Is advertising invading our privacy?

One of my friends believes that advertising in today's context is not just advertising but he feels it to be an encroachment, that too without taking his permission.

I think here is a good news for him...

Very soon we would see a change in the way marketing (or shall I say, advertising) is done. It's not about 'pushing' your brand, it's not about 'great punch-lines' - it's all going to be about the 'user experience'

With the increase in e-commerce, we are going to witness old business models collapsing - Flipkart / Snapdeal & others are giving a tough time to shopping malls (something what shopping malls have done to small retailers)

There will be soon a new way of buying things - Go to a mall, do window shopping - decide the product / model you want to buy - go home & order on-line !!

Today around 60% of the buying decision is happening without the seller coming in picture !! Tomorrow it can be 80% !!

The point here is, people are getting smarter - they have choices to make & they will get more & more influenced with each other's experience & lesser and lesser with these advertising gimmicks

The classic example of less advertising - more success is Red Bus (who only recently have started advertising), Red Bull (energy drink - compare their success v/s their spending on ad's - they are fighting with Cokes & Pepsi's of the world). 

In coming days, I feel, we won't need advertising - but need to be more responsive to the customer, more alert, more quick in deliveries, providing quality products & so on - that is going to matter.

I always say, we need to stop beating drums of 'how good or great we are' in our campaigns ! No one likes it... Instead allow our users to say good about us, empower them with knowledge of what we do for their benefit, give them quality services & products - the user will become your mascot !

Actually, it's going back to basics then... word of mouth publicity was the best in old days in terms of strike rate... In today's context you can rephrase it as 'word of customer in digital space...'