Author: Mitch Joel

As the internet continues to make it easier to connect with potential customers, some entrepreneurs have decided that Instagram isn’t just for “selfies,” but for marketing. Blogger Jason Kottke reported last month on Kuwait’s “booming Instagram economy,” where anyone with an Instagram account is simply putting a price tag on an item, taking a photograph, and selling it via the photo sharing online social network.

Everything from Manga to make-up, and more is being sold in this very simple and direct platform, leveraging additional free technology like WhatsApp (customer service), PayPal, and Square (transactions) to make the business infrastructure as simple as possible.

Not unlike eBay and the power-sellers it spawned, Instagram has the scale, stability, and user trust to create a viable marketplace. Once upon a time, if you wanted to sell online you needed a sturdy e-commerce site with analytics, a robust hosting facility, and a web team to create, design, merchandise, market, and more. Today, you need a couple of free accounts on some of the major online channels along with the persistence to keep at it. Is this the digital equivalent of a garage sale, or the next generation of business?

The answer is likely somewhere in between. It’s doubtful that those in the upper echelons of the massive consumer packaged goods companies are going to care about this, or that Sephora and Walmart see this as a competitive threat, but the barriers to entry for someone to start and market a new business continue to be lowered.

These Instagram businesses may not be the next big thing, but they could well be the nascent stages of what is the next big, small thing in business today. On April 23rd and 24th of this year, the American University of Kuwait hosted a two day conference, featuring case studies, how-to’s and networking for those wondering what it takes to build a business on Instagram. The Insta Business Expo, featured a slew of new entrepreneurs who built and grew their respective businesses through Instagram.

While this may seem inconsequential in the grander scheme of global economics and business, consider the global reach of Instagram, the burgeoning ability to use 3-D printing to create or augment existing products, and the desire from consumers for more unique products and services. There is also potential here for more traditional brands to try moments of commerce; an Instagram storefront could help validate a new product line or market ancillary products.

Instagram should not be underrated as an engine of marketing, considering the engagement beautiful images can generate. Today’s Instagram entrepreneurs have uncovered an easy way for brands to quickly share new inventory, and a very simple way to conduct business from a smartphone. If your brand has the goods, you might want try out an Instagram store of your own.

What if your ideas didn’t matter?

For senior marketers, it is a very humbling thought. What if your ideas, your thoughts and even your experience as a trained marketing professional didn’t amount to a hill of beans in terms of the brand’s actual advertising performance? What if everything you have been bringing to the table could be debunked with a simple multivariate testing regimen? What if, in short, what your company really needs is not a marketer, but a data scientist?

Let’s take a step back. Don Draper, the lead character on the show Mad Men, has an acutely profound skill in being able to turn a brand insight into an emotion that can bring you to tears. Watch him spin and weave a tale about the profound power that Kodak’s slide carousel could have on the world.

It’s not just the emotional resonance of his pitch and delivery that touches us, but the core insight that he is able to uncover and express. Don Draper is, obviously, a fictitious character but he’s the perfect composite of hundreds (if not thousands) of advertising legends who have roamed our earth. Great advertising is magic. It does more than sell; it tells a story that captivates our imaginations and connects us to a brand — and to others who share in the brand sentiment. It is art for money’s sake. It’s hard to argue that any computer or technology can create that kind of emotional connection or weave that kind of story.

Traditional advertisers will tell you that not much has changed. The job — day in and day out — remains the same: create a compelling enough message that your customers can’t ignore you, generate advertising that creates attention and interest and closes the sale. Rinse and repeat. What we can’t deny is that technology is now penetrating the marketing industry like never before. You could practically hear the Chief Marketing Officer’s bodies hitting the floor in March of last year when the research firm Gartner reported that by 2017, a Chief Marketing Office will be spending more on IT than the Chief Information Officer. It seems almost unfathomable that the marketers will need more technology that the actual technology department, but when you scratch beneath the surface, it all starts to crystallize.

Emerging trends show some fascinating moves in advertising that together paint a powerful and picture as to just how much advertising has changed and how much more change is about to occur.

First, younger digital natives, are becoming increasingly comfortable sharing their personal data online so long as they are deriving a value from the exchange. In a world where many consumers are screaming about their privacy being breached by every website that tracks their clicks, young people seem more-than-fine when it comes to giving up personal information — so long as they get something out it.

Next up, we’re seeing exponential growth in programmatic buying, where automation allows ads and the platforms that display them to come together efficiently, in response to customer behavior, without human intervention. The numbers don’t lie, according to this eMarketer news item: 70% of media buyers and publishers are doing some kind of programmatic buying and 77% of those doing it plan on increasing their spend in the next year. Moreover, the same survey also states that a good chunk of these media entities are thinking about moving entirely to programmatic trading and stopping their direct relationships with publishers.

Third, the challenges of retargeting (the ability to serve advertising that is related to a user’s past online experience — like showing them an ad for a specific shoe that they were looking at on Zappos but never bought) are coming to light. As exciting as that nascent advertising technology is, many agencies and publishers are not able to fully harness the potential of it to make it work effectively… yet. Still, millions of dollars are being poured into this quickly-maturing advertising opportunity, and nobody doubts the future potential that is upon us in terms of delivering measurable advertising without much human (or creative) intervention.

It’s somewhat disheartening to see the lack of enthusiasm that senior marketers have for all of this evolution (or revolution — depending on who you ask). Too many in this industry think their job is to get their ads on the hot new sitcom, put their logo on the baseball stadium, and take clients out to three-martini lunches.

At the Monetate Agility Summit 2013 in Philadelphia at the beginning of April, I shared the stage with famed marketing optimization expert (and friend), Bryan Eisenberg (co-author of bestselling books like Waiting For Your Cat To Bark? and Always Be Testing). He concludes that too many marketers let their ego get in the way. It’s a sobering indictment. In a world where testing creative, landing pages and more can be done in a simple and measurable way, Eisenberg argues that the number one reason senior marketers don’t buy into the data and technology is because they’re worried that the results will prove their intuition wrong. And, that more often than not, those intuitions are wrong.

This weaves a complex story: We have consumers increasingly willing to share personal data, the technology to create hundreds of fast and easy to execute tests, and additional technology to manage the complexity of the media buy behind it and yet we still want to be Don Draper.

Our thinking as marketers needs to shift from “Mad Men” to “math men.” This doesn’t mean that creativity, insight, and storytelling die. It does mean that we can use technology to make us better at how that our human-crafted messages convert to sales.

We marketers have allowed our egos get in the way for too long because we had little else to go by. Now, the excuses are getting thinner and weaker. It turns out that data, programmatic buying, retargeting and more could well usher in a world where advertising delivers on its original promise: to drive more sales and get less expensive as it learns. Now, if only we can let our egos get out of the way.

Apple acquired a company last week. It’s something to pay attention to.

There is still one slightly uncharted territory that will — without question — be the last mile in marketing. It is the ability for a brand to deliver contextual and highly targeted marketing at the local retail level. We may be inching ever-closer to this reality.

On March 23rd, 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple acquired a company called WiFiSLAM for an estimated $20 million (not bad for a two year old company with just a handful of employees that includes some ex-Googlers). WiFiSLAM is billed, according to AngelList, as a technology that, “allow(s) your smartphone to pinpoint its location (and the location of your friends) in real-time to 2.5m accuracy using only ambient WiFi signals that are already present in buildings. We are building the next generation of location-based mobile apps that, for the first time, engage with users at the scale that personal interaction actually takes place. Applications range from step-by-step indoor navigation, to product-level retail customer engagement, to proximity-based social networking.”

If you can get beyond the marketing jargon, WiFiSLAM is, essentially, GPS for the indoors. It is able to triangulate the location of consumers, track their every move and deliver contextual marketing messages to them while capturing a tremendous amount of consumer data. Does that creep you out?

It turns out that consumers are looking forward to more technologies at the physical retail level. In December of 2012, under the headline, “Smartphone Owners Want More Mobile Information in Stores,” Internet Retailer reported: “80% of smartphone owners want more mobile-optimized product information while they’re shopping in stores, finds ‘The Shopping Experience in a Smartphone World,’ a study conducted by ad agency Moosylvania. The agency surveyed 1,874 U.S. adult Smartphone owners. 97% of respondents have access to a personal computer and 43% have access to a tablet.”

While it’s not a massive sample and the research was done by a digital marketing agency with a vested interest in these types of technologies creeping their way into the physical stores that ran the research, there is a high temperature to capture both the mapping of these physical retail spaces and connecting the consumers who are in them. In short, retailers want to capture this new, connected and highly untethered consumer.

For Apple, this is more than a defensive move. Pundits have a hard time grasping why Apple would make a move like this in a world where Google has made several dominating moves in the mapping space (hint: Apple stores!). Some speculate that Apple will try to grab the mapping of the inside spaces while Google continues to map the oceans and the arctic. The truth is that Google is just as busy trying to capitalize on this idea of mapping the inside of spaces as well. But it’s not just a game for Apple and Google. Amazon has been hard at work capturing tons of consumer information at the retail level.

Look no further than their Price Check for iPhone app that enables consumers to scan a barcode, snap a picture of a product or use text/speech search to find out how much the product is on Amazon. This business of showrooming has become a contentious talking point in the retail sector, as more and more consumers are using their smartphones and tablets to find a better price at the physical location. These consumers are using the stores as a showroom, but completing their purchases on their mobile devices and having the products shipped to their homes. What we don’t hear much about is the data and information that Amazon is capturing about consumers, how they walk through stores, what they’re price checking, the price variances from store to store, trends in merchandising and more. All of this (and more) is being captured, each and every time a consumer uses the app to find a better price. While it’s not real-time information like WiFiSLAM is offering, Amazon still has tremendous information about consumers and how they make their way through many different retail environments.

We live in exciting times. This is just the beginning. Having GPS capabilities inside businesses is still in its nascent stage. Whether it’s WiFiSLAM or another startup with similar technology (look no further than Nomi as a close contender) that is going to partner with retailers to provide contextual marketing services within a physical location, this ability to understand the consumer in a aisle to aisle manner is going to change the retail landscape as we have seen it to date. This aisle by aisle, real-time ability to flip offers, while getting a better understanding of how foot traffic flows, where consumers stop and engage is going to affect everything from pricing to shelf space to how end-cap placements are sold.

It looks like stores are going to become as dynamic and intelligent as their e-commerce counterparts. So long as retailers seeks permission from their consumers and use this technology to drive more value to the consumers, these types of technologies could well be the linchpin that secures the future of retail.

So long as it doesn’t get creepy.

It’s a murky, unclear future for the marketing agency, but one thing is for certain: things are changing at an exponential pace. An agency used to act as the executional arm of the marketing department. An outsourced idea and creative team that could get the production done at a cost that was less than what it would cost the brand to have a permanent staff in place.

Over time, this role has changed. The digital channels have definitely amplified the need for agencies to evolve and adapt. How people connect to traditional channels like TV, print, radio and out-of-home has changed from their intended purpose of interrupting consumers with a message during content consumption. Social media pushed this even further by forcing brands to engage with consumers — one-on-one — for the public to see, in a very human voice. Mobile, too, is offering ways to connect with consumers who now wield tremendous power in the palm of their hands. Everyone is curious about how big data is going to play out, what’s in store for wearable technology and just what, exactly, the screen of the future will look like — and how consumers will interact with it.

Still, the role of the agency remains fairly simplistic (in philosophical terms): help a brand increase their sales and loyalty. Noting more. Nothing less. And that has not changed since agencies were first invented.

So, now what? How do agencies ensure their future by being able to help brands sell more and build stronger loyalty in such a disrupted and disintermediated world, where every individual is consuming so much media from so many different channels? How does an agency stay ahead of the curve?

For over twenty years, I have had a front row seat to this revolution in marketing. Watching businesses like Kodak crumble in the same month that Instagram gets acquired by Facebook for a billion dollars. Watching an unknown search engine with a cute name become one of the most powerful brands in the world. It is clear that agencies are still holding on to their sacred cows, but it is crystal clear that the dogma of the industry is being rewritten. Here are five new attributes that I think marketing agencies will need to develop to survive:

1. Models of leanness. Eric Ries brought the concept of the Lean Startup into our zeitgeist. Marketing agencies of the future will need to focus on many of the strategies that the lean movement engenders. From how we initiate a project by establishing metrics and outcomes from the beginning, to being more agile in building programs that can bend, move and iterate as we learn from what the market is telling us (marketing optimization anyone?). Most marketing is still driven by quarterly planning or seasonal initiatives (aka marketers know best). While it may be hard to transition to a truly real-time way of operating (aka consumers know best), starting with models of leanness will force agencies to be more nimble, more sensitive to how the brand’s budget is allocated and force a spirit of partnership with the brands they represent. That partnership was somewhat lost in the past and agencies became more like vendors than trusted advisors. Models of leanness will bring partnership back to the table.

2. Utility over content. If the past ten years were about developing content in the social channels (in order to provide value, humanize the brand, be present in search engines and more), the next five years will be about the brands that can actually create a level of utility for the consumer. Too many brands are confusing a utility with more robust marketing messaging. The two are not the same. Utility is something that consumers would use on their own accord because it adds value to their daily lives (something they might even pay for). Regardless of attribution to a brand. The bonus (and benefit) comes to the brand by creating something that consumers can’t live without and the appreciation and attachment that comes from it.

3. Content as media. Content was used as chum for brands. Brands blog, podcast, tweet, post and more in hopes of drawing consumers over to their home base (which was — and still is — littered with marketing calls to action). As native advertising models continue to be introduced and the ability for brands to do something that will resonate with consumers gets more difficult due to the crowded social platforms, content becomes another form of media. Some agencies are helping brands to create their own, authentic newsrooms within an organization while other agencies are building their own newsrooms to help brands create more relevant and original pieces of content that don’t look, smell or act like a press release or advertorial. Content as media become a natural extension of an agencies’ ability to help tell a better and more connected brand narrative.

4. R&D. Marketing agencies sell professional services. Not products. In the past, many marketing agencies have done their best to create, market and sell an actual product (be it digital or physical). Most have had limited success. Service-based companies selling products has not been a wildly successful endeavor for the majority of marketing agencies. Going forward, this will have to change. The ability for a marketing agency to provide a higher level of research and development in terms of product development and technological implementation will be core to success. Agencies must get much better at providing a deeper context of opportunity for brands to explore. While everyone is excited about the potential of “big data,” the idea of agencies bringing more R&D to brands could best be defined as “big research.” Pushing beyond the research, analytics and insights to deliver solutions that can’t just be relegated to a purchased media space. Helping brands create what they’re going to be selling next.

5. Many big ideas. When people think of marketing agencies and the advertising output, they generally think about the big idea… and how it plays out across media. As we move towards the era of personalization, agencies must become the purveyors of personalization. This does not mean the death of the big idea, but rather a new dawn when agencies are bringing brands many big ideas that are either directly or loosely connected in a way that enables them to connect the brand through channels that transcend advertising (think content, wearable technology, screens that allow consumers to skip traditional messaging and more). Pushing that further, consumers are not the same when they’re watching television as they are when they’re on a smartphone. They’re not the same consumers when they’re reading consumer reviews as they are when they are in a physical retail location. Each scenario, each consumer, each moment of engagement continues to look very different than the output of marketing messages that agencies have been responsible for to date. The brands that can create these many big ideas and be accountable for these many new forms of creative are destined for success.

Is the agency of the future just a back to the future moment?

Sadly, most people think of “advertising” when they think of “marketing.” Marketing — as traditionally defined — is about the Four Ps (Product, Price, Place and Promotion). Marketing agencies have spent the bulk of their time focused on just the promotion part of those Four Ps. The world — because of technology and connectedness — is forcing marketing agencies back to the entire sphere that encompasses marketing. Now, more than ever, marketing agencies will be challenged to prove their results and mettle.

It’s happening right now.

Thousands of very lucky individuals are seated in the Long Beach Performing Arts Center are at TED 2013. TED has become a brand name as they have uploaded their archive of 18-minute presentations from their exclusive annual event to TED.com. Originally available only online, the speeches are now distributed and broadcasted on TV, radio, podcasts and even on Netflix. I have been fortunate to have attended the annual conference since 2008, and I’ve found TED an experience that helps businesspeople unlock a new way to think about the work that we do, where we are going as leaders, and our collective role in the evolution of the world. In the spirit of TED 2013, here are 10 amazing TED Talks that have helped me think differently about what business can be, how to be a better leader, and how to become a better global citizen. I hope they do the same for you.

• Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability. There is a reason this talk by researcher Brene Brown has been seen close to eight million times. Are characteristics like empathy and love a key ingredient in the making of a successful leader? Her latest book is called Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead and her area of study includes vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. Her presentation will get you to think differently about what it means to be a true leader.

• Julie Burstein: 4 lessons in creativity. When we think of creativity, we often think of art, but creativity permeates everything. Julie Burstein started to define and uncover what creativity is and how it affects our culture through the creation of Public Radio International‘s Studio 360 radio program (which was hosted by novelist Kurt Anderson). She published her first book, Spark: How Creativity Works in 2011 and now hosts her own podcast, Pursuit of Spark! Watch this TED talk to inspire more creativity in your work and personal life.

• Susan Cain: The power of introverts. Like to read? Like private time to do your work on your own? Do you think that collaboration is over-rated? Would you rather spend time alone than out at a party? According to Susan Cain and her incredibly popular book from last year, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, you may not be alone… and if you are, there’s nothing wrong with it. It turns out that some of our best thinkers and innovators are introverted. This TED talk will get you thinking differently about the work space that you create, the people that you hire and how you motivate them.

• Seth Godin: The tribes we lead. Leading business and marketing practitioner Seth Godin imagines a world where the mass market dies, where mediocrity holds no economic value. He creates a vision for the world that is led by the brands that can develop, nurture and build a tribe of followers. While much of Godin’s thinking has come to bear true in our social media-induced world, this TED Talk will get you thinking differently about where you spend your marketing dollars… and who you spend them on.

• James Kunstler: How bad architecture wrecked cities. James Kunstler has a problem with urban sprawl. In fact, he calls it People look at Tony Hsieh (Zappos‘ CEO) and think his investment of over $300 million to rejuvenate downtown Las Vegas is crazy. What Kunstler and Hsieh know is this: with each passing year, more and more human beings move to cities. Do we just let them become boring and depressing spaces — or do we wake up and turn urban planning into the art form that it deserves to become? Kunstler’s presentation will make you laugh at how horrific we have been about planning our living spaces. Watching this will get you thinking differently about the physical spaces you occupy in your work and play.

• John Maeda: Designing for simplicity. If you’re looking for a TED Talks that engenders every pillar of the word “TED” — technology, entertainment and design — this would be the one. John Maeda is the President of the Rhode Island School of Design and author of the bestselling book, Laws of Simplicity. The book was published in 2006 right before this TED Talk took place. Too many business leaders fail to understand the profound power that a culture of design can instill in an organization. Steve Jobs may have been one of a few who did understand the merits of being so insanely occupied with strong design. Watch this presentation if you’re struggling to understand the merits of what great design can do to move a brand from good to great.

• Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world. Are you worried about your kids because they’re spending too much time on their Xbox or iPad playing video games? Jane McGonigal wants you to pay attention to what she has to say. The author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World and Director of Games Research & Development at the Institute for the Future is not only on a mission ensure that a game developer wins a Nobel Peace Prize, but a mission to help all of us understand the power and value that comes from a world where people are playing more games. Don’t think this is critical to your business’ future? Think about the power of gamification in some of the world’s biggest brands – from Twitter and Facebook to Google and Apple. All of these companies use gamification in both their products and in motivating their employees for maximum success. Watch this presentation so that you can start figuring out how to add more games to your work.

• Clay Shirky: Institutions vs. collaboration. When it comes to understanding media and technology (and where it is all going), there are few smarter than Clay Shirky. In this 2005 TED Talk, Shirky uncovers what we have since come to know as truth: that the more the Internet opens up and connect us all, the more powerful we become. We have moved from a world of scarcity to one of abundance in how we share, create and collaborate with information. If your business struggles with the notions of openness and transparency, this should get you thinking differently. It’s amazing to think that this presentation took place years before the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements.

• Derek Sivers: How to start a movement. If you really want your business to succeed, you need to start a movement. How many people does it take to start a movement? In this three minute presentation, Derek Sivers (the founder of CD Baby) dissects it all for you while a popular YouTube video plays in the background. It’s a fascinating examination into what it takes to get people to follow and believe in you. Hint: it’s not that complicated and it doesn’t take that much.

• Don Tapscott: Four principles for the open world. Don Tapscott is one of the few people who has seen the future coming… on multiple occasions. The bestselling author, researcher and futurist will open your business eyes to the body of a world that has so fundamentally changed… and few businesses are truly understanding this change and capitalizing on it. This one will open your eyes and, if your eyes are already open, prepare for them to open even wider.

Please share the TED Talks that have inspired you to think differently about your business in the comments below.

If you’re looking for marketing jargon in 2013, look no further than “native advertising.” Brands, media companies and marketing agencies are jumping on the native advertising bandwagon faster than you can say, “what ever happened to Pinterest being the next big thing?”

But there’s a debate about just what, exactly, the advertising industry means by “native advertising.” Many believe that native advertising is just a digital euphemism for the classic advertorial that would frequently fill a page in your local newspaper or national magazine — only with less of a wall between the traditional church-and-state structure of editorial and advertising (like when The Atlantic ran a subtly flagged advertorial for The Church of Scientology). Others will say that “native advertising’ is advertising that is unique to a specific channel (like when BuzzFeed works with an advertiser to create a piece of content that will only run on BuzzFeed) or it could even be platform-wide (let’s say AOL runs sponsored content across many of their channels, from Huffington Post and TechCrunch to Patch). No wonder flailing publishers like “native advertising” — they can make it mean whatever they want it to mean!

In 1996, the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) was founded with a core belief that if media and advertising standards were not put in place, the online advertising medium could never mature and capture a brand’s advertising spend. Unlike traditional media (which had established formats and specifications across the multiple channels), every web page could be a media company unto itself with different advertising specifications and measurements in place. The Wild West that was the web back in the nineties would be equally wild for advertising. Beyond best practices, research, education and advocacy, the IAB managed to achieve a common ground in the area of creative standards and measurement guidelines, but this could all go away if marketing professionals can’t agree on a clear definition for “native advertising.”

Not to sound alarmist, but if there is not a consistent definition (that includes both the technical format along with the content that is embedded within in), the confusion will cause challenges in the growth of online advertising. The industry will revert back to a time and place when publishers could create complex and chaotic environments for advertisers. If every piece of digital creative must now become unique (from the technical to the content), brands are going to struggle with everything from ideation and production to comparable measurement models.

So let’s try to define it. The divergent definitions above all confuse the unique format (size and technical specifications) of the ad placement with the content (the creative that is placed within that format). I define native advertising as an ad format that must be created specifically for one media channel in terms of the technical format and the content (both must be native to the channel on which they appear and unable to be used in another context). For example, you can’t place a Google AdWords campaign on The New York Times’ website and you can’t run a promoted tweet on The Huffington Post’s Twitter feed. The advertising that you buy from Google to run on their search engine (or network) is unique (or, native, if you will) to their platform, much in the same way that promoted tweets on Twitter were created and can only be run on Twitter. The advertising formats and the content within them are native to the environment.

So does this mean than any ad is a native ad? If you ran a Super Bowl ad, wasn’t that native to the Super Bowl… or native to TV? Not really. Television ads are traditionally shot the same way. An ad on the Super Bowl could be shown on Storage Wars and nothing would need to be changed. The formats are consistent. The advertising content just happens to be tailored for the big football game, but the format is ubiquitous across the entire television medium.

For example, The Atlantic also ran an editorial piece titled “Where Design Meets Technology” that was sponsored by Porsche. That was lauded in the media as an attempt to drive native advertising. According to Digiday, the 155-year-old-publication feels that advertising which has the “look and feel of The Atlantic’s content… help[s] brands create and distribute engaging content by making the ads linkable, sharable and discoverable.” Does this sponsored post truly feel like native advertising? What makes this native to The Atlantic? Is it simply the fact that The Atlantic’s editorial team created and curated the content with Porsche’s approval? Could Porsche and their media company not ask to sponsor content on any number of other online publishing platforms? Ultimately, I would argue that this was not native advertising, but simply good content marketing or sponsored content that didn’t smell like pure advertorial.

The current state of online advertising is about to hit a tipping point. Last month’s MediaPost headline says it all: “Online Poised To Break 25% Budget Milestone, Mobile Fueling Half Its Growth.” With this growth, interest in and confusion over native advertising is likely to grow. Advertising, as we have traditionally defined it, continues to morph as traditional publishers attempt to figure out their digital monetization models. The complexity is only enhanced as the traditional advertising formats in the online channel (namely banner ads or display advertising) continue to provide weaker results to advertisers.

Until we get a better handle on the definition of native advertising and the standardized formats digital ads can take, brands and publishers will continue to go through the standard growing pains when new opportunities and nomenclature enters the fray. (Just look to that much-ridiculed Scientology piece on the Atlantic as an example.)

The charm of traditional advertising was in cost and efficacy. One ad could be produced and — with minor adaptation — pumped into a handful of media channels with enough repetition to create awareness and interest to buy. If advertisers are going to have to create unique formats mixed with unique content for each and every different channel and platform, it’s going to massively affect not only budgets and timelines, but also a brand’s ability to get their message out to a larger audience in the same way that they used to. The somewhat ironic irritant here is that marketers know and understand that the best kind of advertising is when the message feels unique and highly personalized to both the consumer and how the ad is placed within the context of the media channels.

The industry is talking about native advertising as if it is something new. Google AdWords is native advertising. Promoted tweets on Twitter is native advertising. Buying reach on Facebook’s newsfeed/timeline is native advertising. Everything else just feels like sponsored content or an advertorial in sheep’s clothing.

Native advertising can’t just be about the creative that fills an advertising space. Native advertising must be intrinsically connected to the format that fits the user’s unique experience. There’s something philosophically beautiful about that in terms of what great advertising should (and could) be.

But first, we need to all speak the same language around “native advertising.” The future of paid advertising depends on it.

The Future of Advertising
An HBR Insight Center

• Welcome to the Future of Advertising Insight Center
• When Advertising Meets the Meme
• Stop Selling Ads and Do Something Useful
• The Power of Real-Time Advertising

How many painters do you know? Not the kind with drop cloths and coveralls who will refresh your old basement bathroom with a splashy Buckland Blue, but true artists? The ones who toil away in their studio — day and night — trying to create their lifetime masterpiece?

For centuries, the vast majorities of fine artists have done what thousands of artists have before them: starve. While the Internet has brought with it many media disruptions, it has also created a truly global marketplace for fine artists. Now these artists no longer have to toil away in their studio hoping to impress an influential gallery owner, or praying that their local cafe will afford them the privilege of a vernissage. Suddenly, through online marketplaces like eBay and Etsy, individual artists have a global audience and are able to sell their creations to anybody and everybody who takes the time to discover them. In these instances, it has also become common for artists to work directly with their customers to deliver both the perfect size and look for their homes and offices.

When you walk into the home or office of individuals who have made purchases from these artists, you’re not immediately pointing to them and saying, “Cezanne! Picasso! Warhol! Renoir!” These are — for the most part — unbranded works created to be both customized and personalized. It’s part of a larger trend — instead of taking the time and resources to beat a brand into the modern consumer’s mind, many new entrants are producing these customized and personalized — nearly unbranded — products for an ever-growing global consumer-base that is interested less in the label and brand experience and much more in something that can be uniquely “them.”

This movement has deep roots. In Naomi Klein‘s controversial 1999 book, No Logo, the author looked at various anti-corporate movements that sprung up during the 1990s, from the publication Adbusters to sweatshop labor protests. Ultimately, it generated activism, culture jamming and public discourse that has become a more broad-based movement. Today, some major mainstream brands are even removing their logos voluntarily. Take Selfridges & Co. The UK-based company was voted Best Department Store in the World at the Global Department Store Summit in 2012. With stores in London, Birmingham and the Manchester region, they are experimenting (and succeeding) with a very counter-intuitive brand strategy of creating silence. As part of their “No Noise” initiative, they’ve launched something called The Quiet Shop, a store-within-a-store for which some of the world’s most respected brands have actually removed their logos. These “de-branded products” includes the very-well-known brands Levi’s, Creme de la Mer and Beats by Dre — just without their signature logos.

Of course, a brand is more than a logo. All too often, something that does not have a logo is often misperceived as lacking brand. Any Marketing 101 course will tell you that a logo is but one important component of what makes a brand. For instance, the “unbranded” items at Selfridge’s are all well-known brands despite their lack of logos. In that sense, the ultimate cachet is having such a famous brand that you don’t need a logo.

But this “unbranding” movment goes deeper than missing swooshes, polo players, or apples with little bites taken out of them. If you look at some of the most interesting coverage of this past year’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, the vast majority of gadget geeks were not paying that much attention to what the mass manufacturers were coming out with (bigger TVs, louder sound systems and thinner smartphones). The true attention was going to some of the newer initiatives that were launching courtesy of Kickstarter. Look no further than the Pebble e-paper watch. While it scored tons of attention for generating over ten million dollars in sales on Kickstarter in under thirty days, the product is without traditional brand markings. No logo. No nothing. The majority of the goods available on the contemporary flash sale site, Fab, also lack any brand unique markings.

The maker movement is giving rise to a new industry of individuals who are creating products that are both completely individualized and brand-less — and, thanks to the Internet, available worldwide.

These massive shifts in how we buy (online, peer-to-peer and with a vast, global selection) coupled with modern technology (crowdfunding platforms, 3D printers, ability to manufacture fewer products while maintaining margins) bring us to a crossroads, where what we have previously defined as a brand (design, experience and how it makes us feel within our social class) gets trumped by a new generation of brands that are without logo, built on pure utility and function, and are intentionally unbranded. That’s changing what big stores like Selfridge’s carry, and what big brands like Levi’s produce. The more unbranded these traditional brands become, the more humane and interesting they seem to be.