Traditional advertising as represented by television and print is changing into something different and more interactive, at least according to people like Gerd Leonhard (who writes the Media Futurist blog), Eric Clemons (who tried to explain why “Advertising is Failing on the Web“) and even advertising executive Lee Daley (who was working at the London office of media giant Saatchi and Saatchi in 2005 when he said that “We’re looking at the end of the “TV comes first model“).

And it’s all blamed on something called the media skeptic, a person generally distrustful of messages provided through traditional media channels.

Here’s a short, slightly sarcastic history of marketing and advertising to bring everyone up to speed.

Now I don’t work for Scholz & Friends (the company that built the above presentation), but they do seem to have hit the nail on the head when it comes to describing the history of advertising. It’s just a shame the presentation left out any real discussion of how to gain the trust of the media skeptic.

Some (like Scholtz and Friends) would argue that the solution to the problem is the use of a good story, told through the mechanism of social media, a mechanism allowing for two way communication, engagement, feedback and even debate between advertisers and consumers sort of like an old fashion telephone call (which is never called social media even when used for telemarketing. This is likely because the real advertiser is replaced on the call by some call center employer reading from a limited script so no real social interaction can take place).

Others, like social media skeptic Jennifer Mattern believe that “the focus on social media can distract PR people from their real work, which is to influence the organizations that shape opinion and achieve business results for their clients.”

So what is social media? Here’s the best definition I’ve come across from the people at commoncraft.

But life marches on and while this new social media tool might have leveled the playing field that existed since the rise of radio (in the 1920’s) and television (in the 1950’s), we haven’t quite yet reached the end of history (even two decades after Francis Fukuyama wrote his essay).

Therefore, marketing executives will certainly attempt to deal with this new proliferation of marketing channels, continue to manage brand consistency across those channels and at least pay public lip service to the concept of building and improving customer satisfaction levels (even if that means they must begin to engage in an actual direct, person to person dialogue).

Some may even succeed and that’s what this blog is about.

We’re going to talk about the tools that marketing executives are going to need to learn and use and especially share with others in marketing and sales (and maybe even at the retail store manager and clerk level) in order to compete with that brave new world of individuals using freeware and social media tools to create their own unique “conversational currency.”

We’re going to show you how to win the trust of that media skeptic.