The prediction, in brief:

Are ads destined to be little more than the shards of targeted databases mating with personal agents and ingenious viruses infecting the Net? More likely … advertisements will feel and play like visual conversations, video games, and simulations … So, the focus of advertising design shifts: Ads become a medium of collaboration between potential buyer and potential seller. Indeed, if the interaction and information is crafted appropriately, even the term “advertisement” becomes passe, replaced by a new genre of commercial communication.

Predictor: Schrage, Michael

Prediction, in context:

In a 1994 article about advertising in the digital age for Wired magazine, Michael Schrage, an MIT Media Lab fellow and columnist for Adweek magazine, writes:”Are ads destined to be little more than the shards of targeted databases mating with personal agents and ingenious viruses infecting the Net? More likely, we’ll see advertisements imitate the principles that have enabled Nintendo and Sega to redefine American pop culture. Advertisements will feel and play like visual conversations, video games, and simulations … How about, as multimedia designer Robert Fulop suggests, a Prodigy that would let you interactively custom design your Domino’s Pizza in color, on screen, and online – sausage, mushrooms, extra cheese on half – and then automatically routes your order to the nearest Domino’s for delivery? Ads would become software seducers, enticing and guiding customer interaction. Advertising, information, and transaction would all begin to blur. Interactive ads can evolve into compelling direct-response environments – informative, intimate, and immediate … Think instead of designing games that blend the properties of the medium with the advertising message. It’s easy to imagine McDonald’s producing an educational video game called, say, Burger Hunt, for its kiddie customers … Chrysler or Toyota might develop VR driving games for adolescents and adults to promote their cars … American Express, Fidelity, and other financial go-betweens have an enormous stake in garnering high-net-worth investors. Imagine interactive ads built around expert systems that offer custom-calibrated investment advice … So, the focus of advertising design shifts: Ads become a medium of collaboration between potential buyer and potential seller. Indeed, if the interaction and information is crafted appropriately, even the term ‘advertisement’ becomes passe, replaced by a new genre of commercial communication.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information

Subtopic: Advertising/PR

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: Is Advertising Dead? Adviruses, digimercials and memegraphics: The Future of Advertising is the Future of Media

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.02/advertising_pr.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney