According to IBM, we are going to see big changes in Advertising in the next few years.  It seems they conducted a study of 2,400 consumers and 80 advertising experts and have written a report entitled. “The end of advertising as we know it.”

They have identified four factors which will drive this change.

1. Attention – Consumers are increasingly in control of how they view, interact with and filter advertising in a multichannel world.
2. Creativity – Thanks to technology, the rising popularity of user-generated and peer-delivered content, and new ad revenue-sharing models (e.g., YouTube, Crackle, Current TV), amateurs and semi- professionals are now creating lower-cost advertising content.
3. Measurement – Advertisers are demanding more individual-specific and involvement- based measurements, putting pressure on the traditional mass-market model.
4. Advertising inventories – Will be bought and sold through efficient exchanges, bypassing traditional intermediaries.

Interesting, they are just discovering what many small business owners have seen for quite awhile,  relationships, not advertisements will drive sales in the future.