Bear with me on this, it will all be worth it.
There is an expression in linguistics, the euphemism treadmill, that refers to a process in which certain words come to be used as the polite, euphemistic term for something. Over time, the euphemism becomes too closely associated with what it describes, and so another word must take its place. This process has no end - we keep needing new words to become the polite way to say something.
A similar thing is occurring in digital media, and especially in social. Advertisers love to target young, affluent consumers, but those all aggregate to the coolest, most authentic sites. And which sites are the coolest and most authentic? The ones not connected with the establishment, and not colonized by marketing organizations. When Facebook first debuted, there were no ads at all, and the service had an aura of exclusivity and authenticity. Now, my mom is on Facebook, and ads are on Facebook. Then Twitter becomes the hot new social thing, and now companies are all on Twitter, presidents are on Twitter, and ads are on Twitter.
The next social thing to strike it big was chat apps (which is ironic because I remember how popular AIM was when I was growing up). Even those are now succumbing to ads: I just read an article about Swyft Media, an ad network for chat apps that adds product placement into the emoticons that people love to send to each other.
I feel like digital advertisers are constantly playing catch-up, trying to hook into the latest cool service, only to make it uncool as soon as they succeed. This is a very irritating treadmill to be stuck on, and it's the kind of situation that requires an out-of-the box approach that changes the strategic dynamics. Digital marketing needs a platform that it can exist on without being perceived as de-authenticating informational pollution.
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