“Building brands” is the ultimate in top-down Modernist thinking — the idea that manipulating people is a noble and worthwhile enterprise. How clever we’ve become! Not once, however, did we stop to think that maybe, just maybe, people didn’t want or like the idea of being manipulated. This is what’s happening in our world today. Technology is giving people the power to resist the role of passive “consumer,” and knowledge is empowering them to view all of mass marketing for what it is. As each day passes, our attempts to herd people into our corrals become more and more transparent.

The new covenant is something along the lines of “entertain or enlighten me, and perhaps I’ll pay attention to your message.” People are now calling the shots. It’s a buyer’s market.

Meanwhile, ad agencies are feeling their way through new forms of marketing. At Jupiter Media’s annual Advertising Forum in New York, interactive advertising was in the spotlight Wednesday. These ads are hot, hot, hot, but agencies are struggling with defining their role in such campaigns, because the campaigns are so heavily dependent on technology and publishers.

Tough for agencies, perhaps, is the new focus being placed by clients on accountability, which Jupiter analyst Gary Stein had coined as the new industry buzzword earlier in the day. Marketers want to see every cent of their spend accounted for in some way, putting more pressure on agencies from their clients.

As a result, agencies are required to seek help. “The idea that the agency used to own everything is starting to go away,” said Sean Carton, chief experience operator for Carton Donofrio Partners Inc. He added that the kind of accountability required by clients these days “takes an enormous amount of work” from the agency side. In other words, outsourcing and cooperating.