The Future Will Not Be Advertised... At least, not the same way, anyway....

In the future, every digital advertisement you see will fit into the following categories:

  1. You asked for it, because want to know more about a product or service.
  2. Someone paid for your attention with some kind of an offer.
  3. It was deemed funny or entertaining through social screens made up of actual humans.
  4. You saw it as part of the self-expression of someone else...that they use the brand to self-identify, so your interaction with them became branded (like when your friends wear Nike t-shirts...  only this time, its on their avatar).

They will all have the following attributes:

  1. Every ad not passed on through social screens or as self expression will be data targeted in some way, not contextual.  Something about what you did or who you are will drive what you see... 
  2. You will always have a way to block future ads from these non-social placements.
  3. You will be able to subscribe to more information or announcements about these products in a blinded way that ensures you can stop at any time and that your contact info doesn't get sold off.
  4. The ads will be built for the medium they are carried on.  In other words, boring TV commercials will not follow you onto the internet and appear as YouTube pre-rolls.  They will take advantage of the format and be more interactive.

Here's some other stuff I'd like to see happen:

  1. Brands will set the elements of their brand free... logos, music, images, etc... for users to do with as they please...remix, reuse...  even parody.
  2. I'll stop getting junk mail.  Seriously, folks...  once a week, I just shred 99% of the snail mail I get.  Is there any way to spam block an offline mailbox?  (Oh, and btw...  I'm getting Gmail spam.. that's really annoying, b/c I wasn't for a long time.  That Report Spam button doesn't work at all.)
  3. Ratings, reviews, wishlists, even product inventories of things your friends bought, will be microformatted, permissioned, standardized, etc... so that, when I need new shoes, I'll be able to see what kind of shoes my friends are buying or what the most popular ones are among Directors of Consumer Products.   

Anyone else see the nature of advertising changing?  What will be different in the future?  Feel free to post your thoughts.

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