- Traditional advertising agencies
- Media Agencies
- Web development agencies
- CRM agencies
- Geeks
Similar to web 2.0, advertising 2.0 will also be heavily dependant on social networking. There will also be a ‘media neutrality’ debate similar to that of ‘network neutrality’ (whereby the internet is considered as a utility similar to electricity as far as ISPs are concerned). Should brands be consistent based on one media neutral execution; or should they let go and allow multiple messages, each consistent with its respective medium and relevant to the overall campaign objective?
Advertising 2.0 will give rise to a new breed of ‘creative geeks’ capable of working on TV ads, online communication, as well as offline print material and direct mailers. Copywriting will also need to converge with art direction. Eventually, the suits or client servicing people, who merely act as intelligent secretaries, will gradually be swept aside and replaced by strategic planners who may either be based within the advertising agency or even on the client side.
Moreover, advertising agencies will start to develop their own R&D departments to create new ideas that are beyond ads, creating fake brands for testing when brand equity for existing brands is too valuable.
Enter social networking. A communication agency needs to be more like a Wikipedia, whereby teams across all disciplines can add their input or understanding of different ideas and where each team has their My Space to share their knowledge, portfolios, or concepts in development.
Advertising 2.0 should be more focused on CRM and personalized communications, especially since web 2.0 is allowing for more individuality - making it much easier to track specific lifestyle patterns. This would allow television ads to be personalized to the extent of using footage you relate to: mentioning your name; using you as the main actor/hero. Online text can also change automatically, depending on electronic detection of your reading habits.
User generated content will become more and more subsidized through advertising. This will blur the boundaries between advertisements and real content, as well as the overspill on all media from water bottles to projection on the water flushing down your toilet.
Typically, advertising will become more interactive and calls to action on ads would become indirect sales channels (i.e. in line with the toilet flush media you will hear: “flush twice to order this product”). As this happens, feedback will become immediate, enabling marketers to target ads more effectively and evolve the same ads almost instantaneously.
Ads will become more discreet and become imbedded within consumers’ everyday life interactions, possibly having the Verizon logo on the Colgate tooth-paste (the actual paste and not the tube). The media landscape would also grow exponentially to include the branding of entire websites and potentially thematic content as opposed to lonely banners in confined places.
