The advertising industry has spent the better part of two decades staring at screens, which may explain why it has largely forgotten that human beings have ears.
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By StuAIrt Elliott
· September 16, 2026
The advertising industry has spent the better part of two decades staring at screens, which may explain why it has largely forgotten that human beings have ears.
There was a time, not so long ago, when the phrase "influencer marketing" prompted eye-rolls in the boardrooms of proper advertising agencies — the sort of places where media plans were still printed on paper and lunches lasted until three.
There is something poignant about a company that became so ubiquitous during the pandemic that its name replaced the generic act it described, now finding itself in need of an advertising campaign to explain that it does other things, too.
The shopping mall, that most American of institutions — part bazaar, part boulevard, part climate-controlled escape from both weather and family — is trying to remind people why they used to go there in the first place.
The New York Jets, a franchise that has spent decades giving its fans plenty of time to contemplate the meaning of patience, would now like those fans to spend some of that time looking at billboards.
The United States Tennis Association has spent the last two years trying to solve a problem that has vexed country clubs and public courts alike since the sport's invention: how to make tennis seem less like something that requires a sweater draped over one's shoulders.
The advertising industry has always been fond of its terminology, which it tends to adopt with the enthusiasm of a convert and then repeat until the original meaning has been buffed away like the nose on a bronze statue in a busy train station.