Message from 2020: Advertising Most Trusted Media
Got your attention there, didn’t I?
But in an age where the FTC has to step in to advise bloggers to disclose their relationships to products that they shill, an age where there are dozens of “social activation” companies ready to sell networks of millions of people eager to go tell their friends about your product in an anonymous, friendly way, when getting top spot on Digg or YouTube is its own industry, where that friend on Facebook may be a robot spammer for some brand you’ve never heard of, you gotta wonder: where does it end?
With advertising, at least you know what the game is. Ads want you to buy something.
With advertising, at least you know the company that placed it has some money behind them. Ads aren’t cheap.
And with advertising, at least you know the message of the ad has to be reasonably accurate, or else it’ll be dissected by millions of people on YouTube, in forums, on Facebook, on Twitter, and in a thousand watchdog blogs.
So was Mark Twain right when he said, “Adverisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper?”
Maybe he was engaging in a little hyperbole there.
Probably.
But truth is, word on the street ain’t always accurate. Or honest. Keep that in mind, next time ten of your followers chirp enthusiastically (and with oddly similar voices) about the latest gotta-have gadget.
