Scene: The 1960’s
Description: Absolutism over Marketing and consumerism
Scene: XXI Century
Description: “I’ll take my ad with fries please!”
Do you see any weird difference? It’s even hilarious to ask the question. Some say advertising has been long dead for a while now. The truth is though, advertising is like energy: it is never destroyed, only transformed. We just don’t quite call it pure advertising now, we call it consumer interaction with the brand (or any other similar description).
Open your Facebook account, just as an experiment. You may even remember by heart by now. What do you see on the right side of your screen? Ads. Google something up. If you don’t have a very powerful pop-up blocker or something of the sort, you also see ads on the right corner of your screen.
Would this be considered spam? Look at it more closely. The ads are relevant to your lifestyle; to your tastes; to your interests. How can they know that? Virtually every site you’ll every become involved with, will be something of your liking. Those sites register what you prefer, what you do, if your birthday is coming up soon, etc. That’s how they filter those ads. And even if you don’t want to see them, you can close them up. Quickly, a little window will ask you why? You can input any reason you like. They’ll take notes on that for the future. Take Four Square for instance. You select, recommend and notice sales offers of your favorite spots in your city. The more you recommend or link people to that place, the more likely you’ll become the place’s major and win a special treatment because of it.
So the new ad, is really customer interaction. You decide where to go, how, when, with whom, the reasons, the settings, etc. It really is about you deciding if you want fries with your burger. Why not carrots? Why not plain water instead of a soda? You pick and choose the ads you want to see. The recommendations, their contents.
Advertising is very much alive people. The difference is no absolutism anymore. It’s a personalized ad world out there. Pick what you like.