Scott Karp has a beautiful post where he urges media to evolve into marketing services.
NON-ADVERTISING-BASED FORMS OF MARKETING - especially newer sectors such as branded entertainment, event marketing and experiential marketing - have emerged as the fastest growing segment of the media economy, outpacing advertising, as well as consumer and industrial spending on media. The finding, which comes from the 2006 edition of the Communications Industry Forecast being released this week by Veronis Suhler Stevenson, comes as strong evidence that U.S. marketers and their agencies are shifting spending into forms of marketing that have tangible measures of ROI associated with them. It also suggests that Madison Avenue’s shift from conventional ad-based media planning toward marketing-based communications planning is also having an effect, and that the definition of media is expanding well beyond traditional formats like TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. Perhaps most significantly, much of the shift toward new forms of marketing spending, especially the kind of experiential marketing aimed at active young adults, is a sign that marketers need to find new ways of reaching some important consumer segments.
Just as the media is bleeding into technology, we’re seeing advertising, marketing, PR, and CRM all bleeding into each other — companies are starting to de-silo the end-to-end processes of customer acquisition and customer relationship management. This presents a huge opportunity for media.