The current methods of advertising/marketing are based on deluded knowledge of communication and human behaviour, and are about to implode.

People in advertising are bad at thinking coherently about the future, they prefer whatever is present to the distant and remote.

One thing is for sure, with the changes already occurring they are going to have to make huge sacrifices on behalf of the future.

Advertising Agencies have allowed widespread short-termism. With no long-term view on the actual process of communication and all the other attendant problems, clutter, the Internet, the process of communication, accountability, customer indifference, lack of attention, the loss of trust, to mention just a few!

The Storm 1.?

Well, to start with the traditional TV stations are being buried beneath a blizzard of devices, and there are new services such as ViewmyTV which claims to offer "hundreds of live streaming channels from all over the world".
People are watching TV differently, fast forwarding through TV adverts or waiting for a drama series to come out on DVD to "Binge" watch all weekend.

Television broadcasters face "severe pressure" as advertisers abandon traditional media in favour of the Internet. So says Sir Martin Sorrell, head of WPP.

Television is under severe pressure at the moment from the Internet. There has been a fundamental shift and the pace will quicken.

There speaks a person who is himself under severe pressure, he cannot help but think short-termism, it is in his financial interests to remain the one-way passive advertising scenario advocate.

There is a substantially better way of solving all of the problems faced by the advertising world immediately, but yes, as mentioned above, it calls for supreme sacrifices. The first sacrifice is for advertising agencies to say "Yes, we were wrong, our method of reach, frequency, creativity and clutter" was the totally incorrect method of communicating with customers. Together with our slavish adherence to the 30-second TV commercial."

Frankly I doubt if they can bring themselves to do that! Do you?

The Storm 2.?

Your customers are sick to death of being treated as mere abstract numbers. Advertising has dehumanised and depersonalised the whole process of communication - there just never was a mass market!

They are also sick to death at the rampant corporate dishonesty all around them, again more evidence of Management being totally unaware of the real world and the communication process. Evidence of their ability to dehumanise and depersonalise the process of marketing.

It would appear that customers cannot trust anything or anybody these days. There was a time, for example, when we trusted our banks to look after our best interests and play fair with their charges. If so these days are long gone. The bond of trust has been broken, not only in banking, and people are rightly suspicious. And all the advertising in the world cannot help you solve that problem!

However Interactive Marketing Communication could be a positive start to resolving all the problems facing advertising and marketing. Interaction can be defined simply as straightforward communication between two parties.

Presently we are in danger of losing the real meaning of interaction, as we tend to focus discussions on the emerging technologies and neglect the communication process itself. With an understanding of the real meaning of Interactive Communication, existing media can be made interactive, and subsequently far more cost effective. Interactive Marketing Communication turns passive advertising into active advertising and actually alters behaviour during the communication and learning process.