Hello? Can you hear me now?

As I browsed the New York Times awhile back – with my NYT iPhone app – I saw a story about how few people actually talk on the phone these days.  There are so many, many better things to do with a mobile phone!  Talking seems so… 1970s.

NYT Article - Don't Call Me, I Won't Call You

What came though loud and clear for me were the implications for the ad biz: 1.  You gotta reach 'em where they're at. (buh-bye telemarketers, phone books, land lines)  And 2.  Is there still any business value in a human-to-human phone conversation?

Any ad agency that's not scrambling to get up to speed or not already working in mobile marketing is already way behind the curve.  Marketers trying to apply traditional media channel ROI metrics and tactics to social media and a world that lives and communicates by its cellular connections…  well, it was nice while it lasted – I guess – if it ever truly worked at all.

The risk for folks like us, who make our living by persuading, is that (IMHO) long-lasting and valuable business relationships are based on the "chemistry" of person-to-person, face-to-face interaction.  Emails and text messages tend to depersonalize human relationships into a commodity that can be easily "traded" when one or the other parties sees greener grass elsewhere.  How many times have we heard a story of couple's breakup that occurred on Facebook, with a tweet or text message?

Perhaps one day soon the phone call will become as quaint as the handwritten letter or thank-you note.