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Now that Chevy has demonstrated how an advertising campaign can work with some online tools and lots of user participation, the era of the high-priced ad agency account could be viewing a blood-red sunset.

Publishing 2.0 blogger Scott Karp asked the salient question about the role of the intermediary when it comes to marketing:

If marketers can get their own consumers to create marketing messages for them, and then get those same consumers to propagate those messages through online social networks - all for free - why should they give a dime to media and advertising companies to serve as intermediaries?
Karp references a report on the debut of ViTrue, a company that claims it can enable "Brands and Consumers to engage in meaningful interactions" through its technology solutions.

ViTrue said on its site that it wants to reinvent how marketing for a brand can be created. Tools and brand partnerships it can deliver would be the key to accomplishing that reinvention.

While the ad-creation contest run by Chevy had some negative points, like a number of anti-SUV ads created and circulated, it still proved that the richness of available tools coupled with some creative approaches could yield useful marketing content for GM.

If that is the future, Karp thinks a ViTrue combined with "mature online social networks" could brush aside the need for intermediaries. That would bode poorly for Google and other companies who would see some of their online advertising revenue fall off the screen.

"Once marketers master the tools of Marketing 2.0," wrote Karp, "even a service like ViTrue will become an unnecessary intermediary."

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.