---
title: "The future of advertising"
url: https://www.simonwakeman.com/blog/2007/04/02/the-future-of-advertising/
description: "Consultant and fractional COO for scale-up businesses. I help founders, leaders and investors in scaling businesses create sustainably high performing organisations."
published: 2007-04-02T23:30:08+00:00
modified: 2026-04-11T16:25:19+00:00
author: Simon Wakeman
---
# The future of advertising

## The future of advertising

The UK’s [Sunday Times](http://www.timesonline.co.uk) has a thought-provoking [lengthy article](http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article1595910.ece) about online and offline advertising.  
Clients are recognising that it’s not enough to take the 30second spot and repurpose it online. Increasingly campaigns are created with digital at their core, with offline elements playing a secondary role (a bit more on the Nike case study referenced in the Sunday Times article [here](http://wheresthesausage.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/04/online_revoluti.html) and [here](http://wheresthesausage.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/04/offering_someth.html)).  
The article does note that the role of social-networking sites, such as MySpace and Bebo, is growing. The UK’s online advertising growth is still being driven by Google, and search advertising more broadly, with online display advertising less important.  
What the article doesn’t address is whether the interuptive advertising model is around for the long term. I suspect consumers are becoming more immune to being distracted from the task they’re undertaking online.  
I believe the future of online marketing lies with engaging positively with users on their terms, rather than trying to get in their way and divert them.  
This will impact online display advertising revenues further. What’s equally interesting is whether the marketing or public relations departments of our biggest advertisers will be leading this shift.  
(via [Make Marketing History](http://makemarketinghistory.blogspot.com/2007/04/reaching-unreachable.html))