My argument here is clearly that several of these examples were not "good enough".
I'm less convinced that the marketing world's fundamentally changed in the ways you describe. I will admit that it has been strongly perturbed, but ultimately the same patterns which "Cluetrain" raged against have largely re-emerged. As they have over the history of modern advertising dating to the mid-19th century.
One major theme in advertising since the 19th century has been "authenticity": immediacy and direct relation between advertiser and customer. "Cluetrain" was really only yet another instance of this IMO.
I'm less convinced that the marketing world's fundamentally changed in the ways you describe. I will admit that it has been strongly perturbed, but ultimately the same patterns which "Cluetrain" raged against have largely re-emerged. As they have over the history of modern advertising dating to the mid-19th century.
See Hamilton Holt's Commercialism and Journalism for insight into the emergence of modern advertising, albeit from a perspective of journalistic media, in 1909: <https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holtuoft/page/...>.
Adam Curtis's Century of the Self gives a longer-term perspective on the emergence of public relations, propaganda, and advertising over the 20th century: <https://archive.org/details/the-century-of-the-self-adam-cur...> (video).
One major theme in advertising since the 19th century has been "authenticity": immediacy and direct relation between advertiser and customer. "Cluetrain" was really only yet another instance of this IMO.