Should We Still Call it “Advertising” Asks President of PepsiCo’s Global Beverage Group

Ad agency models are breaking. Pre-roll ads are useless. Measurement models are outdated. The ad industry lacks diversity. And the phrase digital marketing should be dumped, reports Ad Age  regarding a presentation by PepsiCo exec Brad Jakeman in a “fiery, truth-telling” speech at the Association of National Advertising’s annual “Masters of Marketing” conference in Orlando, Fla.

The Ad Age article added, in part, that “Mr. Jakeman — who is president of PepsiCo’s global beverage group — went so far as to suggest that even the phrase “advertising” should go by the wayside. He did so before 2,700 marketing and agency professionals at an event put on by an association that has the word advertising in its name. “Can we stop using the term advertising, which is based on this model of polluting [content],” he said.”

In addition, “Mr. Jakeman also ripped the industry’s lack of diversity. “I am sick and tired as a client of sitting in agency meetings with a whole bunch of white straight males talking to me about how we are going to sell our brands that are bought 85% by women,” he said. “Innovation and disruption does not come from homogeneous groups of people.””