Advertising in the Digital Age

Jeff Goodby - Co-Chairman, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners

The advertising that we see is insulting, repetitive. It doesn't treat you as if you have a sense of humor, a sense of intelligence. It's not welcome in your life. That's going to start changing.

Well, the Internet has totally changed everything of course, and it's even changed the way that we think, you know. I mean, I think we're just so much more fluid now in the way that we think about things, the way that we digest the world, certainly in the way that we digest media.

Richard Campbell - Author, Media and Culture

Advertising in the digital age I think is certainly a challenge. I mean, one of the things that we know is that advertisers have to work really hard to get people to pay attention to their ads because they're really everywhere. And audiences, especially young audiences, are very sophisticated about not paying attention to ads.

Jeff Goodby

And what happens now I think is something that's much more like the way that your senses work. You know, you're looking at something here, but suddenly a squirrel runs by and you move over there and look at that. And then a car goes by and you look at this thing, and a beautiful woman walks by and it's the way that your senses actually work. I think media is actually conforming to the way that we work physically. You know, I mean, one of the things that is really happening now is that we have so much voluntary media. You know, we can leave the thing that's in front of us and go do something else. I can leave this Web site and go to another Web site. I can turn off this television station. I can mute the thing. I can take my TiVo and fast-forward through the commercials. I can make advertising leave my life. I can basically lead a life now that is free of advertising. So there's a big burden on advertising to actually be entertaining, you know, to be a force of light even, if it can be. And in the future I think the people that are in advertising are going to become more and more entertainers than they are sellers.

Bedford/St. Martin's Video Transcript