Admit­ted­ly, when you wri­te an A4 page about things you know not­hing about, you have a hard time, espe­ci­al­ly if you can’t find anyo­ne far and wide who could teach you, let alo­ne help you.

It’s true that we did­n’t know ever­y­thing in the past eit­her. Even in the past, we often had to rely on „crea­ti­ve con­jec­tu­re“ to replace the „lack of evi­dence.“ But at the end of the day, despi­te ever­y­thing, we always knew what we were doing and what we stood for. In com­mon par­lan­ce, what we did for a living was sim­ply and under­stan­d­a­b­ly cal­led advertising.

And today? Today the­re is no adver­ti­sing. The­re aren’t any more adver­ti­sers – nor are the­re any adver­ti­sing agen­ci­es. No young new­co­mer would vol­un­t­a­ri­ly allow hims­elf to be cal­led an adver­ti­ser and degra­de his start-up as an adver­ti­sing agen­cy. Nobo­dy is that stu­pid. Cross some­thing or net unit … – ever­y­thing but advertising!

And now you will cer­tain­ly ask: „So what? Does it real­ly mat­ter how peo­p­le get scold­ed?“ I think so! The adver­ti­ser always repre­sen­ted the most beau­tiful aspect of a pro­duct, sub­or­di­na­ted hims­elf to the hig­her goal becau­se he was always focu­sed on sel­ling some­thing that, as a rule, hard­ly anyo­ne real­ly nee­ded. Wit­hout any ifs ands or buts. The com­mu­ni­ca­tors of modern times, howe­ver, ope­ra­te their com­plex „machi­nery“ as an end in and of itself.

The com­mu­ni­ca­tors of modern times run their com­plex „machi­nery“. A gigan­tic con­s­truc­ted machi­ne that con­su­mes vast amounts of auto­ma­tism, data and ener­gy and looks as if it were the per­fect form of per­pe­tu­um mobi­le. A machi­ne in which ever­yo­ne gets invol­ved, has a say, helps shape and con­s­tructs based on their eva­lua­ted data – but wit­hout the sligh­test chan­ce of under­stan­ding how and accor­ding to which rules it works. But ever­yo­ne will have to take note of one thing: at some point – and from today’s per­spec­ti­ve, of cour­se, no one can say when this will hap­pen – the so-cal­led „Big Data“ machi­ne will stop. Not only will it stop the ads, it will cut the pul­se of ever­y­thing, everywhere.

True, we don’t know when, whe­re, or why. We only know that no tree grows into the sky, not even a digi­ti­zed one. Not­hing will chan­ge: It takes the art of court­ship and a pro­mi­se – and that with a bait. You catch mice with cheese! And that will hold true tomor­row as well.

Fol­low us on our blog “Think befo­re doing”.