Meta Advertising

It's amazing how advertising has so drastically changed in the last couple of years. The advent of DVRs and online content has completely changed the advertising landscape. Advertisers are pressured to come up with new ways to capture eyeballs. Advertising has become more creative, more edgy, and more memorable. The YouTube category for advertising contains 24,000 results. Advertising has now literally become destination content.

Consider this. Last night I was watching television and I saw an advertisement advertising an advertisement. I'm not kidding. It was an ad for Career Builder notifying viewers to tune into watch the new ad campaign for Career Builder that will be aired on the Super Bowl. The ads have become so popular that the agency is actually promoting the campaign as if it were a feature. Is this the beginning of a new genre called Meta Advertising?

Other advertisers have embraced user generated content. There are numerous contests for users to create the next campaign for products including Sony, Toyota, and L'Oreal. The contests have resulted in thousands and thousands of entries. Now everyone has the ability to become a producer, writer, and actor, why not harness all this free creative talent?

But does this mean the end of the ad agency creatives? Probably not, but in the case of user-generated advertising, ad agencies will have to give up creative control. More and more marketers should embrace this trend as the landscape changes. User-generated content means more options, less agency spending, and advertising that actually appeals to your target audience.

As more advertising becomes destination content, the lines between advertising and content will be even more blurred and we'll be seeing many more ads about ads.

Ivy Hastings is a Project Manager at Fusionbox, a Denver web design and development company. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Ivy has published many articles about Internet Marketing. She currently sits on the Board of Directors for Arts Street, a local non-profit that teaches at-risk youth the craft and business of the Arts.