Alicia Busher -- Dollars and Sense: The Future of Advertising meets Technology

Alicia Busher

Parsons

12/9/10

College Writing II

Dollars and Sense: The Future of Advertising meets Technology

Whether you turn on your TV, thumb through any mainstream magazine, or glance up during your daily commute, you are more than likely to encounter some form of advertising. Today’s generic way of mass-promoting messages to the public, however, may soon be a wave of the past. With technology constantly evolving, the mass media has a new, yet overwhelming presence in our everyday lives. Consumers are beginning to filter out generic mass-messages, but the digital revolution can make it possible to personalize advertisements like never before. To break the clutter, advertising must shift with technology in order to target future consumers in compelling and unique ways.

Ten to twenty years ago, marketers knew that people were, for the most part, listening to the radio, or reading the newspaper, or watching television. It was much easier to figure out when and exactly where to put your best advertising dollar. As technology devices move closer together and the Internet becomes a way of life, whether you have a TV ad, a billboard, a banner ad or email newsletter may matter less and less. Advertising must become multi-message and must consider the fact that the person you’re reaching, no matter where you’re reaching them, is only a click away from going online.

Valued at a $428 billion industry, advertising is saturated with almost everything involving our daily lives (Abdel). In a world where advertisements are lurking around every street corner, newsstand, and article of clothing, it’s reasonable to believe that consumers may be more turned off by advertising than ever before. The sole purpose of advertising is to resonate your brand message with the consumer.

According to a study by Yankelovich Partners poll for the American Association of Advertising, the average consumer’s ability to even remember advertising 24 hours later is at the lowest level in the history of the business (Herrman). Consumers will no longer pay attention to ads that don’t pertain to their original thoughts, hopes, and wants.

The reason for the filtering of messages is called desensitization. Desensitization a process in which our brains learn to filter out periphery messages, or messages that do not pertain to us (Boches). This filtering is done subconsciously, which explains why consumers are often faced with the phenomenon of knowing they saw a particular commercial, yet they are unable to recall it (Boches). Any advertisement that either can’t be recalled, reaches the wrong audience or, reaches no audience at all, is considered a waste. It is estimated that advertisers waste $112 billion a year in America on advertising, and $220 billion worldwide (Stuart). To consumers, non-targeted advertising messaging may be nothing more than wasted clutter.

In order to make an advertisement stand out to the consumer, it must target them specifically; not just generalize a demographic of “Women, ages 18-35” for their target audience. Advertising must can cater messages specifically to an individual’s needs, wants, and desires. The mass media is currently awash in advertising clutter. For decades, marketers have been spending more and more to try to get their message out, only to drown in a sea of noise generated by countless other generic marketers trying to do the same thing. Consumer insights are powerful and important. Shifting technology can finally help bridge the gap between what advertisers believe consumers want, and actually knowing what consumers want.

One problem in the future of advertising is the downfall of newspaper revenue. Today, young readers are scarce, newsroom budgets may be tight, and the competition with other news alternatives is daunting. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the average drop of national newspaper circulation is as high as 23 percent (Walker). Competition from emerging Web sites has resulted in people turning to the Internet for news. Ironically, in some cases, to the newspapers’ very own Web site (Maneker).

Subscribers that begin to favor the Internet can cause newspaper circulation to dwindle, which decreases advertising revenue. Newspapers depend on the advertiser to purchase space to help the newspaper curb costs of distribution (Walker). Without the same amount of advertising revenue coming in, newspapers can no longer afford large, comprehensive, news-gathering operations. This leads the newspaper to shrink, which attracts fewer readers, which leads to yet again another downward spiral in advertising revenue (Walker).

Keeping up with the latest technology has birthed an advertising solution that can be geared towards web-based newspaper readers. Amazon’s Kindle features wireless, hand-held digital access to thousands of newspapers, magazines, and eBooks. Amazon’s goal is create an entire e-reading ecosystem for consumers, featuring a broad range of content from multiple publishers (Maneker). Subscribing to Kindle can offer consumers huge benefits, including the wireless distribution channel that offers a secure alternative to getting information for free on the web. Most importantly, Internet newspaper subscriptions not only provide a new outlet for newspaper advertisement revenue, but the advertisements include hot links that track the consumer’s tastes and purchases, in order to serve up individualized suggestions (Maneker).

The newspaper isn’t the only advertising factor that has taken a bow to new technology. The digital video recorder, also known as the DVR, continues to grow in popularity, and the effect that it has on television advertising continues to become more and more drastic (Chevere). Not only is DVR changing the way people watch television, but more importantly, it is changing how they don't watch advertising. When people have the ability to watch a recorded show at a later time at their convenience, they will likely skip through the commercials. Skipping through commercials on recorded programming is called “zipping” (Chevere). Zipping is a large problem for television advertisers because when users engage in zipping, they are not seeing the broadcasted advertisements.

Without ad revenue, networks and programs lose the necessary funding needed in order to broadcast (Chevere). When ads are not being watched, this makes advertisers hesitant about putting their ads on television. In some cases, companies are even pulling their ads from television in order to find new ways to advertise.

One way that advertisers are getting past the DVR problem is through the creation of “foils-commercials”, which are commercials that are essentially fast-forward proof (Herrman). The commercial is formatted to look the same whether it is viewed at regular speed, or high speed. This ensures that even if ad-skippers don't sit through the entire ad, they still end up absorbing some of the ad's intended message.

Another solution to the DVR problem is to include product placements within programming. A product placement is an embedded brand of product, which is paid to be to be shown during a particular program or movie. For example, Coca-Cola has featured product placement in “American Idol” (Neer). This means that even if viewers record the show to watch later and fast-forward past the commercials, they will still see the Coca-Cola glasses in front of the judges, which serve as an advertisement for the brand on television.

In an industry where television was once a prestigious platform in advertising, the Internet is steadily on the approach of taking the lead. U.S. online advertising will rise to $40.5 billion in 2014, a steep raise from $22.7 billion in 2009 (see image).

Online advertising remains very unique. It has no time limitations, and can be viewed day or night throughout the globe. Internet ads can have quite an intrusive presence, which makes it more important than ever to avoid bombarding consumers with generic ads. In order for consumers to feel special, consumers must feel as though they are the ones in control of the brand message, and not vice versa. Instead of drowning a consumer with ads, the new approach may be to let the consumer come to you. The shift from mass media to Internet advertising evokes a strategy that will attract and engage consumers with a completely voluntary mindset. When a consumer voluntarily visits an advertisement, their open mind encourages further interaction with what they find online (Lin). Many successful campaigns are extending their platform to reach their online audience in a fun and interactive way.

For example, Dentyne gum’s “face time” campaign had a simple message: Make time to disconnect; make time for face-to-face contact in the real world. Their television commercials featured online lingo with images of young people cuddling, embracing, and bonding, acting out “Friend Request Accepted,” “The Original Voicemail,” and “The

Original Instant Message.” Their prompted campaign website featured a “Face Time Friender,” which was powered by Google Maps and a GPS cell phone tracker device. Once someone entered their location, the website offered suggestions for fun places to meet others who had logged onto the website (Lin). The advertisement provided consumers an interactive and fun way to promote their product. Paired along with their concept of using an Internet theme in their ads, Dentyne’s advertisement effectively used technology to engage consumers in an original and unique way.
Along with the Internet, social media has now emerged with technology as the “electronic opiate” in today’s society. Facebook has now grown to include over 500 million users, and advertisers haven’t wasted any time to tap into the emerging trend of social media (Ostrow). In the United States, 6.7% of all online ad spending will go towards social media. This is now a $1.68 billion dollar industry, and will rise to more than $2 billion in 2011.

Most advertisers can use social media to filter their potential target audience. This makes its ideally possible to connect with thousands, rather than millions (Boches). For instance, 55 million American men can visit Facebook on any given day, but thanks to Facebook’s filtered targeting, advertisers can specifically reach only those who live in Boston, attend college, take public transportation, and buy lottery tickets. Marketers have participated effectively in social media technology by bridging personal information to offer entertainment, coupons, or other benefits relevant to the consumer.

With access to the published information that a Facebook member puts on his or her profile, such as activities, interests, music, movies, or relationship status, Facebook will analyze the content and generate an advertisement catered specifically to those personal characteristics. A newly engaged couple that changed their Facebook marital status will receive sidebar advertisements for gift registry, honeymoon resorts, and everything in between. If you are a “fan” of the Harry Potter page on Facebook, you will be sure to find movie promotions when the next flick is about to hit the big screen.

Joining the ranks of social media advertising trends, Twitter has adopted a new advertising platform, called Promoted Tweets. The first few corporations that Twitter has partnered up with include Red Bull, Best Buy, and Starbucks (McCarty). Twitter will “tweet” an in-stream sponsored advertisement of 160 characters or less to the entire Twitter network of over 14 million users. The tweet can be found at the top of the results page, which allows members to re-tweet the advertisement.

It works very similar to Google Adwords, in that Promoted Tweet will appear based upon search keywords (McCarty). The live newsfeed technology, however, will put an interesting new spin on the advertisements.

Ultimately, the newsfeed and re-tweets put the consumer in the drivers seat for providing the opportunity to personally advertise their favorite brands. So far, the model has been wildly successful. Though some questioned the ability for the platform to move forward, Twitter seems to have found its niche with the service (McCarty). The success of Twitter’s advertisement platform shows that future consumers are interested in many new mediums of advertising, especially those where they can be active and involved in the campaign. Instead of focusing simply on money, Twitter has kept its users and advertisers happy by focusing on a good user interaction through technology.

Inspired by the technology’s ability to do a better job of targeting prospects and measuring results, there are yet newer ways to break through the clutter and connect with potential customers. Many new innovations make it possible to personalize advertisements like consumers have never seen before. As always, even if an advertisement ends up in front of potential customers, they won't necessarily pay attention to it, especially if it comes up as part of a stream of other ads. To have a chance of getting past our mental filters and influencing our decisions, ads have to grab attention and be compelling. In a way, advertisers must make their ads less ad-like and more lifestyle-like.

Digital billboards and posters, which function essentially as large video screens, are already popping up alongside roads and sidewalks, adjusting their displays to different audiences groups of audiences, such as a commuter crowd during morning rush hour, moms running errands midmorning, and young couples on dates in the evening.

With consumers now being able to opt in on advertising purchase history, running errands just became a whole lot simpler. With the convenient swipe of card, an electronic tablet attached to the consumer’s grocery cart provides a shopping list that the store's computers have prepared based on the shopper's past purchases. The tablet can also offer consumers electronic coupons that pop up when the shopper turns down the aisle with the featured product.

Taxis are now becoming smart-ad vehicles too. Some are now being equipped with electronic messaging signs that are tied to GPS location sensors. This turns your taxicab into a personal tour guide and chauffeur, so that your taxicab can pitch suggestions for a nearby store or restaurant advertisement wherever it roams.

The question of where advertising technology is headed in the future may deter people in having their personal information, traits, or habits be known. It’s important to remember that consumers can control how technology and advertising enhances their daily life, as opposed to letting technology and advertising dictate daily life.

The future is composed of “The millennials”, “Generation X”, and “Generation Y”; young people who tend to be adept at using media and technology. They will be raised with the instinct to be increasingly skeptical of the clichés in advertising, and may mentally tune out such nuisances. With new technology and techniques, however, they can accept advertising, as long as it is unobtrusive, relevant and fun. Consumers may always have an ever-changing opinion of advertising. Until advertisers can read consumers' minds, however, there will always be uncertainty about the most effective ways to deliver messages. At least mind reading, for now, is a technology that's still a long way off.