Part IThe Motivation for Change

If you want to predict the future of advertising, imagine throwing a bottle into the ocean… . Many pundits point out singular ‘futures’ in marketing and advertising by watching waves and musing about where the bottle is headed. This is useful in the short run. If you have a long-term objective it's more useful to focus on recognizing forces beyond the waves that will intersect in unexpected ways to shape, if not predictably determine, the future. Many forces shaping the future of advertising are well known, just as it's well known that tides move the ocean. The question is whether we understand their effect in shaping the future.

— Christopher Kenton, CEO and Founder, SocialRep (2012)

Yes, the changes that you are feeling are real. There is something bearing down on traditional approaches to advertising and marketing with unprecedented headwinds—the first visible indicator of the size and scope and speed of change that is to come. As the saying goes, we ain't seen nothing yet. Understand these changes, heed their import, and there is still time to make a course correction and thrive. Others are already doing so by harnessing these new forces, finding the new North Star that we present in Part II, and creating the more nimble craft and crew that we outline in Part III.

Why do we need to bother changing? What is the motivation for change? How are the five forces of change speeding up our world, disrupting traditional approaches and mindsets, and ...

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