‘What is the customer’s journey when they enter our stores?’ ‘What’s the story that we’re trying to tell or …sell?’ and ‘How can we leverage big-data and consumer insights to better understand our customer’s behaviour?’

Do any of these phrases sound at all familiar? I’ve probably said the second one myself, when trying to brand my own organisation. Although, I definitely said ‘tell’ and not ‘sell’. Ha. So if like me you have also uttered these words, you may work in communications and advertising, or you’ve come across these jargon filled sentences before, when some representative of some company has tried to justify their somewhat intrusive behaviour into our everyday lives. Now to give some credit to the industry, advertising and marketing has come a long way from the days of simply - selling us stuff. Some advertisements and marketing communications are informative, culturally divisive and sometimes — challenging of the status quo.

Advertisements provide us with excitement, sometimes sadness and a lot of the time make us question ourselves, but for some reason we just can not stand them before our video starts, alongside our google searches or embedded into our news-feeds. No matter how good they are. Sorry, every Superbowl commercial. Ever.

Now, with the rise of consumers taking control of their buying habits and not just expecting but demanding more from their brands, the trend of downloading ‘ad-blocking’ software and enjoying a white space, clutter-free web-page is not about to die down. Its highly consumer driven, its rapidly growing and advertisers and marketers would be wise and more profitable to respect it.

…How?

Since its inception advertisers have felt differently, notably more positively about their relationship with consumers. However, it’s obvious that the relationship between consumers and advertisers hasn’t always been a partnership. Instead it’s felt more like an over zealous Aunty showing up with a gift, which she knows you’ll like (because she asked your mum) of which you happily accept but you really dont feel like sitting and having a chat. Basically, it can feel a little forced. But you.. kind of oblige.

Now, the future of advertising in my humble opinion rests on the creation of partnerships as opposed to the previous method, buying and selling of ad spaces on various different online platforms. One such organisation that comes to mind in tackling the issue of archaic, 21st Century online advertising, is VICE Media.

These guys.

If you dont know about VICE, here’s the short. Heralded as the ‘new teen Bible’ by The Independent, the magazine started off as a free punk publication and was launched in 1994, known as the Voice of Montreal. Since then, VICE has been known for it bolshy attitude towards journalism, it’s published articles titled, ‘Skinheads against White People’ and ‘Tattooing Pigs.’ It’s managed to marry authenticity and accessibility to young writers and audiences to establish its success, whilst also being a stand-out player in Global News — reporting controversial stories daily that shock, scare and delight its audiences all at once. It is now worth more than $2.5 billion and was recently invested in by WPP plc. and Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Corporation.

In 2009 VICE realised that it could be more profitable by taking control of its largest revenue stream, advertising. It launched VIRTUE.

Myki Slonim who headed up VIRTUE when it first began, said “Virtue is a formalisation of what we’ve been doing before. Clients started coming to us with more open briefs wanting to tap into our knowledge of the market and what we can do. It’s a recognition that we do a lot of project work outside of the VICE channels.”

One of the most lucrative partnerships to come out of this new advertising model was with tech giant, Intel. Intel requested the help of VICE to tap into young consumers and to be more relevant. The result was a platform called, ‘The Creators Project’ which utilised Intel’s technology and provided a space for musicians, artists and designers to innovate. It’s YouTube channel generated more than 250 million video views and more than 50 million unique visitors on its website. The project won critical acclaim from hundreds of international news outlets and even a Cannes Lion. Here’s one of my favourite videos to come out of the project. You can pretty much just stare at it.

Now, this isn’t a new idea.

Partnering up to create unique platforms, content and sometimes even products has and will continue to drive sales for brands. So what makes this different? VIRTUE essentially uses the consumers, writers and creators of VICE’s already established workforce and network to interpret and understand the world around them. With this unique insight, VICE leverages this consumer base to create and work on projects alongside brands. At it’s core is collaboration, not just with two companies and two bottom-lines but with the desired users and consumers as well, these guys are at the driving seat of every project and every partnership VICE has.

As well as this, the returns experienced by the brands who partner up with organisations like VICE tend to be more lucrative and establish greater connections and a more long-standing group of followers than traditional advertising campaigns. Hey, finance department, there’s hope.

So how should advertisers respond to the rise of ad-blocking software. Firstly accept it. It can and will not change unless advertising dramatically revolutionises itself to genuinely be driven by consumers themselves. When I say this, I mean really driven by consumers. Not PR exercises. Secondly invest in more meaningful partnerships and collaborate with organisations that share more than just a set of abstract values and principles. I’m pretty sure VICE and John Lewis both want to make the world a better place but probably wouldn’t make the most ideal partnership. Actually, you never know.

In the beginning of this article, I listed three questions which we normally hear from the marketing industry. This industry IS desperately trying to understand its consumers, to get into their heads and understand why they behave the way they do. Now to me, the logical next step is obvious. It’s getting the hard-to-be understood consumers to co-create alongside brands, to be components of the narratives that advertisers create not just reflections. To me, this is the mark of true collaboration.

Consumers are crying out to be part of brand’s stories and VICE versa. So on that note, I’d like to end by saying, VICE is exciting. It’s refreshing and really listens to its audience. The advertising and marketing industry is also exciting. Their response to ‘ad-blocking’ software may make or break their relationships with their consumers and the ones on the side of consumer choice before anything else, should and will come out on top.

Over to you, advertisers.