Like everyone else i got high on the possibilities of the Internet (the “I” is capitalized on spellcheck). I benefitted from it spectularly earlier in my career, so i more than most had reason to expect big things from it. And it just isn’t panning out as an advertising medium. It’s a connecting medium. Like the telephone. Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could put an ad on every telephone call? no. we all know it would be torture. so it will never happen.
And it for this reason that advertising doesn’t really belong online. How can your ad compete with a torrent of awesome stuff that i like? or facebook. or twitter. answer: it can’t. the Internet is getting very small. Ten years ago the Internet was a lot like the American west in the 1850s. Today it feels a lot like 1905. Google and Facebook own the internet.
today you have to buy your way to Internet success. you buy it with outstanding creative and outstanding strategy. or all the above and MONEY.
see Nike’s World Cup ad. Nike weren’t the official sponsor of the world cup. adidas is. but the adidas work was very boring. so Nike cleverly owned the championship for 9 million dollars, the amount it cost to produce that piece. money well spent. the internet loves the exceptional. and fuck all else frankly.
So clearly the solution is for advertising to become a lot more exceptional. that’s not as hard as you might think. all the boring advertising in your category is merely setting the boring stage for the exceptionally brilliant advertising you will do for your brand.
nothing is more fun than making a previously dull category suddenly exciting!
