Advertising Is Water. Now, That’s A New Analogy To Me.

Over at the The Atlantic, they’re rolling out a week-long look at the future of marketing. While no one has a crystal ball to determine the future of the business, the Atlantic does have some good writers, so it’ll be interesting to see where they take this.

But here’s the analogy that caught my eye, courtesy of Atlantic senior editor Derek Thompson:

In media, advertising is water. It’s the thing for-profit journalism needs to survive. More than that, for both consumers and producers of media, it’s the thing that’s all around us, which we’re intuitively processing without fully contemplating. Thousands of companies and entire multi-billion-dollar industries would not exist unless other companies were desperate to print their names in front of their audiences in exchange for money. If mobile apps are the future of technology, then the future of technology depends in no small part on the future of advertising. That’s something worth thinking about.

I’d agree that media needs some form of advertising to remain sustainable. So drink up, people!