The New Advertising Outlet: Your Life - New York Times

The New Advertising Outlet: Your Life - New York Times

Here's an article in the NY Times about a shift away from traditional media by marketers. What I think is interesting is that the mainstream press isn't saying, "Everything's going digital". They are looking at from a broader perspective and recognizing how advertisers are merely shifting their support from content to tools.

Advertisers are moving away from making content "free" and towards making "tools" free. Those tools can be a running club or a matching making service. It can be digital or live in the real world.

This doesn't mean ad supported content is dead, it means the bar is raised. It doesn't mean "tools" will achieve an advertisers goals. Its means awesome tools will meet advertisers goals.

In the end, it will be marketers looking at their customers, (and to steal a line from this week's Private Practice) figure out what they want, and then give it to them.