Madison Avenue, Portland?

Gone are the glory days of Madison Avenue. Ad men, as they called themselves, thought up catchy slogans between puffs of cigar smoke while enjoying a three martini lunch of porterhouse steak the size of a catcher’s mitt. Madison Avenue was a catchall phrase connoting North American advertising at large. Now when referring to advertising as a whole you could just as easily mention Portland or Boulder as locations where much of the best ad work is done. Those headier days of advertising were ushered out as the privately owned agencies went public and absorbed a lot of other agencies, turning into huge global conglomerates… And this was just the shift of modern mid century advertising to post modern late century advertising.

A new study by IBM Global Business Solutions states that the advertising world will see a more dramatic shift in the next five years than it has seen in the last 50. And these figures are conservative. The study claims that over the past two years online advertising has exceeded forecaster’s projections by 25-40%. The traditional forms of advertising; print and broadcast are losing their ability to reach the consumer because the consumer is tuning out, throwing out the magazines and powering up their laptops.

Recent research by MultiMedia Intelligence has identified the following:

Media companies face a strategic choice of control versus reach. Syndicated and viral distribution of content via the Internet, social networks and user generated sites provides the broadest reach and empowers consumers. Yet, this model strips the control of media distribution from content owners and disrupts existing business models.

There are new potential advertising and branding models leveraging platforms with hardwired branding all the way down to the semiconductor level. Few have even considered some of the potential models where electronic devices feature chips that are integrated with and owned by the “Brand,” with a product subsidy cascading the to the end consumer.

Comprising just under 4% of new media advertising revenue in 2007, the three new media video categories of Internet TV, IPTV and mobile TV will combine to make-up almost 20% of media advertising dollars in 2011. Clearly, even in new media, video will be king.

According to Rick Sizemore, Chief Strategy Officer for Multimedia Intelligence, “The traditional media industry is under assault from rapidly changing technology and user behavior, the digital video recorder has empowered consumers and is toppling traditional TV advertising models. The $185 billion dollar TV advertising industry is now in the cross-hairs of the technology industry. Technology not only puts consumers in control of what and how they consume content, but also integrates community, participation and interactivity into the media experience. New technology-driven advertising models are emerging on the Internet, on mobile devices, in video games, and on public displays. These are significant opportunities, but will be massively disruptive to the traditional advertising industry.”

The most used web browsers like Yahoo and Google stand to benefit the most in this shift. Ultimately the shift is veering towards consumer control of the advertising content. IBM states that "virtually any advertiser can reach any individual consumer across any advertising platform -- as long as the advertising is relevant and appealing."