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Speaking at the American Association of Advertising Agencies' media conference last week, Jim Stengel told delegates: "There must be, and is, life beyond the 30-second spot. But our systems still revolve around that."

He gave the industry a "report card" on how it was meeting the challenges of marketing in the current day, finding that it fell short in most areas.

Stengel said that the industry was not changing mentalities nor processes with regard to media plans and that measurement had not evolved.

With regard to changing viewing habits and the impact of remote controls and personal television recorders, Stengel said: "We must embrace the consumer's point of view about TV and create advertising consumers choose to watch."

The advertising industry needs to experiment with communication models in a world where consumers are paying for content, he said.

"We've lost whole segments of consumers whose needs aren't being met by today's programming. We must accept the fact that there is no 'mass' in 'mass media' any more and leverage more targeted approaches."

One possible method he proposed was for advertisers to take proprietary financial interest in programming -- a move that is being embraced by the large advertising holding groups, including Omnicom and Interpublic Group.

He referred to the beginnings of commercial television, telling delegates: "It's no secret that P&G created the soap opera for the express purpose of reaching a specific segment of consumers."

He said that all marketing should be "permission" marketing and should be so appealing that consumers want it in their lives, with marketers asking themselves "would consumers choose to look at or listen this?".

"We should strive to be invited into consumers' lives and homes," Stengel said.

He said that the consumer goods giant was going to take a lead in identifying and applying new metrics in an attempt to find an effective way to measure holistic return on investment.

"The traditional marketing model is obsolete", he declared. "Holistic marketing is driving our business but we're going along somewhat reluctantly and blindly. We have not found a way to measure the effectiveness of these new approaches."

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