We’re big fans of permission marketing. In a world cluttered with messages that take a shotgun approach and vie for ever shrinking slices of our attention by getting louder and more intrusive, the concept of only being advertised at by brands and products I have a genuine chance of being interested in seems like a paradise.
In this digital Eden my online behaviour creates a profile of me that through the alchemy of algorhythms only shows me stuff that matches my interests, psychographics, and who knows, maybe even my income level and mood. My very own ever present binary PA, shunning away those unwelcome salespeople.The upshot of this is that the shotgun will be discarded in favour of the laserbeam. Advertising is intense, focused and is targeted at the smallest number of people possible, instead of the largest. The focus shifts from the cheapest CPM to the campaign with the least excess.
Which all sounds wonderful.
It also means that the brands (people and companies alike) that have reached pop icon status due to their widespread recogniseability have got to adapt or die. When 99.9% of a shotgun blast is blocked it becomes nothing more than a loud and pretentious air rifle.
I know who Rihanna is, just like I’ve heard of Viagra, yet (thankfully) neither have any relevance to my life. They have become part of the zeitgeist. That kind of pop icon status is going to be nearly impossible when the only people you can reach are those that already care.