The New York Times recently posted in their ‘Idea of the Day‘ blog a short little blurb concerning the death of advertising in our increasingly internet-ed existence. Oh Dear.

It’s no secret that advertising is the main source of revenue for mainstream media sources such as newspapers and television. And with the introduction of the internet where advertising has the ability to be cheaper, faster, more targeted and ultimately more effective, mainstream media began to die a slow, painful and extremely public death.

The debate was fired up by this article, “Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet” written by Eric Clemons for Tech Crunch in late March. The post has received an immense influx of comments (over 700! Geez louise!), contesting Clemons’ argument, struggling to prove that advertising is a viable business strategy on the net and that advertising revenue will not diminish. Clemons maintains, however, that the reasons advertising on the internet is an ultimately depressing pursuit is due to the lack of necessity.

“Traditional advertising simply cannot be carried over to the internet, replacing full-page ads on the back of The New York Times or 30-second spots on the Super Bowl broadcast with pop-ups, banners, click-throughs on side bars.”

Clemons has a point. Advertising, schmadvertisting – we don’t really need advertisements to tell us what we need, what product will solve our problems or will best suit us! We can find out for ourselves via a great number of blogs, independent websites, forums and social networkings sites.

But is this why advertising is failing on the net? Perhaps all it really comes down to is our failing attempt at translating traditional advertising methods onto a media that is nothing like what we’re familiar with. Square peg, round hole – you get my drift. Clemons doesn’t think so -

“The problem is not the medium, the problem is the message, and the fact that it is not trusted, not wanted, and not needed.”

Interesting. So maybe it’s simply because, thanks to shows such as The Gruen Transfer and media studies subjects, that we’re more aware of being manipulated, we’re paranoid to the max and careful about where we throw our hard earned dollars these days, willing to take the extra time and effort ourselves to find out what we need to know.

I don’t dare take on Google, I have more sense than that. But it seems that one thing’s for sure and that’s something’s going to change; the information age is taking hold – say your prayers advertising industry, you’re in for a complete overhaul where ‘virtual’ knowledge and information are more valuable than the physical – who’dve thunk it!?

You can read Clemons’ thoughtprovoking piece on Tech Crunch here – whilst you’re there, check out the responses!

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