Advertising : We Don't Need to Fear it Any More!

This morning I got a newsletter confirming what I've been saying for a while now: we consumers now control advertising.

I write that, and of course we're all going to say: "But that's obvious!"

Well, it took a while.

In the old days of electronic advertising (radio and tv), the ads were the price of admission. Prior to that, advertising was in magazines (but the consumer had to buy, open, and read the magazine, and skipping ads was easy); on billboards (again, easy to avoid); live hawkers (very limited scope); in-store and other printed material that was hit-or-miss as far as its reach was concerned.

Along came radio, and because people were transfixed by the medium and enjoyed the programming, they'd sit still for the ads. This was even more true for television, and eventually, the ads took on an art form of their own, some of them even reaching the exalted rank of "entertaining." But this was when radio and television ruled our free-time hours.

This is no longer the case, as online activities have far outstripped television (and certainly radio) consumption, and non-broadcast alternatives (like satellite radio, cable, and DVR time-shifting) have changed the way we consume these media.

And, according to this newsletter, marketers and their evil twins, advertisers, are finally getting this, and trying to figure out what to do about it.

Interestingly, my take is that they are in a better position than ever before to reach an interested public. I say this because the methods now at their disposal mean they can talk directly to someone who has already, in marketing parlance, "raise their hand" to indicate interest in a given product or service.

As an example, take Facebook advertising. Facebook is a place where you declare your interests, either in your profile, or by clicking on something a friend posts. Facebook takes note of that, and then when something is available that might strike your fancy - based on your self-declared interests - it provides a nice little ad for you. So, if I say I like Mark Knopfler, and it just so happens that he will be playing a concert near Syracuse this summer, Facebook posts an ad for me letting me know that. Think I'm not going to click on that ad??

Not only that, but I don't feel as if that ad is intruding on me. While I will tend to skip over commercials on tv that try to, but don't always successfully, target me based on the nature of the programming, and while I will most definitely avoid ads on the Internet, I have begun to learn that social media in particular - and Internet advertising in general - has begun to be more relevant to me.

There are so many ways for advertisers to take advantage of the power of interest, from targeting keywords to matching profile information to offering discounts and specials to "fans," it's a whole new, exciting, interesting world of advertising.

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