The game is up, folks.

But you didn’t need me to tell you that. You already knew that the advertising/publishing/media/entertainment world was in a massive upheaval, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. (How’s that for some hyperbole!?)

True, media buys are down, most ad campaigns are flawed because they’re short term spectacles built mainly for award shows.

And yet, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope radiating from the digital space. Perhaps it’s because there is a cultural shift taking place among a few smart folks who are working to create useful and meaningful advertising experiences.

A couple recent comments that give me hope:

For decades we’ve been saturated with marketing messages from all angles and channels. Messaging that is surface-y rather than cerebral, comical rather than emotional, and usually based on popular cultural symbols, rather than deeper human truths. What we really long for as individuals are meaningful connections — emotional, personal, and significant moments. - Ross Popoff-Walker at Modernista

We’ve built an industry that is very good at talking at people but rather poor at doing things with people. We’ve always been very good at hawking a business agenda but rather poor at realizing that the most effective ideas tend to come from ideas that solve a problem for a business and for people at the same time by doing something together. Gareth Kay at Goodby

Quite simply - “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.“