I’m not quite what you’d call a small person. And as such, this whole hipster/skinny jean trend is killing me. Think of an apple stuck on top of two toothpicks. Not a very exciting picture.

But the important thing is that I recognize this. You won’t see me trying to squeeze myself into any ultra-slim low rise Levi’s. And I don’t expect you to be forcing yourself into social media.

If it’s not right, it’s not right, I don’t care how trendy and “hip it is with the kids”.

If you run a concrete business, or a pizza pan company, then a Facebook ad might not be right for you. A blogger outreach project might not be smart if you’re the number one supplier of caulk in North America.

I still think that the future of marketing is connecting with people. But you have to pick your battles. Besides, “Caulk Talk” probably wouldn’t fly anyway…

And despite what some people (get a job, hippies!) might say, it’s not really a bad thing.

If not for the advertising, I wouldn’t have remembered what day Grand Theft Auto IV was coming out. I’m almost positive I would have never discovered The Ting Tings without the newest iPod commercial (see below). It’s this element that usually goes unnoticed, but it’s actually the most important part.

I know that the point of advertising is to sell, but I think we’ve come to a point where it needs to be more that that. It needs to be useful. We’re here because people don’t want to see/read/hear ads. Think I’m lying? Check out the numbers of DVR and satellite radio owners. Ask the average person how they feel. It sure ain’t pretty.

So where does that leave us?

Well, a very tricky place, it seems. How do we pitch our product and provide value at the same time? Perhaps a change of priorities is in order. What would be really interesting is if we focused first on providing value to people, and also manage to get our product/service/company into the picture.

But hey, if that doesn’t work, we could always bombard people with as many ads as humanly possible and try to keep shouting until they can’t possibly ignore us anymore. That’s gonna work too right?