Why “advertising” will never die

We spent the last two decades declaring that participated communication would be disrupting the way advertising is done. We rote learned the Cluetrain Manifesto (what’s the #3 thesis??) and said that no company without a transparent background and sustainable reputation would have survived. We assumed that, given the fact that people could retrieve any kind of information about the brand, consequently they would have.

But let’s check reality. Brands that have built a reputation upon “advertising-style” propositions, (e.g. “I’m the healthier! Trust me”) keep on being trusted despite the possibility of further investigation.

This means that people who didn’t have the time or attitude to investigate in depth, still don’t have, being or not possible to access certain kind of information.

The fact that a one-to-one dialogic communication brand-to-consumer is allowed, doesn’t necessarily mean this will go mainstream.

Most people still rely on generic, attractive and superficial information, that has the possibility to reach them, being them or not in search of it.

And this kind of information… is called “advertising”.