The Future of Advertising Is Invisible

Tue, Dec 1, 2009

Business, Digital Anthropology, Lifestyle, Philosophy

The Future of Advertising Is Invisible

It’s a primal challenge: driving consumers to action – getting money from your hand into mine.  And that’s where advertising helps.  But in a world where non-homogeneous humans inhabit the universe, your consumers are inherently non-homogeneous as well.  (If they were, business wouldn’t be as challenging and as fun!)

Rolling out national ad campaigns or even using the social web to market and advertise is not the future.  That is the past and the current.

Edward Boches recently wrote about his ideas for the future of advertising.  He worded it nicely: “The age of interruption is over”.

Yes, interruption is over.

Interruption is over because the future of advertising will not be seen.  Why?  Because the future of advertising is invisible. What I mean by invisible is the graceful fusion and integration of advertising with consumers’ lives.

The future of advertising is less about defining “how to advertise” and more about understanding human nature – a conceptual approach, if you will.  The shift in advertising is not driven because it is currently done “wrong”, but because our lives will continue to become more saturated with advertising that your company will be forced to penetrate in a way unforeseen.

The future will be delightful: there will be no differentiation between your consumer’s life, your company’s advertisement, and what drives that consumer to buy your product.  Why?  Because the advertising IS your customer’s life and their life IS the advertising.  Humans will not feel disrupted, hustled, or upset.  They will not feel anything yet still reap benefits.

The future of advertising is a veil. It is transparent and fluid and provides benefits by taking into account the non-homogenous interests, tastes, beliefs, and even prejudices of your customers.  It will help provide an easy transition from thoughts to action – the essence of what drives consumers to products and services.

Does this make sense??

Photo credit: metaldoll [----]
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  • Hi Sarah!

    I've only recently found your blog, but it's great - well written and subjects near to my (our) hearts at MyLykes. We're trying to help solve the issue of getting advertisers to connect with people's individuality. Don't pummel me with ads just because there is space on the sites I visit, make them intelligent enough to know me and allow me to invite them into my life. Current methods haven't reached that point yet as they all collect data with little involvement of the user and surely don't aggregate and individualize it with that person's help either. I don't think we'll get there unless individuals have more control over the way their individuality is represented in the digital world. Currently, marketers do that for everyone by tracking their clicks and reading their content. We hope to give individual people more control over advertising with our service. What do you think of our approach? Any suggestions?

    Thanks and look forward to reading more of your stuff...

    Mike Pierce (founder)
  • Thanks Mike for visiting. Your approach is very innovational and thoughtful. I'd love to hear more about how you propose giving individuals more control over their advertising. Feel free to email me if you'd like to continue this conversation at sarah at sarah merion dot com.
  • Like the notion of advertising as invisible. You should feel, and sense it's impact and contribution, but not it's interruption or annoyance. Because it's more of what you want and less of what you don't it will be integrated. Thinking that way will be new for many, but not impossible. Think Dunkin Run app or Este Lauder avatar.
  • Thanks for your thoughts Edward. You were the inspiration for this article so very happy to see your feedback. Advertising as invisible, in my opinion, will be a great thing. It is an abstract concept that I hope comes to fruition.
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