The future of advertising? Think online and personal

Inside the 300 Billion Dollar Business Behind the Media You Constantly Consume

By David Verklin and Bernice Kanner, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 256 pp. $24.95

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Reviewed by Cecil Johnson

Rumors of the impending demise or serious wounding of the advertising industry by warp-speed advances in communications technology are greatly exaggerated.

That is the clear message of Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here, a thorough airing of the contemporary and near-future media business written by Carat chief executive officer David Verklin and marketing expert Bernice Kanner.

"As marketers scramble to stay ahead (or at least abreast) of the technological innovations that are changing how people receive messages, those who plan and buy media have become the industry's rock stars and oracles. The ads themselves now play second fiddle to where they're presented," write Verklin and Kanner.

They describe an advertising universe that has morphed into two kinds of companies - those that create the advertising and those that buy time and space. That transformation has left 10 giant companies largely in control of the buying and selling of time and space, they say. One of those companies is Carat, the company headed by Verklin.

Carat is an abbreviation for "Can Anyone Really Anticipate Tomorrow?" The authors of this guidebook for marketers and consumers who want to know how they are being pursued, nevertheless, do a good job of just that.

Here are some of their short-term forecasts:

Fewer advertising dollars will go to television, while more will go to online.

More attention will be given to ethnic diversity and reaching households where English is not spoken.

Hyperlocalism and personalization will be emphasized, as well as increased targeting of viewers and tracking of return on investment of advertising dollars spent.

Blink ads and those positioned to be seen before the remote can be flicked will be used, along with interesting and exciting movie commercials, corporate documentaries, live events and serialized plots.

A more sophisticated ratings system will be developed, and there will be less emphasis on sweeps to determine the price of TV spots.

"We'll see elected mediatocracies spread their wings. The highly popular MySpace.com declared intentions to extend to a record label, film production company, and satellite-radio station and maybe a mobile service and ink-on-paper magazine. We'll see marketers attempt to fashion their own media hits," write Verklin and Kanner.

The real emphasis in the book, however, is on what already is occurring now that the relationship between consumers and media has evolved into one in which the consumer has the power to choose whose messages to receive and when, where and how to do so.

We have progressed, say the authors, from the age of interruption to the age of relevance. In that connection, they pinpoint the trend toward on-demand programming and how it will mushroom.

"Networks will shudder, because when prime time becomes your time, their schedules become irrelevant. But advertisers will smile, for this is more fertile soil in which to plant messages as it reaches those who already are interested in a subject like cooking and because they can embed their food-tip and recipe messages in the programming," say Verklin and Kanner.

The authors cover all facets of contemporary media, including newspapers, magazines, outdoor advertising, free radio, subscription radio, cell phones and video games. They explore in depth such subjects as Super Bowl advertising, product placement in movies and television programs, Google, Wikipedia, Oprah Winfrey's Pontiac giveaway, telemarketing's survival, and the effects of data mining on everyone's privacy.

Although there is enough information in Watch This to hold the interest of the general reader, the target audience of the book is marketers. It should be must reading for those with something to sell to today's technologically empowered consumers.