day verses just 48% spending the equivalent time watching TV.

2. Creativity – amateurs and semi-professionals are creating lower cost and extremely effective advertising content. UGC content sites are growing rapidly and were the top destination for viewing online content attracting 39% of respondents.

3. Measurement – advertisers are demanding more individual-specific and involvement-based measurements which pouts great pressure on traditional mass-market models. Two-thirds of the advertising experts polled expect 20% of ad revenue to shift from impression-based to impact-based formats within just 3 short years.

4. Advertising Inventories – The panel expects 30% of ad revenues to shift from traditional proprietary sales models to placement/auction platforms within the next 5 years. As revenues shift in response to consumer fragmentation it will no longer be efficient to have dedicated platforms for each channel. Market forces will move the industry to open, dynamic platforms capable of following a customer by serving messaging across multiple channels.

So, what can you do?

Welcome consumer innovation
Adjust your external business model
Adjust your design and infrastructure

“For both incumbent and new players, it is imperative to plan for multiple consumer futures, craft agile strategies and build new capabilities before advertising as we know it disappears”.

What are your thoughts and plans for the future?

Click here for the Complete Report or The Executive Summary and to post your comments!