Fields of solar panels fuel our nations homes and buildings, cars are purely electric and governed by an artificial intelligence that has eliminated traffic jams and enabled vehicles to travel at speeds greater than 300 mph for hours. Humans have begun interfacing with machines and can surf the web from the comfort of their own contact lens.

However, one things missing from a world that has everything - advertising. At least not as we know it today in 2009. In the next 15 years, it is possible that traditional display advertising will be rendered ineffective as a marketing tactic.

This will happen because of two reasons:

1. Technology will empower humans to show and hide what they please in their world, including all forms of advertising (think AdBlock for your eyeballs)
2. Over-cluttering will cause a social immunity to advertising

The first sign of the advertising apocalypse is AdBlock Plus (a program installed in your browser that locates and hides online display advertisements including banners, AdWords and even videos). This technology has over 4,000,000 subscribers (Source: Wikipedia) so clearly, the human race has a dis-interest in messages being forced into their line of sight.

The good thing about this is that technology will create some really awesome ways to push marketing messages to people and become more interactive. You remember the scene from Minority Report where the interactive billboards called people by their first and last names as they walked by it. This technology is coming…if not already here… and I assure you, marketers who have the dollars to leverage new technologies in their favor, will be the first to jump on the big brother bandwagon.

However, even with all of these serious advancements in the tech world, people will still eventually become immune to push-based and interruptive marketing.

So what’s a marketer to do when you live in a world where people can opt-out from seeing advertising wherever they go? It comes down to a simple core principle that’s been around for a while: fulfill an unmet need via both the product and the marketing that supports it. Digital can take this a step further in the right direction.

This need can include the human desire for social currency, i.e. “dude, check out this video on YouTube, it’s hilarious!”. That video just happens to be mildly branded, and drive to an interactive experience that then entertains the hell out of both the dude and the bro who showed him. Recently, the most obvious fit here is mildly branded applications — iPhone apps are a perfect example, widgets were the first iteration of this. However, even applications now are becoming cluttered.

Marketers in 2024 will be faced with some serious challenges as technology only further empowers people to choose what they want to see, when they want to see it. Should be fun.

Every day, someone has a great idea for some new web-based application or service. Be it mobile, social, or out-of-home — odds are that it didn’t happen because someone didn’t have the ambition (or funding…or time) to see that idea through to fruition. That idea was a service, a product, that fulfilled a specific need. Interactive agencies are in a unique place — they can make products and services that fulfill those needs.
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Last night, myself along with Dave Iannone (@ravin_dave) gave a talk to the CT Press Club on how to build your personal brand in the online space using social media. Furthermore, as a writer, we touched on how can you leverage your following to create opportunities for yourself and your career.

Dave and I both work at Colangelo Syergy Marketing on a few accounts together and had an excellent time imparting some knowledge on this eager-to-learn crowd.

The Slideshare presentation can be viewed and downloaded below. I have also put together a large list of links that dive deeper into the topics we toplined.

Feel free to contact me with any questions. Please share with your friends and enjoy!

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So for those of you familiar with my drawings, and those of you who are not, this week I have decided to relinquish command of my pen to my followers. Fill in the form below with your suggestion for a random drawing — whatever your heart desires (just no godzilla porn, or any porn for that matter).

Winner will be picked Friday, 4/11/09, of next week and the winning drawing will be posted next week.

So now is your chance to satiate your desire to see that T-rex battle a Paper Towell roll, or Obama fight Darth Vadar using balloon animals — sky’s the limit, so let ‘er rip.

There’s no limit to submissions, refresh the page when you’re done and submit as many as you’d like.

Pass it on to your friends and followers, they’ve got to want to see a recent popular Digg image redrawn or something.

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Two of my drawings/t-shirts are currently featured on the homepage of Skreened, the site I use to sell t-shirts made from the drawings I do on a weekly basis.

Check it out:

There come’s a time in every man-moose’s life where they have to ask themselves: what exactly am I? Am I a man? Am I a moose? Am I the abomination of some horrible KGB genetics experiment gone horribly wrong (or right depending on how you look at it)? Either way, a cloven hoof must be put down — a stand must be taken. Adjust your tie man-moose, raise your arms to the heavens and let your proclamation be heard!

“I’m a F@#%ing Moose!”

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