What Happened To Advertising? What Would Gossage Do?

Book excerpt: Why don’t people in advertising like their jobs anymore? What is all this nonsense about “branding campaigns”, “interactive advertising” or the suddenly so-important “conversations” between a brand of butter and consumers? Do “branding campaigns” make any sense? If not, why are they so popular? What happened to the Creative Revolution? What has “display” advertising, aka banner ads, on the web become, if not the reign of large-scale, low-quality direct response? What about our current obsession with social media? Do consumers really want to have “conversations” with brands? What is the real value of a Facebook fan? What are social networks if not private enclosures of the web and advertising platforms? Lastly: who was Howard Luck Gossage, and why should we study his work and his words? What did Gossage understand and put in practice in the '60s that could be valuable to us today? Were he around today, What Would Gossage Do?