You Can’t Advertise “At” People Anymore 

Your phone rings. You answer. There’s a brief pause — natural enough to feel human — and then a voice. Warm, measured, maybe even your name. It’s not a person. It’s software. And whoever set it up is calling it a marketing strategy.

In 2007, I wrote that it’s no longer possible to effectively advertise “at” people. I used the example of TV commercials shouting at you to buy a car. I was right. What I didn’t predict was what the next generation of “advertising at” would look like.

My trigger was a post on Adrants calling out the shift from passive audiences to empowered consumers. I used the example of TV commercials shouting at you to buy a car. The people who used to sit patiently through those commercials weren’t sitting anymore. They were online. They were on YouTube watching a Mentos geyser — entertaining themselves while they inadvertently created one of the earliest examples of what we’d eventually call influencer content.

That was 2007. I was observing the early edges of something that would reshape the entire industry.

Eighteen years later, I’m not sure “reshape” even covers it.

What I Got Right

The core prediction held. Consumer control over advertising has expanded dramatically in every direction. Ad blockers are mainstream. Streaming killed the captive commercial break. Social feeds are curated by algorithms the viewer trained, whether they meant to or not. Search delivers answers without requiring anyone to click on an ad. Zero-click results mean someone can find exactly what they need and never see a brand at all.

The idea that people were becoming more selective about what advertising they’d let in? That was an understatement.

The Mentos geyser reference ages well too. What I was describing — people advertising to themselves through shared enthusiasm — became the entire influencer marketing economy. User-generated content wasn’t a buzzword yet in 2007. Neither was “creator.” But the mechanic was already there, playing out on YouTube before most brands had figured out how to upload a video.

What Got More Complicated

Here’s where the story gets interesting.

Consumer control expanded. And so did targeting precision. At the same time.

The people who skip your ads can now be micro-targeted based on browsing behavior, purchase history, time spent on a page, and dozens of signals they never consciously gave anyone. More choice about what you see. Less transparency about how you got there. It’s a strange paradox — the consumer has more control over the surface experience and less visibility into the infrastructure underneath.

The flood of marketing channels didn’t slow down either. It multiplied. Email. Social. Retargeting. Content. Podcasts. Video. Each one launched as the next great way to reach people, and each one eventually got noisy enough to require a strategy just to cut through.

And then came the AI callers.

If you run a business and you’ve picked up the phone in the last year or two, you’ve probably talked to one. Or tried to hang up on one. AI-powered dialers and voicemail drop tools can now call your business directly, leave a personalized-sounding message, and move on to the next number without a human involved. The pitch is “scale your outreach.” The reality is that someone decided the answer to the question of “how do I reach people who don’t want to be reached” was to automate the interruption.

In 2007, I used the example of a TV commercial shouting at you. This is the 2025 version. Different channel. Same energy.

The irony is that the tools doing this are often pitched as AI-forward and innovative. But automating volume is not a strategy. It’s the oldest instinct in marketing dressed up in new technology.

What’s Actually Working

Targeted reaches the right people. Volume reaches everyone and hopes some of them stick.

The clients I work with who are getting real results aren’t doing either extreme. They’re not blasting everyone with generic messaging, and they’re not sitting around waiting for people to find them organically. They’re using a combination of researched, deliberate outreach and content that earns attention — with the channel mix driven by where their buyers actually are.

Email outreach works when it’s sent to the right person with a relevant message. Not a purchased list. Not a spray-and-pray sequence. A researched list of people who have a real reason to care, sent a message that reflects that they’ve done their homework. That’s a completely different thing from the way most bulk email gets sent, and the results reflect the difference.

Social media is a channel. It’s not the strategy. I say this having watched businesses pour enormous energy into social presence while their pipeline sat empty. Social can amplify, support, and build awareness — especially when paired with content that has something to say. But it’s rarely the primary engine of B2B revenue on its own, and treating it like it is creates a dependency on algorithms that change whenever the platform decides.

Content that answers questions buyers are actually asking is still one of the most durable approaches in the mix. Not because it’s passive or easy — it’s neither — but because the intent behind a search is real. Someone asking “how do I fix my CRM before it costs me a deal” is not browsing. They’re looking for something specific. If your content answers it honestly, you’re having a conversation, not shouting into a room.

The thing that’s changed most isn’t the channels. It’s the buyer.

Today’s buyer has often done their homework before they ever contact you. They’ve read reviews, compared options, and formed an opinion before the first conversation. That means the job of marketing isn’t to introduce your product anymore — it’s to show up credibly in the research phase, so that when they’re ready, you’re the obvious next call.

That changes what targeting looks like. Smart segmentation isn’t about sending more email — it’s about sending the right one. Knowing which contacts are in active research mode versus just on a list is the difference between a sequence that converts and one that fills inboxes and goes nowhere. And knowing when a prospect is showing intent before they raise their hand gives you a window to show up with something useful — not a sales pitch.

Outreach that focuses on the right leads instead of every lead is a completely different approach from the volume game. And it produces completely different results.

The Thread That Runs Through All of It

I had a philosophy posted on this site for years: my name is not mud. The short version — don’t be the brand that burns trust chasing short-term numbers. It was true in 2007. It’s more true now.

The businesses that are struggling with marketing right now often have the same problem they had eighteen years ago. They’re still trying to advertise at people. New tools, new channels, new automation — but the same underlying assumption that more reach equals more results.

It doesn’t. It just means more people you’ve annoyed.

The businesses that are doing well have figured out that the goal isn’t to reach everyone. It’s to reach the right people with something worth their time. That’s not a new idea. It was the insight behind that 2007 post. What’s changed is just how many ways there are to do it right — and how many ways there are to do it wrong.

Teajai Kimsey is a HubSpot Solutions Partner and Upwork Top Rated Plus consultant serving small and mid-size B2B companies. She works directly with clients — no handoffs, no junior staff. View the HubSpot Work Portfolio, contact Teajai.