The Social Contract, in my words.

The Social Contract is an unwritten contract formed between brands and us - the people they target. The contract implies that because brands need awareness to sell, they have to first gain our (the audiences) attention. The trade off is that we give these brands our attention, they gain awareness and we get a bunch of freebies like, cheap TV, free events, free radio etc. Through this unwritten agreement we give brands the   full permission to advertise. 

Following the Social Contract brands are considered active and we are considered passive. They control the format (how the advertisement is delivered, like TV or Radio) and the context (the way it should be percieved). But things are getting a little more complicated these days. 

Online has recently come along and put a big dent in the Social Contract. The reason for this is that sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social outlets are completely controlled by people - aka the audience. The people are now creating content that is increasing awareness and gaining attention. This causes purchase decisions to be swayed through different recommendations and brands can't just rely on the Social Contract to gain our attention and awareness anymore. Disintermediation, meaning the lack of filtering content has formed Online into what it is today. Active audiences are the roots of Online’s great success, and brands are going to have to change and mould to fit into this new era of communication.

Forced advertising will no longer be effective because we are now able to share and express our opinions on brands so easily. If one person doesn't like it, the news will spread fast and no traditional, forced advertisement can outdo the relationship between the people. 

Yet, knowing all this, brands are still advertising in a traditional way online. Using banner ads and other non-communicative forms of advertising just won't cut it these days. 

Here are a few examples of traditional advertising in this new medium:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/

On this website there are two advertisements that are traditionally used and one that is a little more interactive.

The top banner ad for the movie The Social Network, is in my opinion very ineffective. It completely blends in and would be ignored easily. 

The Left Side banner ad for Earth Share is the same as the top banner ad in that it has no way of interacting with the audience and will be ignored easily. 

However the Microsoft Office ad at the right side banner is much more effective as it has a flash aspect added to it that will attract the attention of the viewer, it attracted mine. 

None of these ads would amount to something I got told to view on YouTube though and this communication and interactive advertising is in my opinion, the future of advertising.