We all know that advertising is dead... or at the very least not the most effective thing in the world. Two things happened in the last couple of days to get me thinking about it...
1.) A buddy of mine, Mike, loaned me a copy of the book: Adcult USA, a story about the history of advertising. (3 1/2 stars on Amazon).
2.) Another friend of mine just told me about a presentation he went to that talked about the history as well as the current state of advertising. The quick summary was that now companies are using product placements - no surprise there. SIDE NOTE: John Moore of Brand Autopsy posted something funny about product anti-placements.
UPDATE: My friend, over at Blue Lizard posted about the advertising presentation he saw:
According to North Castle Partners, an advertising firm, television advertising could be looked at as having three eras: pre-remote control, remote control and the DVR age. In each of these eras the dynamics where / are distinctly different. Before the remote, the goal of advertising was to “irritate” – or to drop a problem in your lap (such as ring around the collar) and then talk about a product that could help solve the problem. In the remote control era, the objective was to entertain and engage the audience to entice them to not change the channel (think Superbowl commercials). Now, in the DVR era, the objective will be to integrate products into the content – such as placing Coke cups in front of the American Idol judges, etc.
Anyway... if people know that advertising doesn't work, why do they do it?
If I were in charge of advertising at one of these companies I would stop spending that money on ads and start sponsoring television. That's right... no more commercials during the show, no more stupid 2 minute intros like Ford did for that show 24. Just a little graphic of the company logo and a 15 second intro and outro... this show is/was brought to you commercial free by 'X'. I'm sure that this idea is not original... but if it isn't, why hasn't anyone done it? Or have they?
Take this one step further... and learn something from those free trade publications... you know, the ones you get for free because of your industry involvement, like CIO, CFO, etc. Sports Illustrated is now brought to you ad-free by Nike. They don't even have to cough up that much money, they could gobble up a lot of the more narrowly focused magazines like Runners World, Soccer America, etc.
Have you ever signed up for one of those free magazines? Think about all the information you have to provide. What a rich source of consumer data that is. Hmmm.
Give me something I'm interested in. Attach your company name to it and call it a day.
The new Santana CD? Free - brought to you by GM. Okay, that might be pushing it a bit... how about half-off the new Santana CD... brought to you by GM.
What do you think? Would that accomplish at least the same results as spending all that money as the 30-second spot during The West Wing?
I think you’re on to something here. We are heading in the direction of less aggressive advertising with devices like Tivo and MythTV which are able to delete the commercials. Imagine watching a show at 8:15 off of Tivo and watching the whole show versus watching it at 8pm and having to sit through all the commercials.
Pop-ups are a in your face type of advertisement. How many people have actually bought something off of a pop-up? I never have. Now almost every browser has a pop-up blocker.
My take on the future of advertising is how it was portrayed in the movie “Minority Report.” The advertisements where directed at the customer and communicated with them by name. It’s going to be more passive and focused on the individual. Amazon is a prime example: when you click on a book there are always.. “Customers who bought this.. also bought:”. The funny thing is I don’t think of this as advertising but as a courtesy provided by Amazon.
Posted by: Chuck Conway | March 26, 2004 at 04:53 AM
Chuck,
Yeah, good point about the Amazon book stuff. I never saw Minority Report... I'll have to check that out, very interesting concept!
Thank you!
Jon
Posted by: Jon Strande - Business Evolutionist | March 26, 2004 at 04:54 AM
I think DVR means product placement as you say but also genuinely informational and subtle not just simple buy this now interruptions to programs. We'll see more of banks doing magazines, websites, TV programs on 'understanding finance brought to you by ...' The whole lifestyle / educational craze brought to a new level. Whole packages of integrated stuff on just about everything. That is advertising totally integrated into society's content creation and distribution flows. In an era when we can all be content producers - media companies will be content aggregators and the distinction between content and advertising might just about disappear altogether - which will be interesting for regulators.
Posted by: Trevor Cook | March 26, 2004 at 10:50 AM
Trevor - It's already done. BMW was behind the curve with the Gen-Xers. Their customers were so to speak "dieing" off. What did they do? The remodeled their line to appeal to the younger generations. Then they to offered a trade-up plan. You buy a 560 and wanted a sleeker model; your 560 would go towards the 740 model.
How did they advertise their revamped line of automobiles? They strategically placed one of their sportier model in a movie. This wasn’t any movie it was James Bond. BMW became the namesake car for the British spy.
Now whenever I see a BMW I think of James Bond action hero. Did they succeed in penetrating the Gen-Xer market? Hell ya! So much so that I want a BMW!! ;)
Posted by: Chuck Conway | March 26, 2004 at 11:38 AM
Bill Gates's take on the future of advertising. He must have read this post before making his statements. ;)
Posted by: Chuck Conway | March 27, 2004 at 06:33 AM
Forgot the link :)
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1555547,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
Posted by: Chuck Conway | March 27, 2004 at 07:04 AM