When the market changes, marketing changes

I would like to self-report here and completely fess up to never having read an advert in its entirety, regardless of the media vehicle. I'm that woman. That being said I do appreciate and understand that these advertisements have a genuine purpose and intent to either save me, sell me or teach me something - but I have yet to get to the fine print and fully realize their objectives.

Personally, I do believe that ads should be clearly identified as such and do so at the top of each advertisement. If marketers identified themselves as salespeople looking to move an offering and advertisers positioned their clients to land in front of the appropriate audience, that audience would be interested in receiving such an offering and this advertising thing might actually take off. This multi-billion dollar industry just might have some legs. Okay - so advertising has worked by way of "manipulation" more often than not but I think that tactic is getting harder and harder to do in our new global online Ecosystem.

So advertising obviously works - and works really really really well, (I wish I had thought of it) but I believe that the marketplace has shifted - and with that shift advertisers and marketers have to shift too.

I think that this shift is a great thing for every industry, excluding the naughty ones of course. Today's consumer is far savvier, the competition greater and brand loyalty - fragile and fleeting at best. I blame the millennials. For most things. I also truly believe that this shift can only help brands, products, and services. This shift I believe is all about trust, truth, and transparency. I call it my 3T's of Marketing... (can you help me trademark and register that? jk, unless you think it's super genius - then we must). Given these bleak but honest consumer market trends and conditions - it's obvious to me anyway that what has worked in the past just won't any longer. You can't lie, cheat, manipulate your way to customers and sales conversions anymore. (Excluding the DIET industry, which is built on lies and will never fall...) The customers today are too close too connected and too smart for all that. According to me - and in my opinion as an expert consumer, professional marketer and CMO. I believe that the marketer/advertiser should be as authentic as possible. Totally transparent and true. Not only for the public's sake but for their clients if they want to better serve and retain them.