It used to be so simple

A friend who doesn’t work in advertising came to visit the agency today. She asked me to explain what advertising was all about in 2009. I struggled for a second, then realized—most of the people we market to don’t know about and don’t care about the seismic shifts we’re embracing and managing now.

I said advertising used to be created from words and images. Sometimes they moved, or had music behind them. Generally, we told stories.

But then we added technology.

Words + Images + Technology

The result is both exponential and additive. Suddenly, very little of any marketing is unconnected anymore. Complexity has replaced simplicity. Stories still matter, but the ways in which they can be told and who tells them and how long it takes to tell them has been shot to hell.

Another friend, Valeria Maltoni, has written a wonderful post today about this same subject, from a different angle.

“This concept of going from macro to micro must be the most significant development brought by the social Web. While in the past, the official position of a company was the *only* public position a company would have, today, a company’s public face is a composition.

In fact, if it’s done its job well, an organization could have a myriad voices, all different, yet all on the same cultural page.”

Yes, it used to be so simple.