Some more food for thought from Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0. 

In an article titled "Media Should Evolve Into Marketing Services", he explores the reasons he believes there are significant opportunities for advertisers to get more deeply into the business of using the "social" in social networks to "create more compelling content, more value for prospective customers" (his words).

While the business of traditional paid media advertising placements is headed into a death spire, there is a very bright future for marketing services.

Scott is looking at the issue of more closely matching readers' intention and attention ... and then suggesting that advertisers will want to put something compelling into the hands of the network(s), and let it (them) do their stuff.  Hence, his suggestion of a focus on marketing services where the advertisement is an invitation to engage with something, something humorous or new or useful, which can then be shared with others  likely to find it interesting or useful.
Advertising took another significant step yesterday towards graduating from paid media placements (i.e. traditional ads). Ironically, it starts with a paid media placement on The Huffington Post:

HUFFINGTONPOST.COM THIS WEEKEND LAUNCHED A video ad promotion featuring seven TV ads, all selected for their high “viral” potential – meaning some quality that makes them likely candidates for e-mail forwarding. So far the ads, produced by agency JWT, are purely voluntary viewing; visitors have to click on a small video screen on the site’s right-hand side to see them.

JWT, formerly J. Walter Thompson, purchased the ad space for this pilot initiative, which will offer TV ads for Ford, JetBlue, Levi’s, the Partnership for a Drug Free America, Scruffs, and Billy Collins–all chosen for humor or novelty value.


This is the future — advertising that is worth watching not because you are forced to do so through interruption, but because the marketing message itself is entertaining or useful.

And thanks to the fully networked Web 2.0, viral marketing is no longer just a buzzword. Sharing has gone mainstream.

So JWT paid The Huffington Post for its “reach,” but as for all of the emails forwarding ads to friends and colleagues, well, that’s FREE, i.e. media DOES NOT GET PAID. Perhaps the Huffington Post is selling that viral reach — if so, more power to them — but that comes at the expense of other paid media.

But the truth is that advertisers don’t need media anymore…at least not for traditional ad space…and if they do, it’s only to kick-start a viral marketing effort with an influential site like the Huffington Post, or with a bit of search advertising. And then that’s it — just a bit of paid media, and the social network kicks in.

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So, the next challenge is ... how to make interesting, useful, or pertinent advertising more easily shareable, able to be spread easily throughout networks ?  How can the advertising be made valuable to the members of the network, and to the network itself ?

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