Is the web an advertising medium? Some people wonder

And this time it includes reporters from Advertising Age which I'm reading with increasing frequency. Matthew Creamer discusses the question in a thought provoking article titled, "Think Different: Maybe the Web's Not a Place to Stick Your Ads". He questions some of the fundamental premises that drive the display ad business - do we really care to click on those advertisements and is that they best way for a brand to reach its prospective customers? Using Apple with its small online advertising budget as an example, he emphasizes that there are lots of other ways to market online too.(To the right is HP's viral marketing campaign from 2006 - a great example of non linear marketing.)

Talking of which, Creamer also discusses some social influence marketing themes. He argues that in the not to distant future consumers won't be "treated as subjects to be brainwashed with endless repetitions of whatever messaging some focus group liked". He believes that the world isn't about hidden persuasion but transparency and dialogue at its center allowing people to influence each other's decision making. I couldn't agree more with him but I believe we're in that not to distant future already.

The most successful brands are the ones that have been engaging with their audiences in more direct, meaningful and personal ways. Display advertising still matters but its just one component of the marketing mix. The audiences aren't passive and they're absorbing, critiquing and sharing their perspectives on the major brands more quickly and with more people than ever before. Figuring out how to take advantage of that is a challenge but that's at the heart of all of this. It's not something new either, its been happening since the dawn of the Internet and its rooted in our innate desires to share and communicate with one another.

And while providing "utility" maybe new to the advertising industry, its old hat for those of us who grew up in the web design business. You have to provide something useful if you want to attract, convert and retain customers via the web. You've gotten more choices in terms of where you provide that usefulness (it just doesn't have to be on your own website), and you can use it to influence purchasing decisions but providing it shouldn't be treated as something new. Just go ask your web product teams about usefulness.

In a sense, its not that utility is entering the marketing domain but rather marketing is getting broader.