What is Google thinking?

As a $20 billion industry, digital marketing definitely represents a maturing focus, and AD-TECH Chicago this year directly reflects that. The Chicago version of AD-TECH (a traveling interactive Web-related best practices conference that spans Asia to Europe over a six month period) serves up top agency and search-related talent. This year the absence of the former "rah-rah" nature of interactive marketing is most apparent. As I write this in the AD-TECH press room (fittingly enough), the conference is ending its first day after featuring leading figures from digital marketing agencies and companies (E.g., Leo Burnett, Avenue A/Razorfish, Google, Yahoo, et al), and we're waiting to hear from Clay Shirky ("Here Comes Every Customer - The Former Audience Is Talking About You") about how a company's "former audience" (E.g., former consumers, customers, partners, etc) directly influence how new customers or stakeholders may choose to engage with you online or elsewhere. I plan to publish a few short white papers on the MEK Web site to chronicle ostensibly the best and the brightest from the interactive world, so won't go further here today into the details of social media, performance marketing and Web 2.0/3.0. With one exception.

In the seminar titled "The End of the Banner Ad," one PowerPoint slide -- and one PowerPoint slide only -- detailed the takeaway messaging about how the consumer -- whether retail or B2B -- controls how he or she consumes any given message. The slide illustrated a marketing mindset more than anything, so here's the text:

-With, Not At

-Earned, Not Bought

-Democratic, Not Dictatorial

-Involvement, Not Exposure

-Services, Not Communications

-Collaboration, Not Linear

Worth thinking about, especially as in a dramatically sagging economy, one size definitely does not fit all, and consumers increasingly possess near-total control to the "brand experience" that you or company wishes to expose them to.