At ClickZ’s Online Marketing Summit in San Diego today, organizer Aaron Kahlow provided some thoughtful perspective on what’s happening with marketing. Right now, marketers are at the changing intersection of human behavior, economic conditions and the media landscape, said Kahlow.

“Targeted audiences have become communities. PR has become viral. Awareness has become customer acquisition and retention. Demographics have become behavioral, and off the shelf has become customization/personalization,” he noted.

Too many companies have hit a “snooze button,” where they say they are awake, but they are not really, added Kahlow. They built a Web site two years, and they think they only need to tweak it. They send out an e-mail every Tuesday like clockwork, and they think they’re done. None of these things suggests that companies have developed an actual strategy, which Kahlow called “the novelty of planning.” “Are you looking to survive or capitalize?” he asked.

The conference was the Online Marketing Summit’s 30th in four years. The conference attracts a healthy mix of traditional and online marketers, more than 5,000 of whom have attended the events in all. Kahlow said his goal was that attendees would be able to “go home and tell the boss what to do, where to go, who to see.” Hey, that’s a good goal for any event. I think we’ll borrow that …