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Marketing and advertising seem to be almost at odds with the idea of a service – most of us associate advertising with intrusive interruptions to things we’d rather be doing – like reading a web site, watching TV, listening to music, or just walking down the street.

On the web though, the economics of “free” have seen a whole new approach to marketing and advertising. In fact, there is in many ways no distinction between marketing, and the paid content, services or products companies provide.

Software companies for example often have “light” versions of their applications. In our case at westciv, we provide Guides, tutorials, and other resources to web developers, and sell some premium content and software. The free stuff we offer isn’t about capturing user data – no sign-ins or signups are required for instance. The for fee content and products we have are simply part of the mix.

But this approach to marketing – where the marketing itself is something useful, is not nearly so widely seen in traditional media, or the physical world. Not that there aren’t seemingly limitless opportunities for companies to provide what has been termed “branded utilities”, or useful as opposed to essentially useless advertising (think a clock at a bus stop, or waiting times for the next tram, or bike racks in public spaces, or benches at the top of ski lifts).

Ryan Moede, at the well worth a visit socialmediaworx blog, takes a look at this is more detail.

If advertising and marketing have a future, online or off, it is through utility, not spin. What kinds of useful branded services have you seen, or would like to see?

And as a slight aside, this is precisely the kind of thing we like to work with sponsors on for our conferences – helping us provide something we would otherwise struggle to afford – for example a decent wifi network, top quality laptop bags, great parties, and so on. so, if your company is interested, we’ve got plenty of opportunities, starting at under $2000 (which all include conference passes). All the details you need are there.