Advertising Utopia

Does advertising still work? Sure it does but I don’t think it will do so forever. Most of my 20-something friends (not all of them involved in the internet business) hardly ever click on banners. These are kids that grew up in a world where, for the most part, internet is normal. People in the age bracket of 15-20 probably don’t really recall not having internet and I highly suspect that they don’t respond to online advertisement all that well either.

However, the online advertisement industry is huge. Most of Google’s profit is made from advertisement. Their secret has been non-intrusive advertisements as opposed to the rude banners we were used to. Which brings me to my next point: Advertisement should be helpful, I should actually want to look at it. I’ll give you an example.

Lets say I decide to buy a laptop from an online store. If I am not yet a member I need to register and if I were a member of the site they can see what I have purchased before. Now, obviously it would be a good idea to sell me more stuff while I am already on the site. So, why not see what I have bought before? You can be almost sure of it that I would want a laptop bag. If I haven’t bought one before, why not offer it to me, perhaps at a discount? I am willing to shell out a lot of money for a laptop, wouldn’t I spend some more to protect it from damage? Or why not recommend a laptop stand? Or a mouse? If I am a loyal customer to this store, they know which items I have bought before so they can accurately guess what I might not have. This saves me time trying to look for these accessories, accessories I might not even need or never occurred to me that they might be useful. Accessories I might buy anyway at a later date, but from someone else.
The way advertisement worked in the past will not work in the future. We are way too skeptical about promises made to us by companies to buy into anything.
Perhaps advertisement should not look and feel like advertisement but like helpful advice.