Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet

Not sure I agree that it is "Failing", but I do think it is being drastically altered into something that may not look like advertising when we are done. Lots of things are changing faster than expected. That is the nature of change - especially when added on to technological advances that foster more independence and freedoms. Not that everyone wants freedom, we are finding out, but still I think it is a good thing.

Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet:
"My basic premise is that the internet is not replacing advertising but shattering it, and all the king’s horses, all the king’s men, and all the creative talent of Madison Avenue cannot put it together again. To analyze this statement we need a working definition of advertising, and I proposed the following, which is as general as I could make it:

Advertising is using sponsored commercial messages to build a brand and paying to locate these messages where they will be observed by potential customers performing other activities; these messages describe a product or service, its price or fundamental attributes, where it can be found, its explicit advantages, or the implicit benefits from its use.

It is frequently argued that the advertising industry will provide sufficient innovation to replace the loss of traditional ads on traditional mass media. Again, my basic premise rejects this, suggesting that simple commercial messages, pushed through whatever medium, in order to reach a potential customer who is in the middle of doing something else, will fail. It’s not that we no longer need information to initiate or to complete a transaction; rather, we will no longer need advertising to obtain that information. We will see the information we want, when we want it, from sources that we"

Well, this should spark some debate. And that is a good endeavor. Read it all.