I read with interest the recent report “The End of Advertising as We Know It” issued by IBM which forecasts “greater disruption for the advertising industry in the next five years than occurred in the previous 50.”. The report can be view here.
Whoa. Very doomsday-like with IBM predicting drastic upheavals in the advertising industry. I wouldn’t exactly call it the end of advertising. This is the beginning of a critical shift that will cause traditional advertising to evolve, NOT go kaput. We are beginning to glimpse the changes that are to come: Google’s OpenSocial and Facebook’s SocialAds, which delivers personalised advertising content based on users’ interests.
Remember the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report? There were scenes that showed him running through a metro train and a shopping mall in the midst of his escapade from the baddies. Very tiny machines scanned his retina and flashed personalised ad contents based on his purchasing history, interests etc.
When I saw that, it was all very wow and futuristic. In probably 10-15 years time, we may not be too far off from that future.
