The Illusion of Marketer Control & The Impending Consumer Advertising Revolution!

Michael Sippey has an excellent post about marketer's illusion of control and gmail.

He speaks about an email marketing company's CEO who has written that email marketers should not deliver email to people with gmail domains, because other ads (possibly competing) will be delivered to the gmail user, when the emailed ad is delivered (using contextual targeting). I didn't read the original piece, but I agree with Michael, that it is a ridiculous notion.

What marketers need to realize is, that marketing is not their game to control. It is the consumer's game.

Of course, most types of media are vertically integrated and view themselves as competing against other types of media for their share. Take a look at this website's pitch.

The first part of the pitch says the following:

Internet advertising is more effective and less expensive than traditional forms of advertisement:
1. Radio - (Your advertisement gets played at certain time slots, which means that the targeted medium needs to be listening to the radio to get the advertisement.)
2. Flyers - ( This form requires a person to person contact)
3. Magazines - ( This form requires the medium to purchase or read the advertisement).

The facts about the advertisement mediums are certainly true. I am not sure how they support the first statement about online advertising being more effective, but I guess I could point to this graph too...

and this one...

And does anyone have access to this? The form didn't work for me, when I tried to get the teaser access.

Anyways, I don't want to debate the effectiveness and value of different types of marketing on this post. Fact is, all these advertising methods will be around for a long long time. Of course, different amounts of spending will be moved around to different ad mediums.

And advertisers will spend the majority of their budget where it is spent most effectively.

So, what marketers should do, is concentrate on making their medium the most effective

But, what makes a specific type of advertising more effective than another? No, not the advertiser
not the the publishers (or ad medium controller). THE CONSUMER DOES!

Which leads me to the latest meme propogating... Cost Per Influence, Transitive Advertising, Sell-Side Advertising, OpenListings: Jeff Jarvis John Battelle, Ross Mayfield, Marc Canter, Michael Sippey.

So, the big question is....

How does the consumer want to help in the Advertising Process?
(please assume that bloggers are just consumers that like to blab..not people aspiring to be the next publishing conglomerate)

We could turn to the lessons learned in viral marketing: Subservient Chickens and funny spoofs on airlines certainly get people to help advertise. People naturally help market events (because they get to participate). People like to tell people about especially gross things. Certain services promote themselves when people use them. Maybe we should take a lesson from Dave Balter's BzzAgent. Marc Canter suggests OpenListings Joi Ito has suggested someone build Battelle's idea. Mitch Ratcliffe said AOL did it in the 90s

Stay tuned.