Shifting deck chairs on the Titanic
There’s a strange undertone at many of the advertising-related SXSW panels this year. The past few years have involved discussions of Twitter, platforms, transmedia, etc. This year there’s still a lot of that, but it feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of the real issues.
Communication has changed, media has changed, and yet advertisers are still living in the agency-client model that has been consistent for the past 50 years. I don’t think that hiring a social media expert, or creating a new department, or using a few new shiny tools is going to get us far enough.
I don’t have a solution. But the situation for advertisers in 2011 is starting to remind me a lot of the music industry in 2001. There’s a sea change coming, and I worry that all the little changes we’re making are blinding us to exactly how huge it is.
