Hasta La Creative!

I was asked to speak at next week’s Ad Age Digital Conference on “The Future of Advertising” a daunting task, but fortunately not one that requires me to be Nostradamus. The fact is, the future is already here, and it’s being driven by consumer behavior that is disrupting the marketing model. Like it or not, we’re in an attention economy and have been for more than a decade, mind you where consumers are increasingly in control of media they consume and how brands are perceived.

Yet our industry is operating at its core much the same as it was in the pre-digital era. Sure there have been changes, but it’s more like a paint job or landscaping, rather than a gutting of the house that is so badly needed.

Like Eisenhower’s warning in 1961 of the military-industrial complex creating self-sustaining programs and power that were hard to unravel, today’s “advertising industrial complex” has erected an ecosystem with ingrained systems, relationships and methodologies that are ill-equipped to fighting the challenges of the digital era. This inertia is our enemy.

Continue reading at AdAge.com