This is the THIRD time I’ve had to start over in the Ad Biz.

I graduated college in 1981 and was already working in an ad agency. My job was doing layouts, lousy illustrations, specing type, pasting up ads and shooting stats.

And yes, I used some words that some of you have never heard.

Specing type? Stats?

Then Mac came along in 1984 and within a couple years there was a computer on my desk. My felt markers died a slow, painful death and eventually did their final drying death in a trash can.

Wave One.

As an Ad Guy, you no longer had to draw up your ideas. You were free to toss your Lucygraph (look THAT up!) and your felt pens and your press type out forever. Everything you did went through a crude computer but it was a big leap. That meant we all had to learn new skills. But it also meant we could do a lot more work in a lot less time and higher quality.

Then I moved to Austin in 1994 and within a year, had another computer on my desk connected to the Internet. Email landed at my desk. We started building Web sites for big tech companies. Imagine now, if you will, a multimillion dollar technology company without a web site? So now we had to relearn everything because there was a powerful new tool to market with. The Web kicked in the door and you either went with it or you sold real estate.

But our traditional marketing tools still worked and if you were smart, you could combine the Web with your other marketing tools and you could generate decent response numbers.

That was Wave TWO.

Now, Wave THREE.

Everything has changed again. And I admit, I was not really interested in this wave till I jumped in and used and liked the results.

But now I guess I’m one of those overbearing ex-smokers who grouses at a whiff of smoke.

The Third Wave is 99% science and tools. It’s using Twitter, Facebook and all the diagnostics to find your audience and cuddle up next to them in all the places they lurk online. The tools are now so good you can find people who dont think they can be found. And because everyone is now such an exhibitionist, it’s easier and easier to find them.

When I was growing up, the idea of putting every thought, idea, activity and hobby up on a billboard for everyone to see was not even considered. Our thoughts and opinions and fears and joys were ours to keep, share with a few friends or lock away in a diary.

But the current generation is compelled to get instant celebrity with everything that’s ever crossed their minds.

Personally, I think it’s a little weird. But as a marketer, I see how that leaves everyone open to friendly prying by clients.

That’s just how it is kids. You throw your soul to the winds and the angels will sell you shit.

I see it for what it is. A great, powerful marketing tool that has ultimate efficiencies. No point in wasting marketing messages on audiences that will NEVER buy your product. LIke you wouldn’t spend a lot of money advertising shampoo at a bald guys convention. Social media marketing lets you narrowcast your marketing messages to an audience that will care.

But it is a bit sad for us creative types. It means what we do best isn’t as important as it used to be. There is still a need for good creative thinking and messaging, but it’s not the linchpin of success.

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I’m starting to think so.

Here’s a great example. A Marketing VP I’ve known for years called us to help him brand a new company. We met, we got a lot of great ideas and wanted to do a full brand treatment. He loved the idea and offered us about a quarter of what we normally charge.

Huh?

He figured he’d CrowdSource it. Put it out to the world and see what happened. He offered a fraction of what it would cost and got a LOT of great work. I was really impressed. It was cheap and there were some really good ideas.

So is it the death of The Great American Ad Agency?

Consider this too. All the traditional tools us Ad Guys have used the past 30+ years are dead. Direct Mail? Bury it. At least for a lot of products and industries. The cost has always been high but the response numbers keep getting smaller. Telemarketing? Ouch. BIG expense. Little return.

As an experiment, I dove headfirst into Social Media Marketing to see what would happen. We operate HeroBracelets.org out of our office here at The Ad Ranch. So I figured I’d see what could be done.

30% more traffic to HeroBracelets.org in two weeks.

I’m now a believer.

The power of great creative has diminished in importance to the science of plugging your brand into every social media and weaving your way through the web into every possible blog and news site.

It’s tedious, boring and very effective.

What’s happened is that the marketing TOOLS have gotten so good, the creative doesn’t matter as much.

To me, this is the second wave of this process.

The first came in the early 80′s when all of us Art Directors and Designers let our markers dry out as we traded up into having a Mac on our desk. It was a great thing, but it changed the creative output. Now anyone who could use graphics software could produce beautiful (or at least colorful) work. I started to see a lot of design that depended on technical expertise and less on true conceptual thinking.

Pretty, but no substance.

Personally, I’ve always railed against this kind of thinking. That’s why for years I present my ideas as hand drawn roughs. If my lousy drawings on big sheets of paper can move you, then it’s a great idea.

If you have to depend on visual fireworks to make your point, your point is pretty dull. When you combine great visuals, great design and great conceptual thinking and marketing power, you’ve got effective work.

But back to the death of creative.

It’s dying folks. Now monkeys can market well if they grew up wasting their lives on Facebook.

I can prove it. When I look at my response numbers to the HeroBracelets.org Web site, the story is plain as day. Social Media Marketing works.

Some day all we’ll hear in the creative departments of The Great Ad Agencies of The World will be the gnashing of teeth and the angst of trolls.

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