Advertising: What's Next?

In his introduction Joe Plummer, Chief Research Officer, The Advertising Research Foundation mentioned...

... the dialogue was focused on "the hole, not the doughnut." Asked to explain, I offered the observation that the focus was on the negative ñ a sense that "advertising was dead," "all the marketing models are broken," "market research was at fault," "consumers were tuning out." Conference after conference filled with Chicken Littleís warning that the sky was falling. A mood of doom and gloom, possibly traceable to 9/11, the dotcom bust and the war in Iraq, was pervading the mindset of the advertising industry and the trade press in the US.

"So, what should we at the ARF do about that?"

Joe continues on to share...

... a series of workshops in the fall of 2005 focused on the future of advertising and particularly on positive future we could create together with industry thought leaders. Unlike so many conferences with speaker after speaker and no time for reflection or intelligent dialogue about possibilities, we could construct several workshops with a few stimulating speakers and much time spent between the participants constructing alternative future possibilities.

The results are one of the RICHEST and most amazing scenarios every marketer should consider and leverage! I have personally found this to be an invaluable resource - Advertising: What's Next?