Good read over at BusinessWeek on the Year in Advertising.  Yes, it’s another piece on how its all changing for we marketers.  But I  clicked through on the slide show, and was especially intrigued by Samsung’s charging station and what they referred to as “branded utility.”

They state that “Taking advertising and making it into something useful may be a trend for the future.” I think that’s really true.  Your marketing has got to be meaningful to the new consumer and something they’ll want to seek out.  Which means it should probably be funny, entertaining and/or provide them utility so they will seek it out.  At Powered, we’ve adopted Next Century Media’s term the “Gratitude Effect” for this dynamic and found it creates a helluva ROI.

So, ask yourself…what % of your marketing spend is directed towards things that are providing utility to the consumer vs. marketing at them?