I just read an essay by Chuck Klosterman speaking to the inevitable end of media and advertising as we know it. This was originally written back in 2006 and predicted a major paradigm shift would occur by 2010, basically eliminating ads as we know them. 

While I think 2010 might be a bit premature, it’s naive to think that some major change isn’t coming. With the advent of PVRs, less and less people sit through commercials and online marketing has been forced to evolve from banner ads and spammy emails.

But where Klosterman (with some artistic license) predicted marketing armageddon I’m more inclined to see this as a clean slate for the industry.

Look at Google’s attempted reinvention of email through Google Wave. They scrubbed what we know and expect from email communication and tried to create something fresh. The problem is - as much as they’ve endeavoured to give us a new way of communicating online - they’ve really just upgraded email with some impressive add-ons. And this will be the same trap marketing faces moving forward.

Soon you won’t be able to just push your message to mass quantities of people. Not everyone is going to see your TV ad or radio spot and there might not be a lot of national papers left to advertise in.

But the truth is there are far more opportunities to have big marketing reach now. People are online in all kinds of places (Facebook, email, blogs), nearly everyone has a mobile device and the amount of people with smart phones is growing exponentially.

So for the cunning and truly creative, opportunities abound - but not for rehashing or even tweaking the old methods. Social Media is scratching the surface strictly in an online capacity but that’s half the story and is still leveraging some old tricks in a new environment. To really have an impact, we’re going to have to rethink our approach and take some big chances on things that might seem absurd.

Who’s ready?