My main perspective is that advertising has lost touch with the customer. It has become about digital gimmicks and tricking people into buying, about putting lipstick on the pig, about presenting only one side of the story, and thinking that people can’t handle the truth. Well, they can, and in fact they love it!

I would love to see agencies and independent new media producers like us get together to plan and execute creative strategies. There is a lot of missed opportunity right now because the action is happening down on the street level. I think some agencies are similarly afraid that clients don’t want to hear the truth, or try innovative strategies, or engage with the customer. It means the an gency becomes more of a facilitator than a wizard controlling things behind the curtain.

“No name people” are creating highly targeted, incredibly loyal niche audiences but their content is deemed too rough around the edges or the audience too small. But it is time to look at CPM in a whole new way. 100,000 sounds like a nice number until there is a next to zero response rate. 5,000 sounds ridiculously small, until you get several hundred favorable responses.

Prudential has been working with us on just such a pilot project. They were initially won over by our daily Internet TV show, Beach Walks with Rox. It’s is very easy to view someone’s back catalog online and be able to know a lot about with whom you are dealing.

We conceived and executed most of the pilot campaign, after a few consultations hearing what the client wanted to accomplish. As it turns out, we are part of their target market. We could just start with telling the truth. Let’s hope it doesn’t get sabotaged by the agency of record and the brand manager and the other turf-builders who want the contract more than what is best for the customer.

OK. That turned into something of a rant. Thanks for sharing your soap box!