According to MobileMarketingWatch.com, advertising is dying, but marketing is thriving and will always continue to thrive. MobileMarketingWatch.com differentiates the two by explaining that advertising focuses on frequency and what it described as “unrelenting sameness,” while marketing is, essentially, the telling of stories.

In fact, Lou Paskalis, the SVP of Enterprise Media at Bank of America, is not saddened by the death of advertising, saying, “We’re at the end of the advertising era—It’s coming to an end.”

Mr. Paskalis was speaking at a recent industry panel discussion filmed by Beet TV in an interview conducted by Tobi Elkin that included Vonage media VP Kathryn Szumowski. The interview video is from “Media Future Conversations 2015: Unblocked—Valuing Human Attention In A Content-Driven World,” an event that was presented by true[X] in association with Beet.TV.

Mr. Paskalis adds, “Thank God. Because now we can all be marketers, which is why we got in to this business, and get out of this ridiculous business of advertising, which is disruptive, not additive to the consumer experience, and which exactly no-one, including your family, wants.”

According to MobileMarketingWatch, “content is the issue.” “What (people) desperately want on their mobile device is content,” notes Mr. Paskalis. “Marketers can make great content. Content has nothing to do with ads. Ads are stories about my brand, content is stuff people want—we have to figure out how to win them over with content, earn their attention and make a connection.”

Ms. Szumowski agreed, pointing out that content has to actively engage users to be effective. “It’s really time we look at things from the consumer’s points of view,” she added, wrote MobileMarketingWatch.

Mr. Paskalis discussed media evolution’s need to re-focus on consumers and must make using content the priority. He points out that consumers “desperately want” content “on their mobile devices.” He points out that, “There’s always a dire warning–the industry generally figures it out…. The difference this time is that we to figure it out, we have to move away from the very construct of advertising.”

It’s time to end the so-called “old style,” in which marketers routinely repeated those push “salesy marketing messages.” Now is the time to replace those messages with what customers appear to really want, “a more empathetic customer relationship,” according to Beet.TV. “We have to get out of the advertising business, we have to get in to the people business, we have to get in to the content business, to get in to the engagement business,” Mr. Paskalis said.

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