Creating Advertising vs. Running It
In the 20th century “advertising” and advertising campaigns were synonymous. While the occasional poster plastered somewhere might generate awareness for free you generally had to pay another business to make your creative output work as “advertising.”
The internet changed all this.
Since the internet’s inception it has always been possible to create stuff and disseminate it online without paying anyone but an ISP (in the days before coffee shops). As the internet evolved this opportunity declined while remaining less expensive that paying legacy networks and publishers.
Legacy media providers remained expensive till they were obsoleted or acquired from 2008-2015. [1]
Yet, ironically, our media (aka digital) overlords have been acting exactly like the traditional media companies they replaced. They would have you believe that an advertising campaign is simply content that will never become “advertising” till you pay them to run it.
While they disdain the term “advertising” certain giant marketing automation companies are just as arrogant —they say you can’t get your message in front of an audience without their software. [2] At least their model requires real stuff, unlike content farms and fraudsters.
But this is all still basically bullshit.
Content becomes “advertising” when someone else notices it and acts upon it. Today you don’t need to pay an intermediary to make that happen. No PPC. No retargeting. No one charging you for the privilege of a faster ride on the information highway. [3]
That’s because marketing, digital or traditional is no longer about advertising.
It’s about advocacy.
And advocates will work for free.
[1] (Kaul, 2012)
[2] (Loredana, 2017)
[3] (Choi, Jeon, & Kim, 2015)
